SS: Kismet PT 2

Sometimes I feel like the path is leading nowhere. I lift my head up to the sky and scream at Kismet, "this is not a road, it's not a path, I am standing in the middle of nowhere you dummy!" But Kismet doesn't listen, because truthfully who am I really in the grand scheme of things?

WTF is exactly what I am thinking as I stand in the middle of a crowded music venue that my friend talked me into going to after she listened to the horrible date story with mister greasy hair tight pants from the week before.

"You need to get out hun, and not just out with guys you need to just get out in the world. See things, meet different new people."

"I do meet new people," replied sarcastically. It's hard to take criticism on my crappy dates. Is it really my fault that the wide world of dating has brought me nothing but slimy turd mongers that don't understand the meaning of "gentleman."

"You meet ass monkeys, you need to go on a date with a real man. I know a few, I should totally set you up!"

Here is another thing Kismet likes to dangle in front of me. The option of meeting someone through someone, it always leaves the hope alive. You see opportunity strung on a precarious string before you and all you have to do is snag it! Ahhh too slow, try again!

I turn my head toward my friend and emphatically tell her no. She shakes her head in mock frustration but quickly focuses her attention back to the band rocking overly loud electric guitars on stage. I'm not completely sure why I feel so against blind date set ups over online dating, surely my friends can give me a way more honest run down of the person. They know them, they see them on a decently often basis. So what’s the big deal? Maybe it's that I don't want to run into them again if I don't actually hit it off, what if the random stranger is actually a total creep in a dating scenario? What if...what if....what if?

As much as I love how Kismet intervened in my life, I also totally completely hate it! With a massive passion. Once again I am forced to wait, wait for life to open that road that for the entirety of my life has been closed. I am forced to do this intricate dance step through the day to day, hopping, skipping, leaping. lunging, diving, walking, plummeting through this wild path life has apparently laid out for me. I don't think life intended to leave me stranded in the middle of an abandoned war field, but that's how I feel at the end of the show. My friend left me to go talk to the band but never returned. Just my luck. Being Irish does nothing to help my state of good fortune, I always seem to find the short stick.

“Are you lost?” A voice murmurs from behind me.

I turn around to see hazel eyes, bushy black hair, and a perfectly crooked smile. It was the guitarist from the band I just spent the last 90 minutes heavily ignoring, but up close he appeared different. Maybe it was because it was out of context. I wasn’t staring at him like a prop on stage belting out a heavy metal tune to impress the ladies. Standing in front of me he was just a curious guy, slightly short in stature but still taller than me in flats. I smiled back because it was almost impossible not to.

“I’m not lost, just waiting for a friend of mine who I’m pretty sure abandoned me.”

He snorts in laughter though not in a way to embarrass me about being ditched, it was more in a camaraderie way like he understood my sudden issue of annoyance. “Is your friend the black haired girl with blue bangs?” I nodded at his obvious smirk of bewilderment. “Well I’m pretty sure your friend…uh…,”

“Diamond.”

“Yeah, your friend Diamond was getting cuddly with Dean,” who was the lead singer. Diamond always had a way of sinking her talons into the lead singers. It amazed me that she was so efficient at getting in with the band, and more often than not she got in with more than one member, but still they loved having her around. She wasn’t needy and annoying like most of the typical band groupies, she was impossibly cool and fun to be around. The girl always had perfect bangs and make-up, it drove me absolutely bonkers in a total ‘I love how hot my friend is,’ sort of way. “I’m pretty sure if you join us at the party she will be there,” the guitarist finished up.

“Thanks, it’s just… I don’t really have a ride to get there. She drove us here.” It would make sense that by him inviting me to the party that he was also offering me a ride, but it just seemed rude to imply it for him. I didn’t even know his name. “I’m Grace by the way.” Lame. I wanted to jump back into the pile of brush and thorn bushes Kismet had led me to earlier in the evening, cute guitarist guy was starting to make me nervous in a giddy irritating way.

“Grace, I’m Mav. I uh…figured that your friend drove, so I wouldn’t mind if you came with me. I promise I’m not trying to pick up on you or anything, I just wouldn’t want to leave a pretty girl behind without a way home.” Great line. I couldn’t help but commend him on it, but I did so silently with a sly smile and a subtle but hopefully not too noticeable bashful glance from beneath my eyelashes. I most definitely wanted to go, but I also didn’t want to leap at him with a TAKE ME NOW attitude. A really attractive man actually just called me pretty, AND he invited me to the cool kids party. I needed to be cool, I need to act like it was no big deal, I really needed to stop staring at his amazing gorgeous smile. It’s funny how context changes absolutely everything, I definitely didn’t find him attractive standing up on stage, but now standing before me and calling me pretty I can’t help but half swoon. Stupid girl issues, no swooning, that is not allowed!

