Baewatch - Xavier Neal

Chapter 1

Note to Self: Never go out with a guy who has three first names he insists you call him by yet can’t even remember yours.

Joshua John Michael offers me an overfriendly grin at the same time he rests his elbow on the sticky bartop of the beachside watering hole that’s always filled with too many tourists and not enough bartenders. “Your name starts with a B, right?”

We’ve been on this date from hell for forty-five minutes.

Forty-five painfully long minutes.

Forty-five excruciatingly long minutes.

Like if my options are to have a pap smear and then my cooch waxed immediately afterwards by a first timer whose credentials are beyond fucking questionable or to continue this shit flop of a “date”, I’d choose option one.

No hesitation.

Unfortunately, I need an “appropriate” exit strategy that won’t get me banned from using this exclusive dating service again.

Though, when I do finally get out of this joke of a situation I feel belongs on a Netflix standup comedy special for the world’s entertainment, they will be getting an earful and a fucking half about this shit. It’s like come on. How are me and Keanu Skeeves here, a fucking match?!

“It’s gotta be a B because there’s a B in your profile name that I thought was alluding to your cup size,” his brown eyes cut the chest area of my light pink summer dress a brief glance, “and those are clearly bigger than a B.”

Appalment races against repulsion for the right to speak; however, the two are happy to share the same jaw-dropping expression that’s on my creamy chocolate toned face.

All of a sudden, another male’s voice cuts into the conversation, “There you are, Brooklyn!”

The two of us swing our attention around to where a beautiful, blond stranger is showcasing a panicked look that I find very unsettling.

Almost as unsettling as the fact that he knows my name, and I have no fucking idea who he is.

Sunshine and seashells – is my shitty day about to get even shittier?

First, the uncomfortable visit to the lady doctor, then, finding a dent in my Land Rover’s door from someone who parked too close while I was there, and lastly, this cringe-worthy moment that must’ve come from a deleted scene in a Malcolm D. Lee movie, have all been more than enough to label this block of twenty-four hours as terrible.

I’m not so sure I can handle anything else.

A very faint, well known, low-pitched humming begins in my right ear prompting me to curl and uncurl my toes, in an attempt to keep calm.

“Thank my lucky board I found you as quickly as I did!” The bright-blue-eyed stranger continues. “I know you were on a date tonight, one you were so excited for,” he tosses my awful date a sympathetic look and adds, “she really was, man. Told her big brother all about it.”

I don’t have a big brother.

Or a fucking brother at all for that matter.

“Sorry to have to tear her away from you like this,” the well-built man wearing a white, Jimi Hendrix “…Scuse me, While I Kiss the Sky” tank top apologizes profusely. “Again, I know she was thrilled to be going out with a guy like you.”

Overselling his lie.

Like a 30-foot wave level of too much.

“You know, a guy who has such a lucrative PR business and has worked with some very popular celebrities in the span of his very short career. One who she knows she’s just so lucky to be in the presence of.”

Ah.

And now his previously labeled oversell is undoubtably mockery.

Sarcasm so hilarious that I wish I could laugh out loud at it.

The real question here is…does John Dick realize what’s happening to him, or does he really think the hot blond stranger believes the bullshit that’s jet skiing out of his mouth?

“She is very lucky,” Joshua John Michael enthusiastically echoes.

Huh.

Not only is he too stupid to see he’s being lied to – on my profile it lists that I have a younger sister not a brother – and that he’s being made fun of – just listening to blondie’s tone of voice it’s evident – he’s also managed to make me even more disgusted with him than I was before. The guy is definitely a loser yet a winner on the loser scale.

“I know, dude. I know,” my blue-eyed escape assistant sighs, “but I’ve got to get her out of here. Her brother’s in the hospital. Car accident. And, I swore to her parents I would hunt her down and bring her there