Meet Cute, Meet Fail

It should have been the perfect capper to a vacation.

Jules had spent the past week slumming it on a pullout couch in a Los Angeles hotel room. Despite being the worst off in his friend group, he’d managed to scrounge up enough scratch to cover the plane ticket and his share of the room. The rest of his money got spent on tickets to the local theme parks, food, and drink.

Thankfully, everyone had decided not to make him spend more of his money and spend their last night at a sports bar. Which was fine – Jules enjoyed his fruity cocktails. On any other night, he could content himself with watching one of the sports games on the many TVs.

What was harshing his vibe was what was being shown on every television screen wasn’t anything he’d watch. Not even the weird games he’d never seen before that he might’ve seen on the Ocho.

It was a dating show.

Jules Maddow put up with a lot of garbage in his life. Noisy neighbors he could hear through his too-thin apartment walls. Coworkers whose noses were stained brown from all the cheering they’d done for their boss. Student loans that ate every spare dollar he made. Bad breakups. But there were certain things that he wasn’t willing to tolerate.

Dating shows were at the top of his list.

No one else in the bar seemed to share that opinion. They stared at the screens, enraptured at the relationship drama on full display. They were steering clear of Jules, too. Not because he was ugly. Far from it – Jules was a decent 6 or 7 out of 10. Trim build, good face, short brown hair that cleaned up well.

Jules’ eyes bulged out of his head when a familiar hand slapped him on the back.

“Relax, big guy!” Sean had been his friend since before they could read. He was everything Jules wasn’t – successful, rich, and extremely gay.

It helped explain why the bar was showing the finale for a dating show on every screen. In hindsight, maybe that was why the clientele was giving Jules a wide berth.

“Where’s your other half?” asked Jules.

“Oh, Derek’s getting me another round,” Sean sighed. “I know this isn’t your cup of Long Island Iced Tea, but I wanted to thank you for coming with us anyway. We’ve been looking forward to seeing whether Courtney gets engaged to Sam or Shane all week!”

Those shows were unreal. Every reality show had these exaggerated personas. But watching a dating show was like stepping into a world where the impossible just happened. Grand romantic gestures that belonged in movies, petty heightened arguments, and of course – wine getting thrown in people’s faces.

Speaking of, where was his next drink? The bartender was nowhere to be found; Sean had flocked over to Derek to get his. He got up from his seat, turned…

“What the?!”

And immediately ran head first into someone’s soft chest. Someone quite a bit taller than him whose drink just went all over his head. He felt himself be immediately pushed back.

Jules tried to look whoever he’d run into at his eye level, only to be confronted by a pair of breasts in a sleeveless red top. Said breasts belonged to a black-haired woman who was easily a foot taller than him, scowling down at him with emerald green eyes.

“What do you think you’re doing down there, pervert?”

Nope, nope, thousand years of nope. Jules was not doing this. “Trying to get a drink. Watch where you’re going up there!”

It slowly dawned on Jules that picking a fight was a bad idea with this woman. Not only was she a head taller than him, but her arms were thicker than his. He guessed she must have been an athlete or personal trainer.

That would have been something he’d followed through on had he not already drank four glasses of coconut rum and soda. Instead, he doubled-down. “You ran into me!”

Now the woman was really getting mad. “You moron! You just wanted a feel way to cop a feel!”

“Oh, sure. Like anyone would want to cop a feel of those!” Jules shot back. To be fair they were quite lovely (and large) breasts. But this was the grave he’d dug. And from how hard the punch she delivered to his gut was, it was the one he’d be laid to rest in.

He was sent flying back, out the door and onto the sidewalk outside. It was pouring rain down, instantly drenching him to the bone.

Slowly he got back to his feet. “Yeah,” Jules shouted. “You better walk away, you lumbering redwood!” He didn’t know why he was yelling at the bar door.

Real great way to end a vacation, he told himself. Getting thrown out of a bar and acting like a jackass. His fingers were already tapping away on his phone to get a ride out of here. Maybe he could get one last drink at the hotel bar.

----

In the bar, Kristina Harlowe slowly swirled around a glass of red wine.

She stood out amongst the other bargoers. You didn’t have to try when you were seven feet tall.

Everyone around her was losing their minds as a blonde man on the television was down on one knee, spilling his heart out to a woman in a svelte black dress. She wasn’t keeping track of their names. Her focus was on trying to enjoy what little free time she had left.

This kind of thing was not in her wheelhouse. Anyone who took a passing glance at her would’ve guessed that. But Bruce insisted that she watch for ‘research purposes’.

The things she did to make it in this town.

“Hey.” An older man in a blue and white Hawaiian shirt had slid over to Kristina’s side. His graying slicked back hair reflected ever so slightly under the bar’s lighting. With his glasses slid down his nose, he looked up at her. “What happened there?”

“A pervert, that’s what,” Kristina growled. “We fought.”

The man’s lips pursed and his head bobbed up and down. “Uh-huh.” He kept glancing back towards that door.

Kristina rolled her eyes. “Bruce, no! You can’t be serious.”

“Not your call to make,” grinned Bruce. The two saw a pair of men wander over to where Jules had been sitting, wondering why the seat was empty. “I’m the one who gets to worry about the details.”

Bruce left Kristina quickly enough that all she could do was take another sip of her merlot. This had better be worth it.

The two men were about the same height as Bruce. After some brief introductions, he learned that the black-haired man on the left was Sean, and the one with a crop cut holding two cocktail glasses was Derek.

“Have you seen our friend?” asked Sean. “A bit shorter than me, brown hair, really unhappy to have been here?”

Bruce’s face lit up. “Oh him! I uh, I saw he got into an argument and got tossed out.”

Derek sighed. “He’s not the kind of guy to get in a fight. Did he really want out of here that bad?”

Sean put his arm around Derek. “Nah, I think he’s right. I heard someone shout during the commercials and the door slam at one point.”

Perfect. Bruce gave the two gentlemen a practiced, warm smile. “Do you know how I can get in contact with him?”