Oh Ryans!

[DISLAIMER: THIS STORY IS COMPLETE FICTION, AND THE NAMES OF THE CELEBRITIES MENTIONED, WERE ONLY USED FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES. THIS NEVER HAPPENED AND ANY EVENTS SIMILAR TO REAL LIFE ARE JUST COINCIDENTAL.]

OH Ryans!

The four girls had agreed to set each other up with a blind date. Michelle would set Cristina up. Cristina would set up Kayla. Kayla said she’d hook Monikah up. And Monikah would get one of her friends for Michelle.

This was a big deal for the girls, because they have all been through a lot of heart ache, and haven’t been in a relationship in almost a year. As they walked into The Olive Garden with the dates they brought in to trade, all four of their faces lit up.

Cristina’s jaw dropped at the sight of Michelle’s choice for her. He stood about 6 feet and some inches tall, with an incredibly toned muscular physique, his smile brought out dimples on either side of his cheeks, and his tanned skin looked great with his short dirty blond locks. He had on a plain white polo and slightly fitted white washed jeans.

Kayla was wide-eyed when she saw the boy next to Cristina. It was obvious he worked out. He was shorter than the other boys, but possibly the cutest. His bluish-green eyes glowed from under his baseball cap, his smile wide and alluring, he wore a white t-shirt with the letters RS printed in old English on the front and black Dickies pants. He dressed like a true skater boy, but he wore his clothes with a different sort of class.

Kayla had her arm hooked onto Monikah’s date. Monikah’s heart started beating faster as she examined him for a minute. He wore a fitted black v-neck and dark denim jeans. His blond hair fell just below his eyes and he seemed to be squinting giving off a very mysterious vibe. Kayla’s friend stood the second tallest of the four men. He smiled with less emphasis than the other boys but still just as sweet.

Michelle’s reaction was a little less obvious than the other 3 girls. She smiled at the boy standing next to Monikah. In a long sleeved black and white pin striped button up and jeans, he stood about the same height as Kayla’s friend, if not slightly taller, with sun kissed short blond hair, youthful eyes and a smile that was almost just as intriguing as Michelle’s.

“Hey guys! How’s it goin?” Cristina greeted enthusiastically, smiling from ear to ear. You can see it in her eyes she was excited to see how this night would turn out.
All four boys and Michelle said “hey” in unison.
Monikah and Kayla were still silent, and it seemed like everyone was afraid to talk.

“Hi…How many?” the hostess asked as she counted in her head.
“Eight.” Cristina confirmed before the hostess said anything more.

The group followed the girl to a round table set up near a window. She handed each person a menu and told them that their waitress would be with them shortly. The table fell silent.

“So… everyone, this is my friend Ryan from like 5 years ago. We met when I was going through my skater phase. He was like…what…12? 13 years old, when we met?” Cristina started, introducing Ryan to the group.
The other boys nodded. Kayla smiled and said “hi”.
Monika (aka Mons) laughed, “That’s funny… his name is Ryan too.” She said pointing to her friend sitting between Michelle and herself.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Michelle said as she glanced over to her friend.
Michelle’s friend nodded, “I’m Ryan too.”
Kayla and her friend started laughing hysterically as they looked around the table at their companions.
Cristina looked at the two of them and shook her head, “Please tell me your name is something else…”
Kayla’s friend looked around the table. “Well, looks like we’ll be going by last names tonight…”
Cristina exclaimed, “WHAT?!”
“How is it possible that all of us would bring guys with the same name?” Monikah questioned as she sat in amusement.
“NO…WAIT… Your name is also Ryan???” Cristina pressed on, not believing that this was actually happening.
“Yes!” Kayla answered. “This is Ryan. Seriously!”
The whole table exploded into laughter.
“Well, at least we aren’t all named Jennifer or something.” Monikah commented.
“OK, so yeah, we have to go by last names, this is crazy.” Cristina suggested. Everyone nodded in agreement.
Cristina’s friend spoke first, “I’m Sheckler.”
“Reynolds.” Michelle’s friend said looking over at Cristina.
Kayla’s friend slightly raised his hand, “Gosling.”
“Key.” Said Monikah’s friend to the rest of the table.
“Alright, now that that’s settled, I need a drink.” Monikah blurted out, mind still boggled by everything. “Wow…what are the odds?!”
“Your parents weren’t very original when naming you guys.” Michelle joked.
“Tell me about it!” Cristina yelled out, looking around for the waitress. “I can’t believe this is for real. I really need a drink after all that.”
“So wait, who’s who, aside from the Ryans, which girl is which?” Sheckler asked.
“I’m Kayla.” Kayla answered and pointing to the other 2 girls continued on, “That’s Michelle, and that’s Mons.”
“And I’m Cristina!” Cristina announced to the other guys.
“And yeah, that’s Cristina…” Kayla repeated.

