Destiny by chance: A Contemporary Romance Fiction Novel (9 page)

Bingo ended right on time, with seconds to spare.  Lisa left not long after the last game to drive her grandpa home.  Destiny insisted Lisa leave.  She didn’t mind staying to help in any way needed, and knew Lisa still had paperwork to do at her salon.  What else did
she
have to do?  Destiny wasn’t tired, and didn’t want to go home.  Not just yet.  However, to avoid running into Owen again, she worked as far away from the kitchen as possible, cleaning tables and collecting bingo cards.  Thankfully, he was busy inventorying for the following week.  At one point, when she caught him looking around the room, she ducked down as if picking something up from the floor, peering over the chair until she didn’t see him anymore.

“He’s gone,” a voice said, from behind.

Destiny yelped.  “God, you startled me!” she exclaimed, standing, embarrassed that she’d been busted.  “What is it about the men around here, sneaking up on people?”

“I wasn’t sneaking up on you,” he defended.

Destiny picked up a hush puppy from the floor and held it up for him to see as if it proved her intent all along.  Bill nodded wryly.  Destiny tossed it into the trashcan and, without another word, moved to the other side of the room.  Bill watched her, grinning to himself.  He shook his head and returned to the kitchen.

“Hey, Bill,” Owen began.  “I was just about to leave.  You haven’t seen Destiny, have you?”

“Destiny?”  Bill asked, feigning confusion.

“Yeah, Lisa’s friend.”

“Oh, yeah, Destiny.  No, I haven’t seen her,” he lied.  He turned and dried off the last of the serving utensils.  “So, how did your little dinner date go?” Bill mocked.

“Just fine,” Owen insisted.  “She’s not very chatty, though,” he replied, almost disappointed.

“Maybe you monopolized the conversation, like usual.”

Owen crinkled his lips.  “I didn’t monopolize the conversation.  She was probably so awe-struck by what I had to say that she didn’t know what to say, herself.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Sarcasm,” Owen retorted.  “I get it.  More like misplaced jealousy.”

“Jealousy?” 

“I see the way you look at her,” Owen said, sticking a toothpick between his lips.  “But she’s not your type.”

Bill drew in a deep breath as he turned around, feeling his brother push his buttons, much as he had all his life.  “Goodnight, Owen.”

Owen made a face, knowing he’d just been dismissed.  With a final glance around the room, he overlooked Destiny, who was emptying a trash can.  “Well, her loss, Owen said, more to himself than anyone else.  “Goodnight,” he called to his brother’s back, as he strode down the hallway and out the door.

An hour later, after everything was cleaned and locked up, Bill walked with Destiny and three other female volunteers to the back parking lot.  They walked Destiny to her car first; then the others walked together until Bill was the only one remaining.  After climbing into his top-rated, safest-car-on-the-road-for-families, he started her up.  Bill adjusted the temperature and then the radio before looking up.  He watched through the windshield, then rolled down his window, listening to Destiny’s attempts to crank her car, only it wasn’t turning over.  Bill sighed and stepped from his own vehicle.  Lightly he tapped on her window.

“Jesus!” she exclaimed, as she grabbed her chest.  She drew in a breath and rolled down her window.

“Sorry,” he said, holding up his hands.  “Didn’t mean to scare you,” he smiled.  “Again.”

“It’s okay.”  Destiny looked down at her dashboard.  “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Here, let me give it a try.” Bill watched her slender frame slide from the seat so that he could sit down. As she brushed past him, he could smell her shampoo.  Coconut Milk.  He breathed it in.  It was… amazing.  When she turned, her eyes were on his.  At first, he felt they were making a connection—what kind of connection, he had no clue.  It had been a long time since he’d connected with any woman.  Then he realized she was waiting, expectantly.  Only not for what he was thinking.  He stepped aside for her to pass, then sat down.

After several attempts at starting her car, he popped the hood and began jiggling wires and lines, then checked her oil, water, and transmission fluid.  Finally, he turned to her and wiped his hands on a rag he had retrieved from his vehicle just moments before.  “I’m not a mechanic,” he sighed dramatically.  “But I’d say, she’s not going anywhere anytime soon.”

