Miss Matched

Chapter 3

It's been two weeks since Antonio left me on the steps of my apartment. That's right – the steps. Not only was I a failure at second dates, but apparently, I'd failed at having a one-night stand. Not every time, mind you. I'm not a virgin. Just a failure this time with the Italian Adonis that I so badly wanted to, ahem, do.

I was still toasty, even after we started to walk home, but I wasn't blotto. I knew exactly what I was doing and how badly I wanted to do it. Antonio held my hand so sweetly as we walked the quiet campus streets. We weren't having conversation in that pre-sex-with-a-stranger- awkwardness kind of way. Instead there was a comfortable silence that can be found with the closest of friends and family.

Suddenly, Antonio said, "Your mother and father are an attractive couple."

Back to my mom. Le sigh. "Peter's not my dad, but yes, they both look good for their age."

"I didn't mean outward attractive. I meant the way they are with each other. They have la scintilla ...I'm sorry I do not know the American word."

La scintilla. Sometimes I liked to pretend that my mother annoyed Peter as much as she did me, but the truth was that he adored her and vice versa. "I understand what you mean."

"Peter is your step-father? Your mother's second husband?"

"Actually, Peter is the fourth or fifth."

Antonio looked aghast. I didn't blame him. It horrified me too.

"I don't know my father. My mother didn't marry him." In the most ironic twist ever.

"My father passed away when I was young," Antonio confesses. "My mother has a man that lives with her. He's like a stepfather and I keep hoping my mama will marry him, but she's very old fashioned." He shrugs.

"Old fashioned?"

"She believes you only marry once. That was my dad."

"That's nice. My mother could learn something from yours."

"Sometimes people want to be married so badly, but they haven't met the right person. I understand your mother."

That was such a strange thing for him to say. Almost like he was saying he wanted to be married.

Maybe my dating history is a good thing. I'm not ready for anything that serious!

"Ouch!" A pebble had worked its way into my sandal somehow. I couldn't take it even though we were only a block from my apartment. I stopped walking and sat on a bus bench. "I'm sorry, I have to take these off." Antonio sat next to me while I slipped the medieval torture device off my foot. I tipped the shoe and the pebble slid down to the ground. Antonio gently took my foot and examined the sore spot.

"I can see why that drummer got mad in the head," Antonio twirled his finger around his ear. "You have princess feet."

If he was trying to seduce me, we were way past that. I laughed. "What are princess feet?"

"You didn't hear that story as a child? There is a prince who has to pick from three princesses. The first suffers agony when one hair of hers is pulled during brushing." Antonio ran his fingers through my hair. "The second can't sleep when there is a wrinkle in her sheet. And the third has an injury when a jasmine petal falls upon her foot." He lightly brushed my foot and then removed the other shoe. It was crazy, crazy sexy. And we were on a bus bench. A block from my apartment.

"It's like the Italian version of The Princess and the Pea."

"Pee? You tell children a story about a princess and the bathroom?"