I waited in my car in front of the gym and redid my makeup. I looked down and realized I received a text. It was from Robert.
‘I woke up thinking about you. I just want to wish you a good day. Any word about this weekend?’
Such a sweet guy, but I had a completely different date going on in about five minutes. Robert had to wait his turn.
I stepped outside and walked to the front of the gym. Right on time, Donovan walked through the front door entrance. He looked breathtaking, as he wore a white button-down shirt, unbuttoned lower than it should have, which was accented with a pair of light blue jeans, and thank goodness he got rid of those hideous red shoes. He had these cute brown shoes on with white socks. A wonderfully manicured man and vision to behold.
His eyes caught mine and he gave me one of his amazing giant smiles. “Hey, Sahara,” he said. He walked over to me and gave me a big hug and swept me up as if I was a little bag of potato chips instead of the curvy woman I was. Anyway, I felt like a bag of potato chips as he lifted me in the air playfully. He set me down and I laughed. I liked his playfulness, but that’s not something I wanted to do on a regular basis with anybody.
“Let’s not do that again,” I said.
“No problem, love,” he said. Even his voice sounded like blue suede.
“Who would you like to drive?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t have a car,” Donovan said, as if he didn’t just tell me something really weird. A grown man with a modeling job should have a car.
“You mean your car isn’t here?” I asked.
“No, I don’t own a car,” Donovan said.
“Are you a big environment guy?” I asked.
“Not at all. Drill, baby, drill,” he said. Donovan made the hand motions of a drill drilling into the pavement.
Wow, he’s kind of funny. I wasn’t expecting that.
But this guy didn’t have a car and he didn’t feel the need to explain it. I heard from enough people that he was a model. So I knew he had a job. Why doesn’t he have a car? I didn’t know. Now, I was embarrassed to ask him. I figured I would learn more and more about him as our breakfast date went along.
“Okay...well, my car is this way.” I began to walk in the direction of where my car was parked. I looked over my shoulder to see if Donovan was following me, and he wasn’t. I was super confused.
I continued to my car and was about to feel horrible when I looked in my rearview mirror and I could see Donovan waiting on the curb and looking in my direction.
Holy shit! This guy thinks I’m just going to drive over there and pick him up. Who the hell was he?
I looked at the rearview mirror and I saw him crack a smile. That was all I needed to see. I backed up my car and then pulled forward toward the front of the gym. I parked alongside the curb.
If he thinks I’m getting out and opening his door for him, I will leave. Hot or not, I will make a stand.
He leaned down and I unlocked his door from my side. He opened it and got in. I was about to tell him he could pull the seat back when I remembered how short he was.
“So, where is this juice bar?” I asked.
“It’s at my house,” Donovan said.
“Seriously?” I asked.
“Nah. It’s around the corner. But if you want one of my special smoothies, you can only get them at my house. And I swear, that’s not a euphemism.”
I laughed. That was now two funny things he’d done. Apparently, he had some semblance of a sense of humor.
“Are you inviting me to your house at 6:30 in the morning for sex?” I asked.
Donovan looked at me and smiled. “Look, I seriously would love to make you one of my original smoothies and ask you what you think. I’m thinking about marketing them, but I don’t have much of a clue how to do the marketing part.”
He seemed honest. He didn’t answer my question, though. But I could figure any man was up for sex at any time of day, especially, when it was strange. Men called certain sex ‘strange’ meaning they hadn’t had sex with the woman before. The whole concept pretty much proved to me that any man would sleep with any woman once. I hoped that was not true. There had to be good guys out there. Donovan was probably not one of those guys. However, he was the man I was currently on a date with—he looked like he was sculpted by Michelangelo.
“We can go to your house for a smoothie,” I said. I did like the fact that he said house. Now the question was...a frat house or some regular house where ten male supermodels lived?
“Look, if you feel uncomfortable, we can do a smoothie at my house on another day. Or, I can make a big batch tomorrow morning and bring some down to the gym.”
“You would sincerely do that?” I asked. That did not sound like something a guy who waited on a curb to be picked up would do.
“Yeah. I make an amazing smoothie. I want to get it patented, so I can sell it. The more people who try it and love it, the more people who will be on board once it goes national.”
“Ah, franchising. You’re speaking my language. Donovan, do you know what I do for a living?”
“No, I don’t. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I said. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I’m telling you I’m head of marketing for the company I work for. It’s a national pizza chain. Once you get your drink to where it ready for distribution, come see me. I would love to help you with a marketing plan.”
“Wow, you would do all that for me?” Donovan asked. “You don’t even know me.”
That was exact same thing I’d said to Paris.