The girls looked at each other in amazement. How did they get into this?! As funny as it was, it was also very hard to believe. The waitress finally came and introduced herself.

“Hey guys! I’m Alyson; I’ll be your server this evening. How are ya’ll doing tonight?” she asked.
“We’re doing great aside from the abnormal coincidence we just encountered.” Reynolds replied.
The waitress gave him a questioning look and giggled. “Can I start you off with any drinks?”
“YES!” all the girls cried out.
Alyson was taken aback for a second, “OK, let’s start with you.” She said pointing at Reynolds, since he was the first to respond.
“You can start with this lovely lady right here.” He said gesturing over to Cristina who was sitting to the right of him.
“Why, thank you. I’ll have a margarita.” Cristina ordered.

Clockwise, Reynolds went next ordering a glass of wine. Michelle got a long island iced tea, Key ordered a Heineken, Mons ordered a sex on the beach, Gosling also got wine, Kayla got a sweet tea, and Sheckler asked for a coke. Everyone conveniently took out their IDs before being asked and Alyson went around the table to verify their ages.

“Could we also all get waters?” Reynolds requested before Alyson left.
“Actually, I’ll take a diet coke also.” Cristina added.
“Of course! I’ll be right back with your drinks…” Alyson said before turning to walk away.
“How sophisticated.” Mons commented after their server had gone. “Wine, huh? Nice.”
Both Reynolds and Gosling nodded.
“I’m still in shock that of all the people we know, we all chose guys named Ryan.” Cristina said.
“Oh, I know!” Kayla agreed.
“Yeah, I don’t want to jinx it, but things couldn’t get any weirder.” Michelle said as she laughed.
“You’re already weirder.” Mons said.
The girls laughed at the silly comment.
“Mons, no.” Cristina said jokingly.
“So…why don’t we talk about how everyone met?” Key suggested.
“Ok, ya’ll go first.” Michelle retorted.
“Well, Mons and I used to always see each other at shows. And then finally at one show, what was it? New Found Glory?” Ryan asked Mons. She nodded, and he continued on, “We were at the NFG show and they picked 3 people to go backstage. It was me, Mons, and another dude. The dude’s girlfriend wanted to go so badly so he was trying to convince either me or Mons to give up our spot and let her see them.”
“Yeah,” Mons chimed in, “and I wasn’t about to give up my spot so I told Ryan, you should be a gentleman and let the girl see the band.”
“And then I told the dude, ‘yeah! Be a gentleman and let your girl see the band!’ He, for some reason, gets pissed off and tries swinging at me.” Key went on. “Then Mons, being the crazy girl she is, jumped up in front of me to block his punch.”
“Yeah! I don’t even know what I was thinking. I saw that fist coming straight at me when…”
“I pushed her out of the way and the guy missed my face by not even an inch, and Mons…”
“I fell to the ground so hard and scraped both my palms when I landed, I was near tears when all I see was Ryan’s fist breaking the guy’s nose and well…”
“Needless to say, we never got to meet the band that night. We got kicked out of the venue.”
“After getting our pictures taken!”
“Yeah, and so now we’re not ever allowed to go see shows at Jack Rabbits ever again.”

