I COULDN’T BELIEVE I had done it. I’d graduated. The world was literally my oyster.
I was twenty-two and on top of the world.
Figuratively.
Realistically, I knew I was buried under a mountain of student debt with no real idea what my next step was going to be. Or where I was going to live past next week. But I wasn’t going to let it get me down. Hell no! I was too proud of myself, and I deserved to be.
Nothing was going to let me down. Not even the fact that my parents couldn’t be bothered to show up to their only child’s college graduation. I glanced over at the proud group that made up the Montenegro crew and smiled, my heart warm and cozy at the scene, and pushed the feelings of loneliness away. My roommate and best friend’s parents, sister, and grandmother had traveled across the country for her. All my parents would have had to do was take a short twenty-minute drive.
But that was too much for Dr. and the second Mrs. Marks.
Dear Doctor Dad was still pissed I hadn’t chosen his alma mater. Silly how he couldn’t let it go. He couldn’t get over the fact I had made a decision that didn’t coincide with his. He’d thought by refusing to pay for my college tuition, I would give in and toe the line. It didn’t matter I still went to an Ivy League school. At the end of the day, I had gone against him. I had messed with his ultimate plan of following in his footsteps only to then marry me off to God only knows which of his best friends’ sons, so the bloodlines would rival the oceans of the Caribbean.
Too bad for him I had a mind of my own.
My mom had taught me that. Ironic, since he had once loved her blindly.
Melanie Morales had blessed me with a lot before she left this earth and my dad got remarried to step-Mommy Dearest. I had no idea how my mom and dad had ended up together, but they had. Part of me, the small romantic part, always thought it had been the one time my father had truly let himself live for himself.
The loss of my mom at eight had been hard on me but devastating on Jerry Marks.
Once she was gone, he had transformed into someone I didn’t recognize. The snobby, blue-blooded, holier-than-thou, nose-in-the-air man I knew today. His new wife, Janet, had stepped into our lives less than five months after my mom had been laid to rest. In less than half a year, I’d lost both parents.
But today was not about that.
Today was about celebrating the great achievement my best friend and I had accomplished. Thankfully, her family loved me from day one, our freshman year when they had gone to drop Nina off at the dorms.
“Chula, do you think you could show me where the bathrooms are here?” her grandma asked, and I smiled with a nod. We talked on our way, the conversation easy.
I’d known all of them the past four years, but her grandmother had a special place in my heart. Nina’s grams was amazing. Funny and badass were the only ways to describe her. We talked on the regular and a lot of the times just because. She always made me feel part of the family.
“How can there be so many good-looking boys here and you and Nina still solas?”
“We’re not alone.” I giggled, and she mockingly glared at me.
“You know what I mean,” she huffed and smiled. “I’ll be right back.” She pointed toward the women’s room.
“I’ll wait here,” I told her, and she smiled, patting my hand before walking away.
I looked up from my phone and saw a man.
Not a guy or boy, but a man. And he was looking right at me.
He was beautiful.
Tall and muscular with gorgeous olive-toned skin and short dark hair. You could tell by the way the suit he was wearing fit him perfectly in all the right places that the man was built. He had style and swagger. Sweet baby Jesus, was that a tattoo peeking through the collar of his dress shirt? He started moving toward me, and I looked around me. There was no one near me.
The closer he moved in, the more my mind seemed to go on the fritz and putz out on me. Before I knew it, he was standing mere inches away. So close I could see the color of his eyes.
Blue.
Beautiful blue. Tropical-island-waters-you-saved-as-a-screen-saver blue.
“Excuse me, do you happen to have the time?” he asked, and my ego instantly deflated. The time was why a guy like him would approach a girl like me. Oh well. He was too good looking anyhow. Who needed a guy who smelled like leather and spice and, oh my goodness, everything masculine and nice?
“Oh. Umm,”—I reached for my phone in the pocket of my dress, I loved pockets in dresses—“Ten to six.”
“Thanks.”
“Macie, there you are, preciosa. Gerardo texted we need to get going to dinner,” Nina’s grandma said, grabbing hold of my arm before noticing the hot man in front of us.
“Oh, okay,” I mumbled.
“Macie,” he repeated my name, and damn, did it sound good coming from his lips. I met his gaze. His beautiful eyes flashed with something that quickly disappeared.
“Yes?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head and cleared his throat. “Just… nice name.” Nice name. It was something. It wasn’t Can I have your number? but it was something.
“Oh, thank you.”
“Thanks for the time,” he added, and I nodded, giving him a smile before leaving with Nina’s grandma.
“Who was that, mija?”
“I have no idea.”
“You should have got his number.”
“Grandma!” I laughed, and she shrugged.
“If I were twenty years younger, I’d… what do you call it? Oh yeah, I know! Swipe right.” She winked. My face hurt from smiling so hard.
“He just needed the time.”
“Oh, baby, youth is wasted on the young,” she admonished. “Yolo, Macie. Yolo.” God, I loved the Montenegros.
“Yolo, huh?” I repeated right as we reached the rest of the family. I glanced back fully prepared for Mr. Blue Eyes to have turned and gone on his merry way with whatever graduate he was there to see.
Instead, he was still standing there looking in my direction. Right. At. Me. A flicker of something burst up and in my chest. As quickly as it arose, it faded into confusion. A huge clock hung on the wall. The very wall I’d had my back to.
Why had he asked for the time?
Samuel ‘Sam’ Santino
I don’t know why I had asked for the time.
That wasn’t true.
I had been all but ready to throw a pick-up line her way the moment my eyes caught a glimpse of her amazing ass. Damn, I was a breast man, and from what I could tell, she had a great rack, but her ass was a certified temptation and a half. I had a feeling my best friend Brandon would be gone most of the night, hell, god willing for him, the entire trip here.
Temporary company didn’t sound too bad. She looked like she could be fun.
But with every step I took, the more and more I seemed to notice. A red flag waved furiously in my mind, warning me to stop, to turn back, but I was committed. I was fucking captivated by her. I soaked in everything. Her quiet beauty. Her sweet smile. The soft sadness in her eyes she was trying to hide. Whatever was on her mind was deep, and damn if I wanted to hold her and soothe the jagged edges away. I saw it all. And when I was close enough to say something, I caught a hint of her soft fruity scent and my mind blanked. The soft wisps of strawberry-blond hair around her face made my fingers itch to brush them around her ear.
Hook, line, and sinker, I was a fucking goner.
She was fucking gorgeous. I could tell by the way she held herself that she had no clue how fucking stunning she was. And I had stupidly asked for the time. Like a fucking moron. Thankfully, none of my Marine buddies were around me, or they would have been shocked to hell. I wasn’t the type to get shy.
I’d fucked up a second time by letting her walk away.
No number. Just a first name.
Macie.
Her eyes caught mine from the distance, and I wanted to beg her to come back. To get her number. To ask her to dinner, breakfast, and lunch. Then figure out a way to talk her into doing it all over again.
She looked past me, confusion filling her gaze when she noticed the clock behind me.
Right as I was about to take the first step toward her, an older couple started talking to her and they started to leave.
Yeah. I was a fucking idiot.
