Meeting Destiny (16 page)

As if on cue, Marvin opened the door to the break room with the target in hand. “Lauren, want a souvenir?” He handed me the target, a profile with a person’s silhouette standing – with hits in a shoulder, the chest and even the head.

Unable to contain my enthusiasm, “Thanks! And thanks for letting me try all the different guns.”

“
It was my pleasure.” We heard the door chime from the front of the store indicating someone had just come in. “You come back anytime.” Marvin left us to go greet whoever had just entered.

It was just Max and I again. I desperately wanted to pick up where we had left off in his truck and kiss him. The break room door opened for a huge man (at least six foot five and easily two hundred fifty pounds). The man boomed, “Holy crap, Max, you’re out of town for a few months, then you materialize out of nowhere with a girl friend?” My heart skipped a few beats at being called Max’s girlfriend.

Max didn’t correct this human giant with anything like, “
This is our first date,” “This is my friend
,
”
or any other thing to qualify me as something less than his girlfriend. “Stanley, this is Lauren Davis. Lauren, this is Stanley Manuel.”

Stanley held out his huge hand, “My friends call me Stan the Man. Get it? Stanley Manuel, Stan the Man?” He was obviously proud of his nickname, and had a firm grip when he took my hand. I didn’t wince from pain or anything, but this was obviously no one I ever wanted to arm wrestle.

Max fired back with, “No, we don’t call you Stan the Man. Keep trying to convince everyone, though.” Stan walked over to Max and gave him a big bear hug, then returned his attention to me. “Marvin says you were the little lady that got shot a few months back at Tasty Burger?”

I nodded, “That’s how I met Max. He saved my life that night.”

Stanley paused for a second, then in a jovial voice, “Well, I’m glad you’re okay. I saw the story on the news. There’re a whole lot of people who would be very honored to spend time with you, so don’t think you have to waste your time on Max when there are real men in this town to choose from.” He let out a hearty belly laugh and slapped Max on the back.

Max laughed it off, but I was pretty sure I saw a flicker of jealousy in his eyes. “Yeah, Stanley, she’ll be sure to call one, when she needs one.” Max turned his attention back to me, “Did you want to shoot anymore or are you ready for a bite to eat?”

Feeling a bit more testosterone in the room than seemed necessary, I answered, “I could eat.” Max reached down and took my hand in his and led me out of the break room. He called over his shoulder, “See you later, Stanley.” Being escorted quickly, I turned to Stanley, “It was nice meeting you.”

We said our goodbyes to Marvin, and I thanked him again for letting me try out all the guns and letting me keep the target. We got back in the truck, and made our way to an IHOP. Conversation was easy. He started with, “So tell me everything about yourself, don’t leave anything out.” What a joke. I don’t even know everything about me.

I had already decided I wouldn’t start with anything crazy like, “
I’ve been dreaming about you for years”
or, “Y
ou know you are my destiny.”
Both of these seemed like relationship enders at this juncture. Trying to think of something benign, I decided on, “I like watching movies. I’m not a huge fan of movie theaters, because you’re forced to share the story with fifty strangers. Although that doesn’t apply to horror films; having as many people as possible sitting around me screaming always seems to improve the effect of the movie.”

“
Okay, noted. If we watch a chick flick we should rent it; if it’s a scary film we need to go to the theater. Thanks for the tip. Any other hints for future dates?” I shook my head but didn’t reply.

“
You’re pretty close to graduation. What’s next?”

I really didn’t like this question, as I was sure he wouldn’t be all that impressed with my answer. “I haven’t applied to grad schools or interviewed for any jobs. I’m not sure that I want to start my life long career right away, but I obviously don’t want to sponge off of my parents anymore either. I thought I’d take a year or two off and figure out what I want to do.” I glanced his direction to see his reaction, and see if it made him wince, the way it had everyone else I shared it with.

I was happy to see no evidence of disapproval. He followed with, “What are you going to do during your hiatus? Go back to work at Tasty Burger? Travel around Europe? Or just hang out?”

His tone wasn’t accusatory at all, just plain, uncloaked interest – his response pleased me immensely. “I’m not backpacking through Europe, but beyond that, I’m not committed to anything. Up until recently I had my life pretty well mapped out. But the last few months have kind of blown my plans out of the water. Now that I’m behind the wheel, I haven’t made any real decisions. Pretty sad, right?”

Max shook his head at my question, “Not at all. When the right thing strikes you, you’ll just know.”

He couldn’t be closer to the truth, in more ways than one. “You sound like you’re talking from experience?”

“
I guess I am. I was in my sophomore year of college, heading for a degree in engineering, when I realized I really didn’t want to engineer anything. I wanted to help people. I wasn’t ready to switch majors to pre-med and start over. I’ve never seen myself as a nurse, so I thought I’d take a step back and go through EMT training, and see where that took me. Everything just kind of fell into place from there. I can’t explain it. I don’t know if I’ll do this forever, but right now I feel like this is what I’m supposed to be doing. Weird, right?”

Now was definitely not the time to talk to him about destiny. The last thing I wanted to do was scare him off before I got a chance to spend any real time with him. “No, it’s kind of amazing. You just up and decide your life isn’t going the direction you want it to, re-evaluate new paths, and you go for it. That isn’t weird, it’s romantic.”

“
Romantic? I wouldn’t describe being a paramedic as romantic. It’s a whole lot closer to a character in a horror movie.”

