“Nothing.” He chuckled. “I’m just surprised. That’s all. You swore off women after Tracy screwed you over.”
“I didn’t go looking for it,” I replied.
“I know,” he said. “I just want you to be careful. That’s all. I just don’t want things to end up like last time. You remember last time, right? I told you from the beginning that I didn’t trust Tracy, and I was right. I’m not saying that about this girl—I’ve never met her—but I worry about you. Girls have a tendency to get inside of your brain, and you go blind for a little while. I just want you to keep your eyes open, see things clearly, and make sure that her interest is in you and not your money. It sucks you have to live your life suspecting everyone, but you became a billionaire by the time you were twenty-five. There are downsides to that.”
“It’s not going to end like last time,” I said. “And I know, you pretty much saved me from a sham of a marriage. I owe you forever on that one, and I won’t take your advice for granted next time around. Besides, I don’t even know if I’ll ever see this girl again. I got her number, I told her I’d call her, but I don’t know if I actually will.”
“You should,” he said, shrugging. “I don’t see you get excited about a girl very often.”
“I’m not excited, just replaying the hot sex we had. That’s all.” I laughed, patting him on the shoulder. “Now, go enjoy the rest of your weekend. I’m going to go home and get some sleep, maybe watch the Lakers game on television or something.”
“Alright.” He laughed, climbing in the back of the car. “I’ll see you later.”
I nodded and watched the car drive off before climbing into mine. As we made our way to my place, I thought about what John said, and I was glad I chose to brush things off around him. Sure, what I felt was pretty intense, especially for me, but he didn’t need to know that. I needed to figure it out for myself first, show him that I could judge this girl’s character, and that I had learned from my mistakes. He had been my best friend since college, and my frat brother, and I wasn’t going to ignore his advice without giving it serious thought.
Chapter 3
Amanda
When I woke up on Sunday, I was happy to see that Lindsey had the day free and could meet me for lunch. I had been so caught up in meeting Nathan that I had completely forgotten about rescheduling things with her. I got ready and headed over to a small café uptown, smiling as I climbed out of my car and waved at Lindsey standing on the corner. She was so beautiful, with her long blonde hair, perfect body, and blue eyes that every guy fell for immediately. The entire world wept when Lindsey announced her engagement to Jordan, fantasies of thousands of men crumbling at their fingertips. To me, though, she was just Lindsey, the goofy chick that fell into modeling by accident and just kind of went with it. I wish my life would explode into superstardom without me even trying.
“Hi, love,” she said, kissing my cheek. “I’m sorry again about Friday. It was a nightmare.”
“It’s alright. I kept myself busy.” I felt my c
heeks blush as I held open the door and followed her inside.
We sat down and ordered some salads and coffee, and I pulled out my notebook. We were finally getting to talk about all the details that I had been chasing her down about for months. We went through each page, laughing and checking off the choices that she had finally made. We were cutting everything close, but while I was extremely anxious about it, she seemed cool as a cucumber.
“We should have just brought everyone to Tahiti and eloped.” She sighed.
“Yes, you should have.” I laughed. “I could use a tan.”
“Me too,” she said, swallowing her bite of salad. “Did you decide whether you are going to bring a date or not?”
“No, probably not,” I said. “I’ll have too much to deal with as your Maid of Honor to watch over a date, too.”
“You make your title sound like you’re my nanny.” She giggled.
“Am I not?” I asked. “No, I just want to make sure everything is perfect and that you don’t have to worry about a thing. That is my job as your Maid of Honor.”
She went on gushing about the dresses that had come in a couple of weeks before, thanking me profusely for talking her out of floral print. My mind wandered as she spoke, going back to the conversation Nathan and I had over breakfast. He really was an awesome person to be around, and I hadn’t been able to get him off my mind since we parted ways on Saturday morning.
“Uh, hello? Amanda, are you in there?”
“Huh?”
“What’s up?” she asked. “You seem slightly distracted.”
“Truthfully?”
“Duh.” She rolled her eyes.
“I met someone,” I said, realizing I had to get it out.
“Oh, my God, tell me everything,” she said, leaning forward.
“Well, after you canceled dinner, I moved to the bar and met this really hot guy,” I said. “We ate dinner, drank, talked a lot, and then we went back to my place.”