Chapter 2: Chapter 2

Lola went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea, and she set the water to boil, before going to her room to change into her Pajamas, she does not joke with her night tea. She lived in a reasonably big apartment for a twenty-nine-year-old single lady in the upper-class residential, in Miami. She went into the bathroom to take a warm bath. This is one of the things she looked forward to, coming home to a warm bath with scented rose water and a piece of nice music playing in the background. It might sound lonely and pathetic but she loved these things and she hoped to keep her rituals even when Mr. Right finally decided to surface. Lola eased herself into the bath and allowed the warm water to soothe her aching muscles. She rested her head on the edge of the tub and once again her mind wandered to the handsome man at the restaurant. There was something about him, she could not place. She could see him in her mind's eye on his knee as the lady fled the restaurant. If anyone was looking for a real romantic comedy, the event of the night sure tops the day's list. What he must feel being abandoned in the middle of a proposal? She was still empathizing with the poor man but her phone ring interrupted her. The water was already getting cold anyway so she stepped out of the bath, reached for her bathrobe to cover her body against the night chill. Lola stepped into her room quickly before the phone stopped ringing careful not to slip on the glossy tiles.

“Hello,” she breathed into the phone just before the last ring.

“Lola, so anything interesting you will like to share about the night? Tamera jumped into the heart of the matter without the usual formalities.

"You nosy friend…." Lola perched at the edge of her king-sized bed, smiling at her friend's inability to hold her inquisitiveness without pretense especially when it comes to Lola's love life.

“Well, nothing that will pique your interest about my non-existent love life, but there was something eventful” She launched into the gist of the hot guy and her runaway girlfriend.

“That was awful, Tamera truly felt sorry for the guy. But you should have jumped in as the rescuing princess. You said the guy was hot, didn’t you?” Tamera jokingly teased her friend.

Tamera………” Lola chided her friend, but her laughter was evident in her voice. “You are so not serious if you think I would play the hero” she added. By the way, I finally got myself on that dating site you always teased me about.”

“No, you didn’t” Tamera screamed into the phone.

“Sorry to disappoint you but yes I did”

Girl! You know you don't have to do that; you will meet the right guy at the right time.

Lola didn’t want her friend to believe that she got desperate, so she quickly jumped into what propelled her to join the site. “Moreover, it will kill boredom” she added

“That’s a great way to go girl, and who knows you might just locate your soul mate” Tamera encouraged her friend.

The girls got each other’s back. Tamera had become the only family she had in Miami. Lola had Franklin to thank for bringing them together. The man had chased her like a bitch on heat when she first arrived at the office. She was almost giving in to his pressure for a date before Tamera who was observing from afar accosted her during lunch one day and told her all about Franklin and his notorious vice. Since that day a bond was formed and their friendship had blossomed.

“Have I ever told you, you are the best sister any girl can have on her team?”

“Awn…awn, Lola, you are going to make me cry,” she said but her little daughter was the one that did the crying. “I think Olivia needs her food, she said. But let me know how that goes”

Lola smiled the way she always does whenever she was around Olivia. “Ok, I will, now quickly go attend to my little pumpkin of a god-daughter.”

“See you later,” Tamera said before ending the call.

The smile remained with Lola as she padded down the stairs to make that tea, thinking about her friend’s family, especially little Olivia- the child is simply adorable. Tam and Ben did her great favor by making her little Olivia’s godmother. She said a little prayer for the child to have it better in life than she is having.

Lola took her tea to her room and lay on the bed; she placed the tea on the bedside table and then opened her laptop.

She already has twenty profile views. “That was not bad for the first day” she checked some of them nothing interesting so she switched to Netflix to watch a movie.

Sandra!!… Sandra, wait!! Collin ran after her but she was already gone, she stood in front of the restaurant running his left hand against his temple as if he was warding off an oncoming headache.

“What just happened?” he murmured, wondering how he could get the signals all wrong. How could he be a fool enough to propose to her in a restaurant? He laid the fault at the feet of all those stupid romantic comedies he found himself watching on hallmark movies. If he had proposed to her in his home, just the two of them the embarrassment might not have been this much. He thought, maybe he should have just planned an intimate romantic dinner for two, maybe then she would not have rejected him. In all their three years of dating, Sandra Sampson never came across as someone who would like an intimate proposal. She was more of the let the world know I’m getting married type, which was why Collin had gone out of character to stage his proposal, all in the bid to make her happy. But see how that turned out? He berated himself for a fool, as he located his range rover sport car to drive his devastating self back home.

He suffered a rollercoaster of emotions on his way from the restaurant, it had moved from embarrassment to guilt to self-condemnation to anger, right now anger is the strongest of all of them as he drove into his parking lot. He is seething with anger. He slammed the door shut after he got out of the car, taking long strides to his penthouse apartment.

Collin flung his jacket on the couch, unbuttoning his shirt as he went to the refrigerator to take a cold drink of water, maybe it will cool his burning anger towards Sand…. He did not want to recall or even say her name. How dare she led him on as if she was ok with them? She did not give him any inclination that he- “Collin Price” was not enough for her.

Collin took a long gulp of the cold water but it did nothing to pacify his anger. He was taking the step to his room upstairs but the table phone interrupted him mid-stride, he wanted to ignore it, but then he thought it might be Sandra calling to explain her irrational behavior, hissing some profanities under his breath he went back to the living room to pick up the phone, expecting to hear her remorseful voice at the other end, but he was wrong, it was a Tele-marketer. Collin barked into the phone before the guy could say much “Do you mind if I just wallowed in peace? I just got dumped” he slammed the phone and took the stairs two at a time.

