The first twenty minutes of our drive had gone about as well as expected.
The absence of a roof and windows had created some sort of wind vortex, and I’d spent the majority of the ride fighting to keep from eating my own hair.
Not to mention, Ollie had made a point to ask me a million questions about my life in New York and how long I’d been friends with Allie and what my job was like at Scoop.
And I’d deferred each and every question with short, simple answers. “I live in an apartment in SoHo” and “I’ve known Allie since college” and “I’m a writer.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be friendly, but I can only turn on so much civility for people who start their first encounter with me by calling me high-maintenance. Only my friends of years can do that kind of thing, and even then, I’m not above a little harmless retribution.
If you don’t believe me, ask Allie how many times I’ve switched out the sugar for salt in her coffee.
Moreover, lest we forget, in this case, I’d also just gotten off a twenty-five-hour flight. I was tired, and the effects of jet lag had already started to seep from my pores like a bad case of body odor.
I’m not saying I’m blameless. I can recognize, looking back on it, that my bitchy retorts probably weren’t a great encouragement to treat me with respect.
But I just wanted to rest my eyes for the duration of the drive, drag my carcass to the hotel room, and fall face first into my bed.
Ollie had other plans, and they were the opposite of quiet.
Ugh.
[sighs]
How on earth do I properly describe the torture that was his twenty-minute, one-man concert to the soundtrack of Aerosmith?
He was off-key and out of tune and at the top of his lungs, and I silently prayed for the commute to go quicker.
It wasn’t until his playlist hit Steven Tyler song number four that he glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “You like Aerosmith?”
I couldn’t hold back at that point. Seriously, could not. Honestly, I blame the small stream of blood running from my ears for my bad-mannered response.
“I like Aerosmith singing Aerosmith.”
He quirked a brow. “But not me?”
“Do you really want me to answer that question?”
A hearty chuckle left his full lips.
In the interest of full disclosure, Ollie’s lips are…nice. Even in my bitter, weary state, I wasn’t above noticing.
I could definitely be more explicit with my description, but I’m not entirely sure I could do it without turning this thing pornographic.
[pauses and clears throat]
Anyway, being in the first, fully committed stages of jerk rehab as I was, I tried to savor the view of the open road and Australia’s version of an early morning rather than drooling over his face, but Ollie just wouldn’t shut up.
Rest wasn’t on his agenda at all, but apparently, clearing the air was.
“I think it’s safe to say we’re going to be spending a lot of time together over the next several months, and you should know I’m the kind of bloke who doesn’t beat around the bush and rarely takes offense at anything,” he said and flipped on his blinker as he switched lanes and passed a semitruck. “So, for the sake of being real, when I ask you something, don’t feel like you need to sugarcoat your response.”
Finally, a break. Niceties were the real energy zapper of a conversation, and if he was going to play it blunt, so could I.
In fact, I didn’t waste any time.
“You’re a terrible singer.”
His answering grin was one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen in my life. Hands down, to this day, even I can admit it.
I know I was in jerk rehab, but hey, addicts have cravings.
And now I knew how to get a fix.
“And, speaking of expectations,” my traitorous compulsion pushed. “You’re the complete opposite of what I’d expect a CEO of a big international surfing company to be like.”
He smiled again, and I got a little higher.
[sighs]
Oy, guys. Can you tell how much trouble I was in?
“You were probably expecting some uptight guy in a high-priced suit and shit, no?”
“Whatever I was expecting, I can tell you it wasn’t this.”
“This meaning a roguishly handsome and charming specimen of a man?” he asked, without giving me time to agree or contradict. “I can understand where your confusion might lie.”
Suddenly, I understood why his car didn’t have a roof. He needed the extra space for his big, arrogant head.
“This meaning someone who doesn’t pick up clients in flip-flops.”
“Pretty sure you mean thongs, yeah?”
Unwilling to give in, I rolled my eyes. I don’t know that he even noticed.
“Well, Lucky, it’s safe to say we do things a little different down under,” he said. “I’m surprised Allie didn’t prep you for the difference between a good ole Aussie bloke compared with an uptight American.”
“Americans aren’t uptight.”
He glanced down at my shoes, and his eyes worked their way up to my face, taking careful inventory of my current attire. Again. “You’re not doing a very good job of pleading your case.”
“Just because I don’t shuffle around in thongs and cargo shorts doesn’t mean I’m uptight,” I retorted. “So, I like to dress cute, even on long flights. There’s no crime in wanting to feel good in what I’m wearing.”
