A Quiet Kismet

Chapter Seven

AGE 26

Derek was out fetching Father Augestine as I tried to find a decent place to park. When I finally did, I sat in the idle car and turned on the radio.

It was tuned to static because Jorge wasn't living in Texas so the channels were all out of whack. I played a little game of radio destiny. It was something we used to do when we were kids and we road tripped to The Valley to visit family. All you had to do was ask a question and tune the radio to a random station and the song or lyrics playing at the time would be the answer.

Ruben came up with that game after a particularly long road trip where we were stranded outside of Austin for three hours. We were on a rural road with farmland stretching past yonder. We were all antsy waiting for the mechanic, so he asked us if we wanted to play a game to pass the time. He called it radio destiny. We asked a question and the radio would accurately answer it.

Jorge asked if this road trip was going to get better. We got Highway To Hell as our answer. We probably should've stopped there but we kept going until help finally arrived. The trip was a bust, but we had a new family game from then on.

I tried it and asked a question I was too afraid to ask again. "Why is Derek here and does that mean something more than just him being the groom's best friend?" Then I twisted the knob and landed on a station. It was a throwback station where they played old songs from yesteryear.

The song was Lover, You Should've Come Over by Jeff Buckley. His answer was, 'It's never over, she's the tear that hangs inside my soul'. What the hell did that mean though? Was I the tear in his soul he couldn't let go off? Or was he mine?

It was that stupid kismet conversation that was doing this to me. I'm a young, independent, smart, woman living in one of the greatest cities in the world working on her budding career. I was living the American dream, I needed to stop and think about all I have instead of what I don't.

Why would I ever be hung up on a boy I liked when I was a kid? When Mom moved us to Onassis I knew my pretend love story would end like so many do. He would be a childhood crush, a name brought up that would make me roll my eyes. He wasn't a kismet kind of guy. Our fates weren't intertwined.

But why did he re-enter my life, not once, but twice already? This is stupid, it's stupid. It's just a coincidence that Julia is marrying my childhood crush's best friend. It has to be, this kind of stuff doesn't happen for any real reason.

Screw this, I'm not some four year old pushing dirt in his face. I'm an adult with a life I made for myself. Why am I still acting like I hate him? Why am I still playing our old game? It's dumb. Why hate him? It doesn't benefit me, plus he's sort of cute. Maybe I could flirt with him and actually make this weekend sort of fun.

Actually no. That's probably a bad idea.

Before I could argue with myself more, there's a knocking on the window on the passenger side. I jumped at the sight of Derek pressing his face against the window, his nose squished against the glass like a pig. He laughed when he saw my face. Idiot.Okay he made it easy to hate him. He had like zero sex appeal.

I unlocked the door, and hopped out to help the priest with his luggage. Derek already had a handle on some of the luggage. In the t-shirt he was wearing, his muscles flexed. Soft faint veins bulged out of his tan arms as he picked up two duffle bags. I wondered what they felt like wrapped around...you know what, never mind this dude had sex appeal.

Snap out of it Amelia.

"I got it." Derek said when I reached for the smallest duffle bag the priest had brought. I nodded mutely and popped the trunk open before Derek shoved them in there next to a stack of toys my brother had back there for his daughter, Nattie. Derek turned to me, with a raised eyebrow.