“Great.” Destiny exhaled in frustration and took out her cell phone.  “I’ll call Triple A.”

“Whoever they call will charge you extra for this hour of the night,” he said.  “I only know,” he stammered, “because I had car trouble about this time a few months ago.”  He looked down at his watch.  “Look, let me take you home. I can drop you off, and then you can call Triple A.  I’ll pick you up in the morning and bring you back by here.”

“You don’t have to go to all that trouble.”

“It’s no trouble.  My daughter is at a slumber party and won’t be home until late in the morning.”

Destiny dropped her head in defeat and sighed.  “I’d argue, but I don’t have many alternatives at this point.”

“Gee, I’ll try and not take that too personally.”

“Sorry.  Didn’t mean it that way.”

“It’s okay,” he sighed.  “Lock her up and we’ll go.”

“Will it be safe here?”

“It will be fine.  The lighting is good, and no one has ever been broken into here before.”

Destiny took everything from her car that she felt had any value and then hit the key fob several times, to assure it was locked.  Then she climbed into the passenger seat of Bill’s CR-V.

“Air okay?” he asked, adjusting the temp and the vents.

Destiny nodded.

“Where to?”

Destiny gave him directions, and he keyed them into his GPS computer.  Nervously, he ran his hands along the steering wheel as he pulled from the parking lot.

“So, how did your dinner date go?”

“My what?”

“Dinner with Owen,” he clarified.

“Oh, that,” she said, looking out her window.

“If you haven’t already figured it out, Owen…” he began.  “Owen is, well, for lack of a better word, weird.”

“Oh really!” she exclaimed.  “That’s putting it mildly,” she added under her breath.

“He’s always been that way.”

“Uh-huh?  And you still hang out with him?”

“Well, I’m kinda of stuck.  He is my brother.”

“Your brother?” she turned to him, surprised.

“Yeah.  You didn’t know?”

“No, I didn’t know.”

Bill grimaced.  “Well, I have to apologize for him a lot.”

“Really?  Why?  Because he’s an idiot?”

Bill laughed.  “Yeah.  Pretty much.”

Destiny chuckled as well.

“Hey!” Bill exclaimed suddenly, as they pulled up to a stoplight.  “How about I buy you a cup of coffee?” he asked anxiously.  “Like I said, my daughter is at a slumber party.  And to tell you the truth, I rarely ever get a chance to steal away.  You know, on my own,” Bill stumbled over his words.

Destiny looked down at her hands.  “Rarely, huh?”  She looked up at him.

“Rarely, as in never,” he replied.  The light changed from green and back to red, and no one noticed.

Destiny hesitated for a moment, then reluctantly said, “Sure, why not?” 

“Great.  A crappy cup of coffee it is,” he exhaled, and then pulled into an all-night fast food restaurant parking lot on the corner.

They were the only ones in the restaurant.  It was obvious the staff would have preferred to finish the evening without patrons.  Suddenly they had to turn down the loud music, stop joking around and actually work.  Destiny and Bill sat in silence in a booth by the window.  Many minutes went by before Destiny finally spoke.

“So, you have a daughter?”

“Yeah,” he answered nervously.

“How old is she?”

“Eight.”

“Eight,” she said sadly, looking down at her cup.  “My son was eight.”

“Yeah, Lisa told me,” he winced and sighed.  “I can’t imagine how devastating it would be to lose a child.”

Destiny didn’t look up.  Couldn’t look up.

“I’m so, so sorry,” he offered, reaching over and taking her hand.

Destiny slowly slid her hand from the table.  “Look, can we talk about something else?”

“We could talk about my brother, the idiot,” Bill offered with a smile.

Destiny chuckled.  “You know, I really wanted to put him in his place.” She shook her head.  “But I really felt like…”

“It wouldn’t do any good,” they said in unison.  Then they both laughed.

