The Dating Proposal(9)
I decide to console myself with some shopping, starting with the electronics store next door, to find a new video game perhaps.
I push open the doors and head to the shelves, taking my time perusing various offerings like Yooka-Laylee, which is next to Super Mario Odyssey.
I pick up Yooka-Laylee, considering it.
“Have you played the newest Super Mario Odyssey?”
Before I can even turn around to see where the voice comes from, I laugh.
“Have I played the newest Super Mario Odyssey?” I repeat. “Am I breathing? Am I a sentient human being? I played it, collected a hundred twenty-four moons, and saved Princess Peach from Bowser many times over, thank you very much.”
I turn to my questioner and Holy Mary Mother of Hotness.
I drop the Yooka-Laylee box, and my jaw may fall to the floor too. I contemplate reaching down to pick it up, but that’d make it completely obvious I was checking him out. Perhaps I’ll stick to only partly obvious.
My questioner is tall, trim, with wavy light-brown hair and these crazy green eyes that remind me of how Hawaii feels. Well-worn blue jeans hug his legs, and a casual gray Nor Cal T-shirt has the good fortune to cuddle his stomach and chest. The shirt shows off the right amount of tanned, toned arms.
Have I stepped into an alternate universe where hot men grow on streets and in stores, perhaps rappelling down from the planet of Incomparable Babes?
He hands me the box I dropped. “Here you go,” he says, and I wish his fingers had just brushed mine. I’d take the barest trace of accidental contact from this specimen.
“Thanks.”
He smiles back immediately and then makes a little bow. “Saving Princess Peach many times. Wow.”
“What about you? Have you mastered it?”
He waves a hand in the air.
“Oh, c’mon,” I persist. “I told you.”
“Does anyone really master Super Mario Odyssey?”
“That’s a rhetorical question.”
“But a good one, right?”
“Are you hiding a Super Mario Odyssey secret?”
He inches closer, scans the store, and whispers, “Beat the jump rope challenge.”
My eyes go wide. “Get out of here.”
He just shrugs casually.
I shake my head. “No, that’s not how it works,” I say playfully, enjoying the exchange with the perfectly handsome stranger behind the warm green eyes, and figuring it’ll help me on my dating quest. Talking to a hottie has to be a positive. “You can’t just drop a little nugget like that and not give me the goods. Tell me how you did it. Because I can barely get five jumps in.”
I listen intently as Hot Guy begins detailing his tactics, talking with his hands, moving his body back and forth, up and down a bit to simulate the way Mario has to keep up with an unpredictable rope. This guy has the kind of arms that women driving cars slow down for, the kind of physique that turns a gal into a gawker. The way his T-shirt falls just so tells me all I need to know about the abs that lie flat beneath.
I remind myself to pay attention, because it’s rude to simply stare at his washboard belly instead of his face, especially when his face is so very lovely too. I’m an equal-opportunity gawker. I nod as he shares his gaming secrets, and hope I’m not visibly salivating.
I’m not a gamer geek, but I adored retro games growing up, since my parents used to take Julia and me bowling on Saturdays, and the Silverspinner Lanes boasted all the original arcade games like Q*bert, Frogger, and, of course, both Pac-Mans.
Last year, I took to the console after Todd left. Games passed the time, but they also distracted me. I got lost in their worlds and was able to escape from mine.
“What other games do you like?” Hot Guy asks, and something about the question startles me. Maybe because it’s so normal, and he seems legitimately curious. Then there’s the simple fact that we’re having a conversation in the middle of an electronics store.
“Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly,” I say with a completely straight face.
He picks up the cue easily, raising an eyebrow as he asks, “Clue?”
“Of course. And it was always Professor Plum in the library with the candlestick.”
“Interesting. Because Miss Scarlet was pretty wicked with that rope in the ballroom, if memory serves. What about Chutes and Ladders?”
“Let’s not forget Candy Land either.”
“What was your favorite candy destination in that game?”
“The vintage game, right? Not that new King Candy imitator?”
“As if I’d even be talking about that game,” he says playfully.
I’m about to answer when he puts his hands together as if he’s praying and says in a whisper, “Please say Ice Cream Floats. Please say Ice Cream Floats.”
I laugh with the kind of mirth I haven’t felt in a while, the kind that radiates through my whole body and turns into a huge grin. “Of course. I wanted to live in Ice Cream Floats.”
“I was all set to build a chocolate and licorice home in Ice Cream Floats. And this reminds me that I need to stock up on the classic games too. But I don’t think they sell them here.”
“I came here because Gadgets, Gizmos, and Geeks is closed, and that’s the only place nearby that actually fixes hard drives.” I put on my best sad face. “I was the victim of a cat hard-drive attack.”