He finished undressing, looking unseeingly at his Greek god body reflection in the mirror. All he could see was a guy not good enough. The self-pity engulfed him and he flung himself on the bed, his face to the ceiling, asking how he got it wrong? He considered calling Sandra, but he immediately decided against it, he would not rub salt on the injury by calling her and whining like a lovesick puppy. He knew he was not at fault, Sandra herself told him several times he was too good to be true, so better to salvage the remains of his self-esteem and spare her. If she was ready to talk to him, she knew how to get him. Collin tossed and turned on the bed, but sleep eluded him. The ache gradually crept in on him. It started as a dull throb at the center of his chest and gradually increased in intensity. He checked the time; it was 11: 00 pm. Three hours and some minutes after his ego suffered a massive dent. He went to his mini wine cellar and got himself a bottle of Johnnie Walker and a glass. He was garbed only in his tapered Adidas bottom sportswear.

Collin sat at his dining table; he did not feel like watching any movie, because he was certain something in those movies would remind him of Sandra. He was not a fan of movies anyway, but he got his laptop, ignoring the glass, he took swigs from the bottle.

Collin browsed the internet and came across hookmeup.com, he was profiled a long time before he met Sandra and never had reasons to visit the site being the loyal boyfriend, but now he can do as he pleased one advantage of being single. He reactivated his account in two minutes. He checked some profiles but most of which he would like to engage were offline. He was bored needed someone he could talk to just when he was about to close his system, and then he saw “Rose Petal” the green indicator shows she was online so he typed

Hey!

Lola was so engrossed in her movie series. She was smiling and laughing at the antics of the character in Tyler Perry’s ‘If loving you is wrong’ she had forgotten she was still online on the hookmeup.com till she was prompted by a message alert, Lola paused the movie and switched to the site. It was a message from a profile named ‘Gentle Giant’ she considered if he was worth the interruption of her very interesting movie, but then, she reluctantly typed her response.

“Hello” she was anxious to go back to her movie that she could not muster enough enthusiasm to go through his profile details.

****

Collin was half expecting her reply, so was surprised when he got it. He checked the time it was 1:30 AM. He took another gulp from his bottle. His anger towards Sandra still glowing in little embers, and, he is beginning to mentally generalize his feeling towards Sandra to include the entire women folks.

"How about you show me what you've got" A smirk tainted his beautiful lips make him look like a sinister character in a movie, the Johnnie Walker bottle doing little to help his emotionally fried brain. At least if he was not good enough to be married, he knew without a doubt that he was good in other areas. He could think of thousands of ways he and Rose petals here could amuse themselves. After all what else could she be looking for on a dating site at this time of the night if not some amusement?

***

Lola had long gone back to her movie. She was deeply engrossed but was angry at the arrogance of Edward Willis. The arrogance of that guy! Mainly because, of his chauvinistic assumption that women are for men’s amusement. Tyler Perry knows how to make his characters real and easily relatable, especially when she knew a replica of Eddie Willis's character in her office - Franklin Parker of the Procurement department.

The message alert came in again so she went back to chat. Her simmering anger towards Men like Eddie Willis and Franklin Parker was fanned into an inferno, but she wanted to be sure of what Gentle Giant meant by his last chat so she probed further…

“How do you mean?” The movie she was watching- If loving you is wrong, was forgotten for the moment. Lola waited for Gentle Giant’s reply so she could give him a piece of her mind.

“Don’t be a ninny; you can’t pretend to be ignorant that I want some show of boobies or even more” Collin tapped on the send button.

He had confirmed her assumption so she typed. “You are such a rotten egg and a pervert, in short, you disgust me.” She buttressed her words with a Puke emoticon. “If this is what you do, contaminating unsuspecting users, then you have messed with the wrong one” Lola tapped the send button so hard that her system shook with the force of it.

Collin waited for the picture or preferably a video invitation, but he was in for a rude shock when he read Lola’s reply. He harrumphed and muttered, inebriated under his breath “You are such a bore” he slammed his laptop shut, and pushed his chair backward, he took his bottle with him, and gradually staggered upstairs. Why are the women folks so evil? He thought as he found his way back to his room. Collin placed the bottle on his bedside table with a thud, splashing a little of the amber-colored liquid on the table. He unseeingly threw himself on the bed horizontally his head and long legs hanging on either side of the bed; he surrendered himself to the welcomed oblivion.

The stupid man decided not to respond again now that she was awaiting his response Lola thought seething. She waited a little more but Gentle Giant had gone offline.

The effrontery of the man to think he could do such a vile thing and get away with it. She hoped, how she hoped he would come back and dish out his rotten and vile suggestions again, Lola thought "I would be here, waiting for him, by the time I'm done with him, his ears will ring for days from the insults I will hurl at him" She logged out and closed her laptop placing it on her bedside table, she turned the lights out but sleep did not claim her early enough. Are these the type of men left to be taken? She thought how she was right when she told her friend earlier that all the good guys were all taken. Lola prayed to God silently. "Please if there is any good guy left, please send him my way". Her biological clock is ticking; there is something about single girls crossing to the milestone age that sends their nerves into overdrive. she wondered before finally surrendering to sweet sleep.