Page 4 of Marriage (Red, White &) Blues

He let out a slow breath. “Yes,” he said, looking up at the sky for a moment as if to give thanks. “I need you to know I’m actually an intelligent man. It’s just… I studied Japanese in school.”

Heneededme to know? Interesting. I repeated myself, this time in English. “I have a loaf of bread I can share.”

This stranger shot me these eyes that said “I’m really glad you offered,” even as heactuallysaid, “You don’t have to do that.”

“I know,” I replied, laughing yet again. “But I feel bad that you lost your lunch.”

“I see you feel very badly for me. Laughing always shows sympathy.”

I snorted. Sexy, right? But it appeared that Mr. Greatness here had some cheek to his personality. I loved cheeky comebacks. Ilivedfor them.

“Tell you what,” he said, with the decency tonotcomment on my offending nose giggle. “I’ll take you up on your offer if you join me.”

Well, I thought about it for maybe a second before answering, “Why not?” We had a beautiful view by the river. And wasn’t this what I came here for? An adventure. When a beautiful, cheeky man wanted to eat lunch with me, who was I to argue? I dropped down across from him on the blanket he’d laid out.

“Are you American?” I asked. “You sound very American.”

“Yeah. I’m from the great state of Vermont.”

“Oh, I’m from Michigan.”

“I could tell by your accent.”

“Excuse me.” I said, totally affronted. “Michigandersdon’t haveaccents. Everyone else does.” This timehelaughed atme.

“I assure you. You do.”

“Well, we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that,” I responded, though I did so smirking.

“So, what’s your name?” he asked.

“Gloria.”

“Glory, I like it.”

“Um… actually, it’s Gloria.” No one but my dad ever called me “Glory” and he’d died going on five years ago now, which meant no oneevercalled me “Glory.”

“Are you sure? From what I see, Glory just seems to fit you.” He pulled off his aviator glasses, in this slow, deliberate—whoa, sorry—I meant narrowing. Yes, he narrowed his beautifully dark eyes as if assessing me. God, any more movements like that could get me into some trouble. I almost missed him ask, “What’s your last name, Gloria?”

Uh… he thought Glory fit me? Why did I like that so much? It should’ve bothered me to hear that nickname again, but I realized I wanted nothing more than to hearthis mancall me Glory.

“You can call me Glory,” I offered. Then, because it hit me that he’d moved on from that part of the conversation and my gut told me that this was a good guy who wasn’t out to hurt me, I answered his question. “Kowalski. I’m part Irish”—I pointed to my red hair— “and part Polish.”

“Gloria’s Latin, did you know?”

“Yes. That’s after my Polish grandmother—her middle name. Butmymiddle name, Brianne, is Irish, after my other grandmother. My parents weren’t very creative.”

“Glory B!” he shouted and I bit my lip, shaking my head. “The woman I’m ready to eat lunch with.”

“No one has teased me with that in years.”

“It seemed apropos for the situation. Don’t you think?”

“No.” I smiled. I couldn’t help it. “You’re going to run that joke into the ground now, aren’t you?”

“Possibly,” he said, “We’ll have to see how the day goes.”

I rolled my eyes. “Right. What’s your name, then?”

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