Page 36 of Up All Night
Epilogue
Portland somehow managed to be wetter and colder than Japan when I got back one dreary Monday afternoon. My journey was so damn long and ridiculous that I think I slept for a whole week.
I attempted to get back to my usual life.
Work and the holidays gave me something to do and look forward to. Friends were happy to come by to visit and hear my crazy tales of going to bars in Japan and, you know, meeting a few people. They blushed to hear tales of my neighbor who kept me up all night, and not in the fun way. They couldn’t believe it when I let slip how I got back at him.
“Do you have a picture of him?” they always asked. Luckily, Hadrian had never unmatched from my profile, so I could show off the hot man who turned my life upside down and backward in Japan. Most of my friends agreed that he was fine to look at.
Other things were on my mind as well. After all, a condom had broken when I was with Hadrian, and I had no other forms of birth control on hand. Can you blame me when I say I was a bit obsessed with that fact?
I have opened this story by proclaiming it a Romance based on some crazy real life events. We all know that most life events don’t result in happily ever afters, but Romance stories demand them. Isn’t that why we read them? To know that something like that is possible? To believe, even if for a moment, that our own happily ever afters are out there waiting for us? That we can meet Mr. or Mrs. Right by chance and never see life the same way again?
So I have presented this story as a romance. I fully intend on giving you quite the ending.
Yet that ending didn’t come until late January, when the snow and ice began to thaw after one of the craziest storms Portland had seen in over a decade. Three of my friends approached me to go to the opening of a new restaurant everyone was talking about. Nobody could tell me what kind of food they made, and I didn’t care. I may be one of the pickiest people in the world, but if others are buying, I’ll go anywhere and at least pick at some plates
We hustled in our boots and most stylish jackets to the downtown center, where restaurants vie for prime real estate in a so-called foodie scene. Like I said, I’m a picky eater and nearly impossible to impress when it comes to cuisine. Can’t say I’m proud of it, but those are the cards my taste buds have dealt me. I take what I can get when it comes to good food.
(I prayed that it was Italian. Guess what? I was right!)
“Oh, this is dangerous,” one of my friends said as we were seated in the last available table in a crowded restaurant. “We’re going to end up in a coma from the breadsticks alone.”
God willing, huh? I love me a good carb coma! Is there anything better?
How about the fates conspiring to make one of your dreams come true?
Sometimes I pretended that I would see Hadrian again. That there was a chance. That the man I had a lot of things to say to would cross my path one day and we would share one of his adorable smiles. Yet I’m a realist. I understand what the odds of something like that are in this huge world…
…This huge world that isn’t so huge after all.
“Hello! What would you like to…”
Our waiter – who wasverysmartly dressed for a waiter, I might add – stopped short in front of our table.
You know, if I had been in Hadrian’s shoes, I probably would have thought I was seeing ghosts as well.
Whatever English he had rehearsed for his role in this restaurant, none of it was good enough for dealing with his current situation. Nor was I prepared to see the man who swept me off my swipin’ right feet appear before me on my home turf.
“Hadrian?” I stood up, mouth agape. I wasn’t the only one shocked. After all, my friends had seen his picture. “Is that you?”
“I…” He put his tablet down. Someone dressed more like the waiters I expected to see approached and asked if we were all right. “It’s fine, Kim,” Hadrian said, his accent betraying those practiced words. “These guests are special tonight. They eat free.”
Whoa! He got to make that call? He must have been high up on the food chain.
I really had no idea.
Hadrian approached me on the other side of the table. “You live in this town?”
“Uh, yeah. You moved here?”
Kim the waitress glanced between us before smiling. “I’ll leave you to it, boss.”
“Boss?”
“Ah…” I never thought I’d see Hadrian’s goofy smile again. “This is my restaurant.”
“What!”
