Love Fool

3 You had me at "hello"

Late March

"Bugger it," I shouted, as I lifted my damaged shoe heel from between the pavement cracks.

They were a pair of my favorite Nine West shoes. Damn! After rescuing my left shoe from the hell-mouth of dirt and cement, the heel was now blotched with scratches and a small leather tear.

Two college students, who sat under a burgeoning violet Jacaranda tree outside QUT's Graduate School of Business building, looked up and raised their eyes at me in response to my curse. I raised one eyebrow and glared at them.

"You really ought to wear flats," Maddy once told me.

Yeah, I know, I know! I rolled my eyes at the thought of my closest friend, who similarly haunted my conscience to the way in which Jacob Marley haunted Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.

Well, it was not 1843, and I didn't need a conscience on the day I killed my shoe. What I needed was to do the following:

1. Hand in my financial management assignment before five p.m.

2. Grab some food. I was starving at that point.

3. Pick up a cold beer on the way home. Fourex beer, to be precise. This was the beer brand that many Queenslanders, including myself, were loyal to. You wouldn't catch me drinking Carlton Beer or Victoria Bitter unless it was for a bet that I had lost. I lost a bet once and had to drink the other piss, after arm wrestling a guy twice my size. I had a bit too many beers at the time and thought I was invincible, like Rambo.

***

Twenty minutes later, I walked out of the business school building, feeling as light as a feather after handing in a hefty assignment that was weighed with numbers, equations, and rationales.

I headed towards a breezy, but busy outdoor cafe, which was sandwiched between the business school building and the design and architecture school building. I was a hungry woman and had one mission: food.

After ordering and receiving a quiche, a garden salad, and a soft drink, I found an empty table that was calling my name. It was the last available table, so I scrambled to it before anyone else could grab it. I was about to dig into my salad when I sensed a presence at my table.

As my eyes slowly peered up, a burst of air suddenly whooshed out of my lungs. My knees shook, and my cheeks burned with...passion? What was this feeling? I felt as if my heart was scorched by a thousand flaming arrows fired by Eros, the Greek god of love.

Thor, the Norse thunder god, stood in front of me, blocking the sunset, which created a halo effect around him. His presence struck a bolt of lightning throughout my entire nervous system.

There he was-beautiful Thor, with his blessed Nordic features and his fair hair.

Eros' love arrows pierced my heart, while Thor's lightning ran down my veins, rendering me weak and wanting more of Sven.

Shit!

My heart raced a million miles an hour as my gaze looked up, before sinking and drowning into his oceanic eyes.

What kind of strange sorcery was this?

Sven wore a pair of faded jeans and a tight t-shirt, outlining his muscular figure. He had a beaded chain around his wrist, and Ray-Ban sunglasses tucked on the collar of his shirt. It was hard not to notice his broad shoulders, slim hips, and long legs. What struck me to the point of near blindness (they say love is blind), was his dazzling, dimpled smile.