by Lisa Daily
Which is his first mistake. Well, that and the Gandhi pants.
I’m insanely ticklish, and before either of us knows what’s happened, my left foot shoots out reflexively, and I kick him smack in the nose.
I watch in horror as his nose begins gushing blood. I mean, it’s everywhere.
“Ohmygod, Kai, are you okay?” I’m completely mortified. He seems stunned. Scrambling to my feet, I rush to the kitchen to grab a towel. I run the cloth under cold water for a few seconds and quickly run it back to Kai.
“What the hell?” he says in a nasally voice. “What the hell?” The towel is soaked with blood in less than a minute. This is bad, really bad. I start rummaging around in the kitchen in a panic to find something to stop the bleeding, and rush back with a roll of unbleached paper towels and a bag of frozen organic peas.
“I’m so sorry,” I say effusively, “I didn’t mean—”
“You broke my nose,” he yells.
“I’m so sorry, it was an accident,” I say. “I’m really ticklish. I didn’t mean to … Do you want me to drive you to the emergency room?”
“Yes,” he hisses. I awkwardly shred strips of paper towels for him while he stuffs the little pieces up his nostrils to stop the bleeding—and then I retreat to the powder room to quickly wash the smelly oil off my palms and yank on my clothes.
I emerge seconds later and lead Kai out to my car. He’s still wearing the waffle-weave bathrobe and spa slippers, and he groans as he presses the bag of frozen peas to the bridge of his nose.
We drive to the emergency room in utter silence.
Dating is exhausting. And weird as hell. How do people ever meet and fall in love, anyway?
*
After the whole tantric-yogi emergency-room fiasco, I’m ready to take a break, or just give up altogether. But Darcy has arranged a date for me with one of her many clients, Robert Warren, a conservative wunderkind from the other side of the state. He’s so not my type. But he checks that “Master of the Universe” box, so Darcy is insisting that I go—and frankly it will take me less time to just go on the date than it would to try to talk her out of it.
I google him and he looks like a Ken doll in a Brooks Brothers suit. Judging from the hundreds of photos online, he seems stiff, and humorless, and boring as hell. Oh well, I can survive anything for a few hours. I mean, how bad could it possibly be? At least it can’t be worse than Kai the tantric yogi and our ill-fated ER date.
The congressman’s assistant calls me to set up the details. She’s efficient and polite, and informs me that Robert Warren will be driving to Sarasota from West Palm Beach on Saturday. He’ll pick me up at my home around noon, and we’ll be going to some sort of outdoor festival, weather permitting. She asks me to please wear a dress, which I find incredibly arrogant and obnoxious—but who knows, maybe the congressman is worried we’ll be photographed together or something and wants to make sure I look appropriate.
On Saturday, my doorbell rings at noon on the dot, and I appreciate that his timing is so precise after a three-hour drive. It takes a special sort of skill to be that prompt.
As I open my front door, my mouth drops open from shock—because standing on my porch is a cross between a Norse god, the Grinch, and one of the odder characters from Lord of the Rings.
38
“Gunner Starlord at your service, Lady Alexandra,” he says, bowing deeply.
WTF? His face is completely covered in some sort of greenish-black makeup, and he’s sporting a Viking helmet with those little horns on the sides, and black boots caked in mud. He’s draped in multiple brown cloaks and lace-up leather armor, a single fingerless black leather glove, and a red cape draped over his arm. He carries a puffy, oddly shaped sword-like object, and a puffy, oddly shaped shield adorned with a crest comprised of two crisscrossed hammers and a bear eating a lion. Because, sure.
“Robert?” I ask tentatively. Please say no, please say no, please say you have the wrong house …
I’m going to kill Darcy.
He stands up a little straighter, puffs out his chest, and smiles, “Yes, Robert Warren, so nice to meet you, Alex. Darcy has told me so much about you.”
“Ah, that’s so nice,” I say. I wish I could say it was nice to me him.
“You must be wondering about my appearance,” he says.
“It did cross my mind,” I say.
“I’m Gunner Starlord, Human Warrior of the Isle of Black Elder.”