“I don’t have to help. I just thought if you needed it...”
“No, I’m not saying that. I deal with a lot of haters. I’m not used to someone offering something generous like you just did without a catch. Is there a catch?” Donovan asked.
“There is no catch. You seem very passionate about this smoothie you make and whenever I see that kind of passion in my line of work, it usually leads to sells. And who knows, maybe you can buy yourself a car.”
Donovan just laughed about my car comment. Didn’t say why he didn’t have one. He just said, “Thank you,” to the rest of the things I said.
“Sometimes, it’s more fun helping people than it is making money.”
“Look, if you help me market and it blows up, you’re getting paid right along with me.”
“That’s sweet. Who know when the time comes, maybe we will draw up an agreement. But let’s take it...I don’t know...ten minutes at a time.”
“You offered and I got excited,” Donovan said.
“You should be. I’m a great marketer when someone has your passion. But first things first. Let’s take this one step at a time. Now, where do you live?”
Donovan then began guiding me to his house. While he did this, I just smelled him. He smelled wonderful. Under no circumstances would I sleep with him. If he didn’t start making that smoothie immediately, I would leave. I mean, it was his house. He was already home. I could leave whenever I wanted.
“Take a left at the light,” Donovan said. “Then make another sharp left and drive down to the end of the cul-de-sac. My house is at the end.”
I was praying this guy lived alone. I didn’t want to deal with roommates or worse yet...parents. I pulled into his empty driveway and parked. He had a basketball hoop up above his garage. He had a cute little house.
“Are we in Fullerton or Anaheim?” I asked.
“Fullerton,” Donovan said. He hadn’t yet gotten out of the car. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just opened my door like gangbusters. Was I going to open his car door? No, I was not.
Once I was outside my car, I walked up to his house. Dominic got out the passenger side and took his time and strolled over to the front door and opened it. It was unlocked, so he must live with somebody.
“Who’s here?” I asked.
“No one. I live alone.”
“Your door was unlocked?” I asked.
“And...?”
&nbs
p; Talk about making a girl feel unsafe. There could be killers and murderers in his house. But Donovan was pretty manly. He could probably do a lot of damage. Okay, he lived alone like me in what also looked like a three-bedroom house.
I went into the kitchen and my man, Donovan, was a man of his word. He went straight to his blender. He cleaned it out with water. It already looked clean. I thought that was courteous of him to clean it further.
Donovan went to his refrigerator and opened it. I looked inside and all I saw was health food. Of course, that was what he had. He didn’t get that body eating Wetzel’s Pretzels and Ding Dongs. Both were delicious by the way and might make an appearance in my refrigerator from time to time.
Donovan pulled out fruit, nuts and vegetables.
“Please don’t put any vegetables in my smoothie,” I said. “Vegetables are gross enough without drinking them in liquid form. I can’t see how anyone could do that.”
“You need to trust me,” Donovan said.
“Trust you? I met you forty-five minutes ago.”
“But yet, you stand in my kitchen,” Donovan said.
He had a point.
“Okay. I will try it, but I don’t want to watch you make it. I think if I see any vegetables go in that blender, I’m going to hurl.”
“That’s fine. Why don’t you have a seat outside on my back yard patio and I will bring you the smoothie?”
“Promise me, you will not put a roofie in there,” I said. Like I said, I didn’t mess around. I asked people straight out.
“I wouldn’t even know how to get a pill like that. Nor would I care to look into it.” Donovan sounded as sincere as anything he had said to me so far. “Are you allergic to anything?”
“Okra.”
“Very well. You will not get any okra in your smoothie.”
I stared down Donovan and I cracked my own smile and said, “Okay, I’ll be outside.”
I walked through his back door and onto a couple of steps that led down to his back yard. His set up was way different than my back yard.
His back yard had a lot more exciting things going on. He had a Jacuzzi that looked amazing, even at this time in the morning. But in the middle of his yard, he had a trampoline. It was really cool. Even though I didn’t get Donovan’s permission, I walked over to the trampoline and took off my high heels. I got onto the trampoline and bounced a bit. This was fun. I jumped higher and higher. The higher I jumped, the more I imagined what it would feel like to fly around on a broomstick. I still wasn’t sure if what Paris said to me was true or if she had just been teasing me.
I stopped bouncing and decided I wanted to have my smoothie on the trampoline. So I sat cross-legged, the way Paris had in the middle of my living room the other day. Here, I was doing something very similar.
I exhaled and I looked up at the morning sun. It felt really nice. So far, this was really great. Donovan was such a gentleman. I was anticipating something weird would happen at any moment. I guessed I was going to have to wait and see.
Chapter Sixteen