Bill tilted his head.  “It wouldn’t.”  He lowered his voice, as though they could be overheard by the other guests that weren’t there.  “That being said, he’s not a bad guy, all in all.  It’s just that he dances to the tune of a different drummer,” he recited.

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

“Henry David Thoreau,” they said again, together.  Destiny leaned forward, her defenses dissolving, feeling more comfortable as they spoke.

“Yeah,” he chuckled.  “My parents told me that once when I told them… well…” he stammered again.  “When I told them I thought he was an idiot.”

“You told your parents that?”

“Many times,” he said emphatically.  “Many,
many
, times.”  He toyed with his coffee cup and sighed.  “But, he was their son,” Bill shrugged.  “What would I do if someone told me that about my child?”

Destiny pursed her lips, then looked down, suddenly ashamed.  “Yeah,” was all she could say, understanding how it must feel to hear that about your own flesh and blood. “Yeah.”

They sat silently across from each other, quietly pensive.  Slowly his hand slid across the table to hers, lightly touching her fingers, teasingly; first two fingers, and then three, then more.  When she didn’t move her hand away, his hand finally rested on hers.  Neither of them looked up as their coffee cooled before them. 

After a minute, maybe more, Bill slid his other hand to hers and took her hand tentatively in his.  His hands were firm but gentle, his fingers tracing hers, carefully exploring every curve, every crease in her hand. Her skin was delicate and soft; her nails rounded and shiny, and it felt good.  At first, she didn’t appear to mind, in fact, she seemed to relax in his grip.  Bill looked up, opening his mouth as though he wanted to say something, wanted to ask her something.  But then he stopped.  Her hand still rested in his, the other still exploring, testing her boundaries as it gently brushed her wrist.  It had been years since he’d held a woman’s hand.  Slowly, they embraced hers fully, encompassing it, warming it.

Destiny felt her heart racing.  How could something so casual feel so sensual, so intimate?  What was she thinking?  Who was this man?  She didn’t know him.  They’d hardly spoken.  And yet, being here with him felt… right.  Nice.  Destiny didn’t dare look up for fear he’d let go. It had been so long since anyone had held her hand in this way.  Years, in fact.  Phillip was the love of her life, and yet, she couldn’t even remember the last time he had made her feel this way, just by holding her hand.  Slowly Destiny closed her eyes.  Bill’s hand traveled past her wrist, and she suddenly became self-conscious of what he would find.  Immediately she pulled her hand from his, and it retreated into her lap.

The manager on duty tapped on their table, breaking the trance.  They both looked up at once.  The young man that wreaked of stale cooking oil and burgers asked them flatly if they wanted anything else.  They looked at each other and then back to the manager and shook their heads.  “Great,” he responded, before turning and signaling with a circular motion of his finger for his crew to wrap it up.  They heard whoops and claps in the kitchen.  Destiny and Bill turned back to each other and smiled before bashfully looking away again. 

Bill stood and held out his hand for her to take, guiding her through the door, his hand at the curve of her back, as he held it open for her.  When he touched her, she didn’t tense up, as she did when Winston touched her, or even Owen.  Destiny felt herself relax and smile.  Actually smile.  Bill opened the car door for her, and then closed it after she climbed in.  They sat, quietly, after he started his car, then he turned to her, and she to him.  Their eyes met, speaking volumes through the silence. His hand sat limply on the gear shift.  Destiny slowly moved her hand to his and gently rested it on top, her fingers lightly brushing over his as the music played softly all around them.  Bill smiled sadly, and looked away.  Then they drove to her loft in silence.

Bill swallowed nervously, as he opened the passenger door.  Then he held out his hand once more.  Destiny looked up into his eyes, her demeanor softening as she set her hand on his.  It was as though, at that very moment, she trusted him.  His fingers refused to let hers go as he walked her to her apartment.  Their pace slowed, as they neared the point at which he would say goodbye.  It was the first time in a lifetime of goodbyes that he didn’t want to speak the words.  They arrived on the welcome mat at her front door stoop.  He didn’t release her hand, nor did she pull hers away.  He leaned against the door, studying every inch of her face.  For many moments, she didn’t look up at him.