“I’m confused.” Gunner Starlord?
“I’m a LARPer, and there’s an imperial battle for the realms today,” he informs me. “We mustn’t be late. There is much at stake.”
“I thought you were a congressman,” I say, still trying to wrap my head around the costume. And the foam sword. And the whole “Call me Gunner Starlord” thing. Darcy’s probably laughing her ass off about now.
“LARP means ‘live action role-playing,’” he says.
“You mean like a Renaissance fair? Or one of those historic battle reenactments?”
He sniffs condescendingly. “It’s a little more involved than that, Alex.”
“Ah, I see,” I say. But I don’t see. I don’t have any idea what he’s talking about. He looks like an escaped mental patient.
“Are you going to invite me in?” he asks. Now, that’s a question for the ages.
“Yoohoo! Hello, Alex!” my neighbor Zelda calls from the sidewalk as she walks her little dog, Gabbiano, past my house. Gabbiano tugs at his leash, wanting to come in to play with Morley. I wave back as she grins and raises her eyebrows at my costumed, shield-carrying date, all decked out in his medieval garb.
“Uh, sure,” I say to Robert/Gunner Starlord. “Please come in.”
He steps inside, and casually sets his sword and shield against my hall table.
I’m trying to keep an open mind, really I am. Really.
Robert/Gunner Starlord explains that we’ll be attending a LARP for our date, that the red cape is for me to wear, and that he’s already taken the liberty of creating a character for me. He’ll explain on the way.
This, I’ve gotta hear.
On the entire forty-five-minute drive to wherever in the hell he’s taking me, Robert regales me with his character Gunner Starlord’s highly detailed backstory, including his family history, epic foam-sword battles, rivalries with other imaginary people, and romantic encounters with witches, fairies, and magical healers.
He’s speaking in vocabulary I can barely follow, a breakneck dissertation on concentrated fire and destroy shields and one-hundred damage or two-hundred damage; levels and points; elves and barbarians and witch hunters.
I’m trying to be a good sport and absorb as much as I can; this feels oddly like one of my weird Voldemort dreams. Robert/Gunner Starlord reaches over to the glove box and pulls out a thick book, hand-bound in an uneven piece of leather, dropping it in my lap. I flip through it, curiously; it’s probably two hundred pages—a highly detailed rule book for the imaginary world we’re about to enter. Oh dear Lord, what has Darcy gotten me into?
We park and once we exit the car, Robert/Gunner Starlord hands me a character card and the red cape, and a small dagger made out of foam and duct tape.
“For your protection,” he says solemnly. “It’s a boffer.”
“Excuse me?” I say.
“A boffer, that’s what these types of weapons are called.”
According to the card he’s given me, I’m a healer, which means I get to attend to the imaginary wounded after their battles. I’m not sure what that entails, but I’m here, so I might as well play along. I pull on the red cape. Even though I feel like an idiot.
It’s surreal as we walk into the elaborate campsite, set up like a small village and populated by all sorts of medieval and fantasy characters, many of whom apparently spent the night. In the woods. I don’t even like regular camping—and it occurs to me that it’s probably really hard to sleep on the ground while wearing fairy wings. Or horns. Gunner Starl
ord leads me through the crowd, and a woman wearing a black bustier, a feather cape, and a pointy hat hurls oatmeal mixed with green glitter at me, as she recites an incantation.
“Jalla kaboobba whencas odium…”
“Hmmf, don’t mind her,” Starlord whispers in my ear. “That’s just Morgana. She’s only a level-three wizard. Her spells can’t harm you.” I start cracking up and immediately my hand flies to cover my mouth when I realize that Gunner Starlord is deadly serious.
39
My date with Congressman Robert Warren, aka Gunner Starlord, was, by far, the most bizarre six hours of my life.
I mean, how often do you get to see your date battle it out with foam hammers and swords with another grown man dressed up as a Minotaur, like it’s some magical medieval fight club?
The second he drops me off at my house and pulls out of the driveway, I’m on the phone to Darcy and Sam.
“How’d it go?” asks Sam.