“Mav? That’s an interesting name. Is it a nic-name?” Small talk, it’s the best route to take when having no clue who you’re actually talking to. I know nothing about this guy but the fact that he is attractive, plays a guitar in a band called “Lucky Strike”, and that his name is Mav. Really, Mav? What kind of name is that? It’s the kind of name only a punk rock musician would have that’s what kind of name it is.

“It’s actually short for Maverick. My parents had a bit of a crush on Top Gun, and by parents I mean my mother. I think she is absolutely positive that I am Tom Cruise reincarnate, which now that I think about it that’s creepy.” He mock shuddered at his own comment before turning his twinkling eyes back on me. He had the dark sweep of hair, though it was far too unruly and curly to be considered Maverick-ish. His eyes were a sharp shade of honey yellow and green mixing them into a melting pot of sexy, but his height might be confused for Tom Cruise though I wasn’t one to know I had never actually met the guy. “I really hate saying Maverick because people get all macho man around me about it, so it was either Mav, rick or Donald.”

“Donald?!” I asked incredulously completely blowing my cool girl attitude. He steered me out of the dingy bar walked out toward the back of an almost empty parking lot.

“That’s my middle name. Needless to say, Mav was the best option.” Another pearly white smile. He teeth were going to blind me if I saw them one more time.

“So Grace Parker,” Mav said as he climbed into the driver side of his beat up 1972 Chevelle. The floor was covered in crumpled papers, empty cigarette packs and loose bottle caps. “What’s your story. I know nothing about you yet I am letting you into my precious vehicle and taking you to an epic party. I need details woman.”

Details; what exactly could I tell him that would make him smile in appreciation and interest? I wasn’t one of his typical girls I could guarantee that. We ran in very different crowds. If his tight black jeans  (though not overly tight to make a recent comparison. Trust me, my mind went there too.  Perfect tightness to non-tightness ratio on his pants.  Crap, Grace, stop staring at his pants!!) and low v-neck grungy band shirt weren’t enough of a clue, the huge plugs, eyebrow ring, sleeve of tattoos and perfectly distorted boots were. This perfectly smiling man named Mav was massively out of my league.

“Smoke?” He offered casually as he rolled down his driver side window snaking out of the parking lot at a rapid pace. Burnt rubber melted into the car’s interior atmosphere and I’m pretty sure the smile he wore was more because he loved the smell of his bad-assness. Burnt rubber equals I’m awesome in Mav’s world.

“Sure,” I replied easily. I would never consider myself a smoker, not socially considered one anyways. I never carried a pack with me, but I also never turned one down at a party. Maybe that made me a follower, I don’t know. I liked to consider myself a bit of a chameleon. I can fit into almost any situation, blending was a talent I grew very accustom to. The more I said yes, and went along with them on the outside the more I could keep the truth of me on the inside. I was a straight out geeky nerd, and no one would guess it from my outward appearance. I definitely didn’t belong in this hot guys car, or at least I didn’t feel like I did, but I acted as though smoking with him in a dingy black Chevelle was the most natural of occurrences in my life.

I wish I could tell you about a crazy wild party, and an even crazier adventure that I embarked on the minute I met Mister Mav, but to be honest it wasn’t what I was expecting. Not that it was bad, it just quickly became extremely uncomfortable. Once again, Kismet stepped in shifting around the occurrences of my life to line me up in the right direction. I walked into a packed house filled with cheap bear, heavy essence of weed, and more than enough cleavage and sights of G-strings to last me a lifetime. This wasn’t my scene, but I was stuck with Diamond until she was ready to leave.

Mav found her for me in the back of the house in a room with two other band members and some steady groupies that everyone seemed to know by name except for me. I was introduced, but there was no such thing as a hand shake. I received the cool head nod in offer of a silent hello to which I silently nodded back. I tried to keep my eyes from bugging out of my head, but the names and looks to these people boggled my mind. I should have known better, I was hanging with a girl named Diamond. I still am not totally sure if that’s her real name no matter how many times she swears it is.

Within 30 minutes of being inside the house I needed air and without meaning to I lost my only two hang outs buddies amongst the crowd. I stumbled out into the front yard gasping at the fresh LA smogginess with massive appreciation. Something about cheap bear and heavy weed made my head spin unpleasantly and I just desperately needed to get out.

“Gets kinda stuffy in there, you reckon?” A voice drawled from the depth of shadows beyond the porch light. I saw a sharp nose, deep set eyes, and a chiseled jaw light up for a moment in the reddish haze of a cigarette before the face disappeared back into the shadows.

“Yeah,” I replied in sigh of relief at being able to breathe again.

“Names Logan,” the voice offered stepping away from the darkness.

“Grace,” I replied back, reminding myself to close my slack jaw as my eyes connected with his sharp grey ones.

And it was that easy finding the next stepping stone in my pathway. You sure are funny Kismet, mysterious ways you do work. I like to think of my little life puzzle piece match maker as Yoda, because in my mind it just makes so much sense. “Lead you along by strings I will.” The little devil.