“
Not romantic like falling in love, but romantic like not being afraid of chasing your dreams, you know, believing in yourself.”

Max mulled over my answer, “I never thought of it that way. I don’t know if I’ll do it forever, but it feels right, for now.”

“
So if you weren’t a paramedic what do you think you’d be doing?”

He chuckled at this one, but I didn’t get the joke, “I guess, maybe a farmer?”

“
A farmer!” Totally not what I expected. “Don’t you need a farm or something to do that?”

Still smiling at his own joke, “Yeah, I guess you do need a farm to be a farmer.”

“
Was that just an answer to get me to drop the question?”

“
No, not at all.” His tone took on a more serious note. “My father was a farmer, and being one seemed like an awful lot of work as a kid. But as I got older, I understood why he did it. He set his own hours, worked as long or as short a day as he wanted to. Most of the work only happens about six months out of the year, which leaves a lot of time for hobbies.”

“
The way you describe it, maybe
I
would make a good farmer.”

“
Maybe you would.”

“
So did he retire or something?”

The smile that had been wide on his face since we began playing twenty questions faded a little. “Not exactly. My parents were in a car accident a few years ago and died. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, so losing them was pretty devastating. You would have really liked them.”

Unsure what to say, not wanting to sound disrespectful, I didn’t say anything for a minute.

“
Lauren, it’s okay, it’s been a few years now, so I’m okay talking about it.”

“
What about your grandparents?”

The wide smile returned, “I can’t wait for you to meet my Grandpa Joe. He and I talk every few days, and he knows all about you. He’s been after me for the last month to bring you over. I guess the way I talk about you, he didn’t realize that I hadn’t actually seen you for a while.”

“
You told your grandpa about me?” The shock must have been evident on my face.

“
Well, sure. He always tells me I’m too picky, so he was excited when I told him about you.”

“
He thinks you are too picky. Wow, he’ll be disappointed with me then, huh?”

Max looked directly at me for several seconds, with no hint of humor in his face. “Lauren, you can’t possibly think that, right?”

Not sure what the correct response to the question was, I took the silent route.

“
Lauren, I’d like to think that I am a pretty good judge of character. I wouldn’t be spending the day with you if I thought you weren’t someone I wanted to be with, so ease up on the false humility already.”

I didn’t have much of a response, and we had finished eating a while ago, so I asked, “What do you want to do next? Shooting was fun, we could kick-box next if this is one of those extreme dates.”

The absurdity of the idea elicited a laugh from Max. “If Gretchen found out we went kick-boxing without her, we would never live it down.” We left the restaurant in favor of some window shopping.

I’ve never been a power shopper, but it was fun to just walk around and talk. My leg started throbbing an hour or so after we left the restaurant. I didn’t want to complain, but I didn’t have my crutches along, and my muscles weren’t in shape for all the activity. Max must have noticed I was favoring my good leg because he found a side street with an empty bench and made a straight line for it.

In the twenty minutes we sat letting my leg recuperate, we had talked about places we would like to travel to, all time favorite movies, books that we liked, and favorite running shoes. I kept anticipating that our day would be full of awkward silences, but there were very few. I got the feeling that he really wanted to know as much about me as I wanted to know about him.

Just when I thought we were going to get up and go adventuring again, Max took my hand in his and the elation kind of made me trail in mid-sentence. Max raised my hand to his lips and held it there in a tender exchange; my heart started pounding.

Max stood up, looked at his watch, “How about we give your leg a break and go catch a carriage tour?” We got a private carriage, not one of those tourist ones with twenty people shoved in, but a beautiful two person carriage with a groomsman seated far up front. This ride felt magical, everything I’d hoped it would be. For someone who started our date on a shooting range, Max definitely knew how to be romantic when he wanted to be. He held me close to him the entire time, and had we not been touring the old town streets of Charleston in full public view, I know that the desire I felt for him would have spilled over.

When the ride was over, we made our way back to his truck. He opened my door for me and helped me into it, then without warning put his hand behind my head and pulled my lips to his. I wanted to be somewhere private, to do way more than kiss him. I didn’t care if this was our first date - fire burned in me for him. The rational part of my brain was drowned out by a million creative ideas flooding my thoughts.

For the first time all day, I was speechless. Max was quiet, too, and the awkwardness I had been worried about earlier finally arrived. I so very much wanted to be alone with Max, away from prying eyes, but I didn’t want to be so forward that I gave him the impression I was a skank.

As we were driving, he wasn’t talking, and I couldn’t think of anything to say. Five minutes went by and neither of us spoke. I had considered sliding across the bench seat to sit closer to him, but I didn’t get up the nerve to move. How could someone be so attracted to another person and not have the courage to do anything about it? I’m not sure how much time passed, but it was the third song I had heard on the radio, so I guessed close to ten minutes when I finally said, “So what are we doing next?”

Max asked, “What do you have in mind?”

“
You don’t want to know what I have in mind.” Oh, my gosh, I said it, I even said it like I was a skank. He hadn’t even been back in town for twelve hours, and I was already coming off like some love-starved loser.

Max turned his attention away from the road briefly, long enough to make eye contact with me and responded, “I’m all ears.”

My face felt hot, not like an embarrassed blush, but an
oh my god I’m on fire
embarrassment. I in-took a deep breath, slid the foot or so across the seat and whispered in his ear, “We could go back to your place.”