“You seriously would not believe it if you saw it for yourself,” I say. I tell them about the LARPers, the elaborate costumes and makeup, my observation that the unparalleled fashion of choice for witches, fairies, and elven women is a dead heat between the breast-hoisting bustier and the wench gown. “I don’t know that it’s even necessary to put them on display,” I joke. “I think a lot of those guys may not have even encountered a real live woman before. It might just be too much for them to handle.”
I replay every detail of the battle royal between the congressman and the Minotaur, the spell-caster who seemed to have it in for me, and as much as I could remember about the excruciatingly detailed backstory of Gunner Starlord.
“Gunner Starlord?” roars Darcy, “Gunner fucking Starlord?”
“Yep,” I answer, laughing so hard I can barely catch my breath.
“I heard he was a weird one, but I had no idea.” Darcy laughs. “Please, please tell me you took a picture.”
“I’m texting it to you now,” I say. “Show no one. This does not leave the three of us.”
“Nice cape,” cracks Darcy.
My misadventure with Gummer Starlord was like a bad omen of what was to come.
To say that my dates with the sensitive artist and the lead guitarist did not go well would be the understatement of the year. The sensitive artist (okay, mentally unstable graphic designer, but close enough) wept inconsolably for forty-five minutes over a two-year-old breakup, and didn’t stop until the busboy cleared the table. Now I know how Ferret Guy felt.
Twenty minutes into the date at the finest table Hooters had to offer, the wannabe rocker, who asked to be called Kryptic, enthusiastically suggested I recruit our waitress for a BDSM threesome back at his place.
“Are you wearing panties?” he asked me while lecherously swirling a chipotle garlic chicken drummette in bleu cheese dressing.
“Are you wearing an ankle monitor?” I shot back.
“I’ve got the largest collection of nipple clamps on the East Coast,” he whispered.
“I’m sure your mother is very proud,” I said, wishing I’d taken Darcy up on her offer to buy me a stun gun for my birthday. You know, just in case. Although this creep would have probably liked it. Ten minutes later I was back in my car, speeding toward home.
Michael keeps promising to find me not only a replacement soul mate, but also a quarterback, and he hasn’t delivered on either. I’m not holding my breath.
But at least my Naughty Nine list is now down to a more manageable Terrifying Threesome: The bad boy. The quarterback. The sexy foreign guy.
Well, foursome if you count the fish.
It’s too bad that I can’t count Ferret Guy and Dr. Dicpic against my Naughty Nine, but apparently nobody truly needs to date a math teacher or an Internet pervert before they find true love.
I keep thinking that if I stay busy, I won’t be sitting around obsessing over my embarrassment about the fact that Nate hasn’t called. Yet. It’s not working.
Two days later Michael finally (finally!) comes through on his promise to introduce me to a quarterback. No sign or word of the soul mate he promised. Dane Cooper is the injured, first-string quarterback for the University of South Florida. He apparently broke his foot while he was being sacked by the East Carolina Pirates, which is why I’ve agreed to meet him at his house instead of a restaurant or bar—the cast makes driving difficult. Anyway, it’s some sort of dinner party with his “crew,” which is, I guess, another way of saying his teammates.
The drive to Tampa is about an hour, which gives me plenty of time to think about the insanity of going on a blind date, arranged by my gay ex-husband, with a twenty-one-year-old college student—and psych myself up for the evening. I need to check off the quarterback on my Naughty Nine list, so I put the fact that he’s unbelievably young—not to mention Michael’s idea of a good date for me—out of my head. As I pull in to the parking lot of his apartment complex, something dawns on me for the first time … I wonder what’s in it for him. A thing for older women? The hope that Michael will give him some airtime? I’m in no position to judge someone else’s motives, being that I’m only here to satisfy some silly requirement on the Naughty Nine list.
After climbing two flights of stairs, I’ve arrived at the door of 3K, Dane’s apartment. Thumping hip-hop seeps down from upstairs, there are pizza boxes and beer bottles on the stair landings, and the place has the sort of beigey, run-down, burritos, old cigarettes, and vomit aura of every college apartment complex you’ve ever seen or lived in. And can’t wait to escape the second you get your diploma.
