My heart sunk as I read his words. He seemed to have a joking tone to his message and I really didn’t want to take offense at what he was saying, but my gut spun in circles at the idea I would be looking for another man when I had just had such a wonderful date with Brandon.
I stared at the screen for a while as I tried to think of an appropriate response. If he was teasing me, it was easy – I’d just send a laughing emoji back to him. But what if he actually thought I was doing something like that?
Delilah: LOL. Well, I better get back to work. My computer is having a hell of a time. I’m going to be making my account private, so just text me if you want to talk this week.
Brandon: All right. Talk to you later.
I turned back to my work at hand. If I had to call some sort of consultant in to look at what I was doing wrong, I needed to make sure I’d done the best I could to check for all the possible errors first.
When anyone outside of my close group of computer friends had to look at my work, I got so self-conscious. Because I was blonde and a woman, guys really did think I was dumb, and I couldn’t give them any ammunition to add to those thoughts. I knew what I was doing and that frustrated me even more as I read through the code and looked for my errors.
“What happened? Why does your face look like that?” Mattie asked as she put her customer on hold to talk to me.
“What are you talking about? This is just my face, nothing going on here. Go back to your customers before they get angry.”
“You can tell me at lunch.”
I suspected I wasn’t going to be able to get out of going to lunch with her that day; there was just too much going on. But she was going to want some of the details or I was never going to hear the end of it.
When lunch rolled around, I had Mattie standing right next to me, waiting for me to finish up so we could go down to the lunch room and talk. I didn’t mind talking with her about my date. I didn’t really have anyone else in my life I could trust like I trusted her. It had just been a really long time since I had to tell anyone about a date I’d gone on.
“So, let’s skip past the bagel and get right to the part where you canceled meeting up to workout,” she said. “I’ve done the math that means you’d already been out with him for three hours. That’
s one hell of a long date. Details, I need details.”
“Yeah, well, we went swimming and hung out on his private island. You know, just a typical date,” I rolled my eyes dramatically and pretended like it was normal to say I’d been on a man’s private island. “It was amazing. He was so nice, and we had so much fun.”
“Oh, yeah, so basically just like my date last week,” she laughed loudly and everyone turned to look at us. “Well, except for the island, swimming, and handsome guy part; other than that, it was identical.”
“He’s truly a good guy, Mattie, and oh man, he kisses like I’ve never been kissed before. I could seriously make out with him all day long. We talked for hours, made love, and even took a shower with rain water he had gathered. I’ve never been around someone like him and I can’t wait to see him again.”
“What else? Tell me everything.”
“Have you ever seen that tiny island north of Venice beach? The pier is called Planter’s Pier.”
“I think I’ve seen it. I thought it was some sort of city storage place for the life guards or something like that. Does he own that?” she asked.
“Yep, and he owns another island somewhere in the Caribbean, I’m not sure where. Can you even believe that I went out on a date with a guy that owns a friggin’ island? How the heck did this happen? Last month I’m getting hit on by complete losers, and this month I’ve got a billionaire asking me out.”
“You deserve it, Del. If there is any woman in this world that deserves to be happy, it’s you. Well, it’s me first, but since he picked you…then it’s you,” she laughed. “I have a good feeling about this guy. I think things are going to be a lot of fun for the two of you.”
The time Mattie and I had together since losing my husband had really been priceless. It was her humor that kept me going on my worst days. She didn’t let things build up and always was ready to be a warm shoulder for me to cry on. She had started as a friend from work, but quickly moved into becoming my only close friend.
I had lots of acquaintances and I knew there were friends who cared about me a lot. But everyone had their own lives and their own struggles; it was hard for them to pull away from their life and come be part of mine.
“Thanks, Mattie. So how are you and Markus doing? I really do appreciate you guys coming to the art show with me. You know I hate going to those alone.”
“We broke up,” she said.
Normally, a good friend would act shocked at the notion of her best friend breaking up with her long-term boyfriend, but I was truly excited. I wanted to scream happily at the top of my lungs. He had treated her badly for far too long.
I also wasn’t sure that Mattie was going to stay broken up with him, so I had to walk a very narrow line as I waited to see if it would last.
The two of them had broken up before and I had talked badly about Markus, then when Mattie decided to get back together with the guy, I had to play nice. This time, I was going to play it as neutral as possible until I knew for sure that they weren’t going to get back together.
Although, I really, really hoped she didn’t get back with him. Mattie deserved a love like she hadn’t experienced yet, and if she stayed with Markus, she might miss her opportunity.
“Oh, what happened?” I managed to ask calmly.