I didn’t wait for Luke to return with the water. I figured I needed to get out of there and tell Daniel what I heard, form a plan. I knew he’d be bummed about missing out on the opportunity to train Luke, but if I could find a way to convince Luke I could teach him to swim, maybe I had a chance.
***
First, I needed to tell my roommate, Michelle, about my surprise meeting. I texted her to meet me at our favorite bakery. After the swing of emotions I’d felt that day, I needed a sugary treat. I slid in a booth across from Michelle with my tea and a slice of apple pie. Michelle yawned, having stayed up late studying for the LSATs. After working as a paralegal for a few years, she realized she was just as smart as most of the lawyers she worked with and decided to get a law degree herself.
“You’ll never guess what happened to me,” I said as Michelle took a bite of her cheese Danish. She was thin with curly brown hair and seemed to never worry about calories. “I met Luke Mulligan.” I gave her a smug smile.
“What?” she said, looking at me shocked.
“Yep,” I nodded. “Daniel was supposed to train him. It’s supposed to be a secret so the gossip rags don’t find out,” I whispered for effect.
“Then how did you meet him?”
“Well, Daniel’s arm is in a cast. Let’s just say it was a set up with some tramp and two thugs who stole Daniel’s money and broke his arm. But don’t worry, I was like a gladiator, well, as much of a gladiator as I could be in those strappy black heels I have.” I took a bite of pie.
“Oh, I like those heels. They’re so cute.” Michelle nodded her head in understanding.
“So Daniel sent me to train Luke, and I messed it all up.” I told Michelle all about meeting Luke, his sexy booty, and how he basically fired me. When I got to the part about overhearing Katie, Michelle grabbed my arm, nearly spilling my tea on the table.
“You have to train him. You can swim better than anyone I know. You’re practically a fish.”
“I prefer mermaid,” I stroked my hair in a motion of glamour. “But I don’t have his number, he just dismissed me, and I’ll never see him again,” I added.
We batted around some ideas such as sending him a video of me in a pool. No – way too creepy. Or Michelle’s best idea, me breaking into his house and skinny dipping. Definitely – no. Literally all our ideas sucked. Nothing was going to work, including me bumping into him at the beach. In all the celebrity news articles I read about Luke, not once had he visited the beach.
I did know, however, that he belonged to a private country club where he liked to golf. That didn’t seem to help, though. I knew they had super tight security, and I’d never be able to get in without a membership.
I slipped out from the table to go to the beverage area to refill my tea. On my way, I noticed a table with some trash on it, which I picked up and put in the trashcan. A man I didn’t know came and asked if I could refill his coffee.
“Sorry, I don’t work here,” I said.
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t notice. Your shirt kind of looks like their uniform.” I looked at the girl behind the cash register. She wore a black shirt embroidered with an emblem for the bakery that was not too dissimilar to the Nike swoosh on my black workout shirt. I scurried back to the table with Michelle.
“Hey, where’s your tea?” she asked.
“Forget the tea. Remember my dilemma – need money to pay off my student debt and get those collection agents off my back, plus my desire to work with the famously sexy Luke Mulligan at the same time?”
“Yep.”
“I need a uniform.”
“What uniform?”
“One for the club Luke belongs to.”
I explained how the man mistaking me for an employee got me thinking about how I just might be able to sneak into Luke’s country club if I looked like I worked there. It seemed like a solid plan because the next day was Sunday, a prime golfing day for sure. According to Talk of the Town Magazine, Luke liked to unwind from a busy week with a round of golf on the day of rest. So far, my encyclopedic knowledge of Luke Mulligan appeared to be coming in handy.
I knew a girl Daniel had dated who worked at Luke’s club as a cocktail waitress and complained about serving drinks to rich snobs who tipped well, but rarely said thank you. She talked about how all the golfers would reconvene poolside for cigars and drinks. Luke was probably one of them. Although, I’m sure my Luke always thanked his waitresses.
“Wear your bathing suit underneath, and when you see Luke, dive in and show him your stuff,” Michelle suggested.
“I don’t think it’ll be that easy. I mean first of all, do I really want Luke Mulligan to see me in a bathing suit?”
“Stella, come on. You look great. Can you just get over it already? Put what happened with Ryan in the past.” Michelle knew how sensitive I became about my body after Ryan. Not only was my self-esteem bruised after what Ryan did, so was my wallet. Little did I know he was running up charges on my credit card behind my back too. That and my student loans left me in a terrible financial hole, one I was slowly trying to dig myself out of.
“ Luke DID call me cute.”
“He what!?” Michelle grabbed the corners of the table and looked in my eyes to see if I was pulling her chain. “The man of your dreams, the hunky man you’ve watched for hours and hours in your favorite movie, the man you read every bit of tabloid gossip about, called you cute?”
“Well, yeah.” I smiled, brightening from the inside out at the thought of Luke and his comment. “But it was only after he called me ‘not slim enough to be a runner.’”
“Who wants to be a stick figure with no boobs anyway? There is no way he doesn’t want to see you again. Just no way.” Michelle was convinced.
“How am I going to get a uniform though?”
“Go see Daniel. He’s not the sharpest, but sometimes his brain works differently or something and he might be able to help you with this crazy idea,” she suggested.
Michelle made me believe our plan could actually work. If there was some way I could find a uniform, I’d be set. Now that I had experienced a slice of Luke Mulligan, I wanted the whole pie.