A Beautiful Mistake

I heard a knock on my door, and I leaped up from the couch to get it. I swung open the door and my trusty friend was standing there. “Rachel! How’re you feeling? Still hungover? I know you drank a lot,” she questioned, hugging me.

“Got a slight headache, but that’s nothing. I’m stressing over other crap right now.” I walked over to the couch and plopped down. Katie followed me.

“Why? What’s wrong? Did something happen?” She asked everything rather quickly; it was times like this that she reminded me of a little chihuahua dog.

“You know the guy I was with last night?”

“Yeah, what about him?”

“It was Logan Couture. From the Sharks team.”

“Holy shit. Really? Isn’t he like one of your favorite players?”

“Wait, you haven’t even heard the worst, well uhm, best... I don’t know. never mind that.” I was confusing even myself. Then, I heard the words come out of my mouth like barf. “Well, we danced and talked and all that stuff, and then he walked me home, and then, I don’t know, we ended up in bed together and I’m pretty sure we we slept together. So yeah.” I looked up at Katie and she seemed stunned. She was looking down at the ground, at a loss for words.

“Seriously? Wow... Listen, I don’t think bad of you for this, Rach. People get drunk, mess things up, then move on. Are you going to see him anytime soon?”

“He said he’d call me later, sometime after his practice.” I honestly hope he would. I was a little scared he wouldn’t. I should’ve asked for his number. But he never seemed like a bad person. Yet it seems weird to have faith in someone you barely know...

“He better.” She pulled out her phone, and checked the time. “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go, my boss wanted me to come in to the office today. The wonderful life of a PR agent.”

“Don’t worry about it. I think I’m gonna take a nap. I don’t feel great. How about I call you later if I hear from him?”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you later, Rach,” she said as she walked out the door, slamming it behind her. I got up and got into my bed. As I got under the blankets and closed my eyes, it seemed as if all my problems vanished, even if only for an hour or two.

xxxx

I woke up a few hours later, my phone buzzing beside me. “Hello?” I answered, in a groggy voice.

“Hey, Rachel? This is Logan.” I sat up immediately, feeling more awake.

“Oh, hey, how are you?”

“I’m fine, thanks. Did I wake you up? You sound half asleep.”

“I just woke up from a nap, I was kinda drained from last night, haha,” I said, with a somewhat forced laugh. I didn’t know for sure yet how he felt about the incident. “I actually feel a lot better now though.”

“That’s good to hear, because I was wondering if you’d like to go to Original Joe’s with me tonight. You know, to talk about stuff...” He trailed off at the end.

“That sounds like a wonderful idea.” I smiled to myself.

“How about I pick you up at 7?”

“Perfect. See you then, Logan.”

“Bye, Rachel.” I hung up, then looked at the clock. Just about six PM.

xxxx

It had just turned 7 o’clock as I reached her door and knocked. The door swung open, and there she was in all of her beautiful glory. Her red hair was curly, her makeup was simple. She had on skinny jeans that showed off her nice legs, heels and a nice pink top. She was just absolutely gorgeous.

“Hi,” she said, as a smile grew across her face.

“Hey Rachel, ready to go?” She nodded, shutting the door behind her. I took her arm and linked it with mine as we walked out to my car. There was just something about her. I wasn’t exactly sure exactly what it was. In the wee 24 hours I had known her, I knew there was something special about her, something that I didn’t want to lose or mess up.

“So...” she murmured.

“So, what?” Rachel looked up at me, her brown eyes wide. “Oh, yeah... Let’s not worry about that this second. Let’s just have some fun tonight and not worry about it, okay?”

She smiled and whispered, “okay.” We got into my car, and things were somewhat silent and awkward for the short trip down to Joe’s. At least for me. Maybe she was used to silences. I pulled into the parking lot and we hopped out of my black Range Rover. We walked in and got seated right away since I made reservations.

“So, I’m gonna make this awkward right away,” I told her as I picked up a piece of bread the waitress brought us. “Tell me more about yourself.”

“Well, I’m Rachel, I’m 21, I work for the Mercury News, I love hockey, I go to San Jose State, I use run on sentences very often when I speak, and the list never seems to end. How about you, Mr. Calder?” She smirked. I pretty much felt my entire body melt inside.

“I’m Logan, I play for the San Jose Sharks, I’m a cocky asshole sometimes, in my free time I like to watch baseball, and I think you’re really pretty. Oops, did I let the last one slip?” I saw her face turn bright pink at the last comment, and I laughed. She smiled and shrugged.

The waitress came back, ready to take our order.

“I’ll have the cheese ravioli with marinara sauce,” Rachel ordered politely.

“Seriously? I always get that here, it’s my favorite!” I exclaimed. “I’ll be having that too, obviously,” I added to the waitress. She smiled, jotting down our orders, then ran off again. Joe’s was rather busy tonight.

“I can’t believe we order the same thing here. It’s the only ravioli I’ve had that’s the closest to how my dad used to make it.” Her full smile was cut in half as she said those last words, and she looked down at the table. I reached out and put my hand on top of hers, looking at her.

“Did something happen to your father?”

She looked back to me, her smile completely gone. “I don’t like to talk about it really. But he died in a car accident three years ago. Some idiotic asshole decided to drive drunk and crash into my dad. We never even found out who did it, they fled the crime scene.”

I saw a tear fall from her eye, and my heart wrenched. That was just absolutely horrible. I got up from my side of the booth and slid into hers, wrapping my arm around her shoulder. “I’m so sorry to hear that Rachel.”

“It’s fine, nothing can be done about it now.” She wiped the tear from her eye and calmed herself.

“Okay. Let’s just enjoy ourselves tonight.” I smiled yet again, for what seemed like the millionth time. But I was okay with it. This girl was one of the few things that made me smile recently. I liked it, and I liked her.

Eventually our food came and we scarfed it down. In the midst of that, we kept asking each other questions about our favorite things. We both loved baseball; she loved the Giants of course and I loved the Blue Jays. I liked sushi, she hated seafood. We both liked rap music (and surprisingly, she was good at it, too). We actually had a lot in common.

“Wait, Logan, today’s December 1st, right?” she asked me as we walked out the door of the restaurant.

“Yeah, why?”

“Look around, Christmas in the park is finally starting.” She pointed to the lights on the trees that had turned on, and down the street to where some of the carnival rides had been. She beamed and her eyes lit up, just like a little kid.

“Come on, let’s go to the carousel over there.” I grabbed her hand and I felt her grasp on me tighten and heard her giggle as we jogged over to it. She got in line while I went and bought us some tickets. We got on and picked two horses next to each other. I pulled out my phone.

“Hey, lean in next to me,” I asked her.

“Why, what for?” she said, leaning lext to me. I reached out with my phone, camera facing us.

“Just smile.” And she did. I clicked the button and snapped the picture of us just before the ride started moving. I looked at her. She had the biggest smile on her face, and blushed when she saw me looking at her. I looked back to the picture and smiled to myself. Hopefully this was the beginning of something beautiful.