My mother always taught me to dress the way you want to feel.
And I like feeling good.
Sure, I have my days where I run errands in yoga pants and go to a late dinner with my friends in jeans and a T-shirt, but for the most part, I like to wear things that make me feel empowered.
And let me tell you, nothing makes me feel more empowered than Prada and Chanel.
Nothing, I thought…until Ollie’s accent turned warm and compassionate and completely fucking confusing.
“Do you feel good?” he asked, the question caressing me with the gentleness that’d been so poignantly missing from the rest of our conversation.
“Yeah,” I responded, my voice quavering a bit under the new, unexpectedly friendly influence. “I do.”
“Well then, mission accomplished.”
The man gave me whiplash and déjà vu, but mostly, in that moment, he gave me the feels.
My defenses automatically fortified. And the easiest resource to tap? My extensive list of cocky ex-boyfriends.
“You know, you remind me of a guy I once knew,” I said smartly, visuals of my ex-boyfriend Ronnie filling my head.
“Oh yeah?”
“Ohhh yeah,” I emphasized, pushing for a reaction.
Ronnie Matthews had been boyfriend mistake number three. A New Jersey tattoo artist who dabbled in a motorcycle gang. And Ollie’s cocky, cajoling confidence and blunt sarcasm really did remind me a lot of the very first conversation I’d ever had with Ronnie.
I’d been at a dive bar in Hell’s Kitchen, watching some indie punk band play for a live crowd. He’d walked past me, taken inventory of my outfit—a little summer dress with heels—and pretty much laughed at my inability to fit in to the crowd.
His laughter and sarcastic comments had turned into me getting pissed off.
Unsurprisingly, all that anger turned into a crazy kind of sexual attraction, and at the ripe age of twenty-five, I had no idea how to resist it.
We dated for a year after that, and the relationship promptly ended when he went to prison for being involved in some sort of criminal money laundering activity.
“And what is this man doing now?” Ollie asked, and I grinned.
Give me an opportunity for shock and awe, and I lose all semblance of chill. I am a journalist, after all.
“He went to prison.”
A wolflike laugh spilled from his throat, so intense it seemed like he was choking as he forced the words out. “I remind you of an ex-convict?”
“Not an ex-convict,” I corrected smugly. “An actual convict, and one of my ex-boyfriends, who just happens to be serving a ten-year sentence.”
In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have been so haughty about having an ex in the slammer, but yeah. Let’s just focus on his reaction here. I mean, that’s clearly what I was doing at the time. Trying to make him uncomfortable. It was only fair that we both felt out of sorts.
Unfortunately, the bastard mostly took it in stride.
“Wow. You have a lot of ex-boyfriends? Possibly a cellblock with your name on it?”
He flipped on his blinker and sped three lanes over to the next exit, and I had to grip the armrest on the door just to keep myself from falling into his lap.
“Enough, hopefully, to learn from my mistakes and stop dating the wrong men.”
He hummed to himself as he navigated the details of the exit, and I basked in the near silence. It wasn’t exactly a day at the spa, but at least he’d laid off playing twenty questions.
“So, I’m that god-awful?” he asked, and I jumped. I didn’t think I’d been that pointed with my insults, but hell, maybe in my delirium, I’d actually come right out and said it.
“Hmm?” I murmured, carefully avoiding an answer for as long as possible.
Thankfully, my stall tactic worked just enough that he felt the need to clarify.
“My singing talent. Personally, I think I do a damn good Steven Tyler impression.”
Overcome with relief, I miiiight have failed to hold back. Whoops. “You’re probably the worst I’ve ever heard.”
“And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“When you open your mouth and sing along to Aerosmith, does it sound just as terrible as me? Or should I prepare myself for some Mariah Carey kind of lyrical shit?”
“Somewhere in between the two.”
“Yet you haven’t uttered a single word through the past six songs…”
Yeah, six songs. Apparently, he had their greatest hits album.
“I didn’t realize this ride to my hotel would include an American Idol audition.”
“Australian Idol, doll. You’re in Oz.” He grinned again, and I hated how my eyes homed in on those stupid pillow lips of his.
Ugh. Goddamn druglike anatomy.
I shrugged and dove back into avoidance. “Whatever. You’re kind of annoying, you know that?”
“Yeah, little fire. I may have heard that before.”
“Little fire?” I asked, and immediately, flashbacks of high school where the boys not-so-secretly called me fire crotch because of my red hair filled my head. “Please do not call me that.”
He ignored my request. “Little. Fire.”
