Free Trophy Husband by Lauren Blakely

in my imagination. Call me crazy, but I want
the complete package. Brains, humor, looks, hands and tongue and
lips that turn me inside out, and most of all, a kind heart.
    “Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,
violet.”
    * * *
    “How can I put this
tactfully? He wasn’t exactly playing with a full deck, know what I
mean?” I state as I take another drink of my Purple Snow Globe , a new drink Julia
is testing out on me at her home away from home, Cubic Z in the
SOMA neighborhood where she tends bar. It’s got raspberry juice,
gin and sugar crystals on the rim.
    “Like missing a card or two, or maybe an
entire suit?”
    “Jules, he could have had an eight-incher
and I wouldn’t have cared.”
    Julia raises an eyebrow. “Have you ever had
an eight-incher?”
    I shake my head. “Not that I know of.”
    “Let me tell you something, sister. It’s not
like you need to break out the ruler to know when it’s eight
inches. You just know.”
    I place the martini glass down on the
counter and look straight at her. “You’ve had eight inches?”
    “Why do you think I dated Donovan three
times? It wasn’t his conversational skills,” she says, then tells
me she’ll be right back. A customer at the other end needs a
refill.
    Julia is, quite simply, a heartbreaker.
First, she’s sexy and curvy and has that kind of reddish-auburn
hair that drives men wild. Second, she’s a bartender. Men dig that.
They think a chick who can mix drinks is manna from heaven and
Julia is. That’s why Donovan kept returning to her. She kept going
back to him because he was, evidently, endowed with a Magic 8. But
she wanted other attributes kicking on all cylinders too.
    “All I am saying is,” Julia begins after
she’s returned to my corner of the bar, “Looks and, well, you know,
size, aren’t all that. You’ve got to be able to have a conversation
with a guy. When I find someone I can actually talk to that’s when
I’ll know I’ve found the one.”
    I flash back to Chris, to
our easy conversations in the store, and earlier today by the
beach. Fine, we only chatted for a few minutes each time, but there
was something sort of instant in our connection. The kind of quick
banter and repartee that makes a girl think of possibilities, of
days and nights, and music and laughter. That makes a girl think
songs were written for them. As I take another swig of her
concoction, I let myself linger on those words again. If I’m lucky.
    Did he mean those words? Was that some
subtle way of saying he wants to see me again?
    I click on the browser on my phone and go to
his Web site. The connection in this bar is molasses slow, so the
page won’t fully load, but his picture appears.
    I can’t help myself. I smile. My stomach
executes a teeny-tiny flip. I trace a line across his face. He’s so
handsome, with that sun-kissed hair, and his bright green eyes. He
has this fabulous smile, like he’s a happy guy, like life is good,
and he’d bring nothing but pleasure and wit and great conversation
into my life. I should call him. I should email him. I should ask
him out on a date. We could be so good together, we could sail off
into the moonlight.
    And there I go, in my imagination. Time
slows, and the bar disappears, and it’s just Chris and me. He’s
taken me out for coffee, or dinner, or a movie. Or better yet – a
round of Candyland at the kitchen table. We could even invent our
own rules that involve kissing every time you have to go back a few
spaces.
    Or more.
    Kissing that leads to so
much more. I close my eyes, and picture a kiss that starts sweet
and soft and slow. Then, his hands cup my face as if he’s claiming
me, saying you’re mine with his lips and his hands and the way he draws me in close,
his thumb tracing a line along my jaw. It’s such a small gesture,
but such a poetically possessive one and I arch my back, inviting
more. In one swift move, he pulls my chair to him, sliding me
between the V of his legs. His fingers