Everyone listened intently to their story. With timing, as it came to its end, Alyson and another server were back with their drinks. Alyson handed out the drinks that cost and the other server handed out the waters.

“Are ya’ll ready to order?” She asked them.
“Oh, I don’t think we really got a chance to look over the menu.” Gosling told her. “We’ll need another minute.”
“Or two.” Added Sheckler.
Alyson nodded and left them to decide.

Everyone browsed through their menus. Cristina looked up from hers and asked directly to Mons and Key, “Are you guys serious? That’s how you guys became friends?”

They looked at each other and started laughing. “No.” They both said and shook their heads.

“What?!” Kayla yelled.
“Huh? So what’s the real story?” Michelle asked.
“We used to be neighbors back when Mons lived in Jax Beach.” Key answered truthfully.
“I knew it. Mons is quite the story teller.” Cristina pointed out.
“Did you guys practice that story?” Kayla wanted to know.
“No actually, but we have acquired the talent of making things up on the spot.” Mons replied.
“Yeah, we had known each other for only a few weeks before we realized how good we were at it.” Ryan told them.
“Oh my word!” Michelle exclaimed, “You guys are crazy! That was actually pretty convincing.”
“Oh we know.” Mons replied.
“Oh stop.” Cristina said.
“Well, tell us your story, Cristina.” Kayla urged.
“I already told you guys, I met him during my old skater days.” Cristina reminded.
“Yeah, but how did you guys actually start talking to each other?” Michelle asked.
“Cristina just came up to me and said, ‘hey kid! You’re really good, how old are you? Like 7?” Sheckler explained, “And I was already going through puberty at the time, mind you, I was about 13… and she asked if I could teach her how to do some tricks, then we just started from there…”
“Boring.” Kayla remarked.
“Well, ok, then you go…” Michelle said in Cristina and Sheckler’s defense.
“I’m just a frequent customer at the deli that she works at.” Gosling told everyone.
“Now that’s boring.” Michelle joked.
“So what about you guys?” Kayla asked about Michelle and Reynolds.
“We met at church.” Reynolds answered before taking a sip of his wine.

After that, they ordered their food, had a pretty quiet dinner, because they knew if they talked, it would be too much considering 8 of them sat there together. It would have been hard to get a word in. Their bill came out to almost $150, and they left Alyson an $80 tip, considering the patience she had to have to deal with all of them.

As they all walked out to the parking lot to decide their next move, the girls paired up with their rightful partners. Mons went with Gosling, Cristina with Reynolds, Michelle with Key, and Kayla with Sheckler.

“Anyone have any suggestions on where we should go?” Cristina asked.
“What’s there to do on Thursday nights around here?” Sheckler asked back in response.
“Well, it’s Ladies’ Night at The Atlantic. Charlie Walker plays at Lynch’s…” Michelle trailed off.
“Split Tone is at the Brix!” Mons exclaimed.
“And…Well… The Ocean Club is probably the only 18 and up place we could go.” Kayla told Sheckler since they were the only 2 under age.
“I think we should go sit out at the beach. I’ve got some blankets in my car we could use.” Sheckler told the group.
“I’m down.” Said Mons.
“I could go for that too. I’m too full to do anything else right now.” Reynolds agreed.
“Yeah, you’re right.” Cristina nodded.
“Yay! So beach it is!” Kayla yelled excitedly.
“What part of the beach ya’ll thinking about goin?” Key asked before everyone made their way to their cars.
“The pier would probably be the best place to meet.” Michelle replied. “What do you guys think?”

Everyone nodded and the girls hopped into the cars of their “dates” and went off to the Jacksonville Beach pier.