What in the hell am I doing here?
I knock on the door and it takes Dane a good thirty seconds to answer. I’m remembering I saw a Waffle House on the side of I-75 on the way up here and fantasizing about drowning my dating sorrows in a double order of hash browns, just as Dane finally opens the door. Another ten seconds and I would have lost my nerve and headed back home.
“Hey,” he says, “thanks for driving so far.” Okay, good start. He’s polite. Well, polite-ish. He’s pretty tall, probably six-four, with the strong, chiseled chest and arms of a guy who’s been doing two-a-days since he was about five. He’s wearing a USF T-shirt and baggy athletic shorts. So, it’s not a formal dinner party. I’m feeling a bit overdressed in my wrap dress and heels.
Dane’s hair is dirty blond, and he’s got the patchy starter beard of a teenager. He motions for me to come inside, grinning adorably. Nice smile. Great teeth. He’s wearing some kind of headset, with the microphone pushed up. Like the kind coaches wear on the sidelines.
He steps back from the door, and I notice the clunky blue cast on his left foot.
“No problem,” I say. “How’s your foot?”
“Uh, it sucks. But the painkillers are cool,” he says, dragging his foot back to the couch. I follow him inside and close the door behind me. “You look pretty hot,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say, feeling weirdly self-conscious as I look around the room. Oh gawd, he’s so young.
The apartment is heavy with the gaminess of testosterone laced with pot, decorated with liquor bottles and dirty laundry, and dark. Bent white blinds drawn closed cover the windows. He sits down on a brown-and-orange-flowered velveteen sofa that predates him by a couple of decades, and props his cast up on a dinged-up coffee table with brass detail on the corners. I sit down at the far end of the sofa, and check out the apartment. The furniture is mismatched, banged up, and solely functional. But he has a huge TV mounted to the wall, another gigantic TV perched on a stand on top of a black entertainment unit right below it, a massive sound system, and three different gaming systems—it’s a virtual shrine to manly electronics.
“Are you a meat lover?” he asks casually. He checks his phone and then sets it down on the coffee table next to another headset like the one he’s wearing.
“What?” I ask. Gross. What is this, some kind of pervy frat boy come-on?
“Pizza,” he says. “Are you okay with the Meat Lover, or do yo
u want something else, like cheese or veggie? Lotsa girls like the veggie.”
“Oh,” I say, embarrassed. “Anything’s fine, thanks.”
He picks up his phone and calls in the pizza order. Two pizzas, both covered in meat.
“You want a beer?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say. This date will go easier with alcohol. He stands up and hobbles over to the refrigerator, his cast clunking on the tile floor. He pulls out two bottles of beer, and now I feel guilty, I should have offered to get up. The poor guy has a broken foot, after all. He twists the caps off the bottles and hands one to me.
He sinks back down into the sofa, grabbing a remote off the table. The TV is on, and a buff, animated soldier loaded down with machine guns and grenades shifts back and forth on screen. The soldier looks antsy, like he really needs to find a restroom or something.
“We’re going to play Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare with my clan,” says Dane.
“Clan?” I ask, horrified. “Like the Klan?”
“Naw,” he says, “that’s fucked up. We’re playing with my clan, my crew, my boys.” I must still look confused. “My friends,” he clarifies.
I feel about seventy right now.
Dane hands me a headset, like the one he’s wearing, “Here ya go. Put it on.”
“Oh, I’m not really much of a video game player,” I say, fiddling with the headset.
“That’s okay,” he says. “We really just need a fill-in. We’ve got a ranked match tonight streaming on Twitch and Matty got carpal tunnel.”
The only three words I understood in that sentence were okay, really, and match. Oh, and carpal tunnel. What the hell is Dane talking about?
“Huh?” I say eloquently.
“Just put it on,” he says. “It’s cool, I’ll help you out. We’ll do all the work. We just needed another warm body so we didn’t get disqualified on this round.”
“That sounds important,” I say, “and I don’t want to mess it up for you.” Actually, it sounds pretty ridiculous, but I’m keeping my mouth closed on that one.