“Jesus,” I muttered. “Are you purposely trying to push my buttons?”
He winked. “How do you think I figured out the nickname?”
I ignored his question and asked one of my own. “How much longer until we get to the hotel?”
He glanced at the clock. “Another ten minutes or so.”
In the spirit of not shoving him to his death in the middle of the road, I leaned forward and turned the music up as loud as it could go. Instantly, Aerosmith blared in my ears with lyrics about being crazy.
For once, I could relate to Steven Tyler. During that car ride, I knew exactly what crazy felt like.
Between my hair blowing around in my face like it was stuck in a goddamn fan, this swell conversation, and the annoying, albeit gorgeous Aussie singing his lungs out, I silently prayed I’d make it to the hotel before my brain exploded.
Thankfully, brain matter stayed contained, and as a result, I’m able to be here, on this fine day, regaling you with this tale.
After a quick getaway from Ollie in the lobby, facilitated thankfully by his apparent popularity, I finally made it to my room, kicked the door shut, and fell indiscriminately into the hotel bed.
It was only ten a.m. Australia time, but I didn’t care.
I was jet-legged as fuck and had zero places to be.
That day’s priority would be sleep.
But before I could kick off my first official day in Australia, my phone pinged with a notification, and I hopped up from the bed, pulled it out of my purse, and found messages in my ongoing group chat with my two sisters.
Hazel, my oldest sister and the resident wrangler, was trying to loop us all into the weekly family dinner, and Willow, the sarcastic next-in-line, was giving her hell about any and every little thing as always.
None of their exchange seemed out of the ordinary or alarming, and I’d all but decided to put my phone away and worry about bugging off of dinner later, after a good twelve hours of sleep, when Hazel dropped the jerk bomb.
Lucky, you should bring Tiago.
Tiago, guys.
Remember him?
[sighs]
Not that I could fully blame her. I mean, as you can tell by the title of this little broadcast, the turnover in staffing for the position of Lucky’s lucky guy leaves a little something to be desired.
It’s the reason I have two books worth of material on boyfriends of years past.
Still, guilt niggled. The Tiago comment was enough to wake me up from the jet-lag fog and remind me of a detail I wouldn’t attribute to my finest hour.
Not only had I forgotten to update my older sisters about the whole Tiago situation, in the midst of the last-minute and insane packing state I’d been in before leaving the States, I’d completely forgotten to let my sisters—or my dad, for that matter—know about this trip.
Party foul, friends. Party foul.
Firing up the message thread and becoming one with my iPhone once again, I dove into the awkward space to break the news.
Yeah, so…I won’t be there. I’m kind of on a trip right now…
Thanks to my fumbled attempt at being vague, Hazel jumped right back into no-man’s-land with the assumption of the century.
Vacation with Tiago?
Fucking hell, guys. Only I could have found myself in this situation. And, unfortunately, a blind man in a cluttered room could have found his way out more easily.
I’m what you might call…uncomfortable-conversation averse. And Hazel is prone to making even the best of conversations uncomfortable.
Quite the dichotomy, huh?
Still, I typed out a message that would surely get my oldest sister Hazel riled up and took a giant breath as I hit send.
It’s a work trip. Also, we’re not together anymore.
Hazel’s expletive and one dozen exclamation points broke every literary rule I could think of, but boy oh boy, they got the point across.
Basically, her colorful response revolved around the question What happened?
I grimaced and typed out another response.
He moved back home. And we both decided a long-distance relationship would be too hard.
More like he lied about moving back home, but that was a minor detail, right?
I know at least two of you are going to send me some sort of preachy email about honesty being the best policy, but I don’t hear any soothing words about how to handle the consequences in your catchy little rhyme.
Hazel would be relentless when she found out I’d yet again fallen for the wrong guy, and I wasn’t ready for it.
She was a notorious meddler in my love life, and twenty-fucking-questions seemed like it’d be a much more exhilarating game some other time. You know, when I wasn’t fresh off traveling for over twenty-four hours.
I’m sure you can understand. Surely, two or three of you are fellow experts in avoidance.
Luckily, Willow was the first to respond.
That sucks. Sorry to hear that, sweetie.
Out of my two older sisters, Willow was the laid-back, free spirit, and Hazel was the uptight, eagle eye.
They were polar opposites, and I was probably a mix of them both. As a result, Willow used a lot more care with me than she did with Hazel.
I sighed again and prepared myself for Hazel’s momma bear instincts to kick in. After our mother died, she’d taken it upon herself to step into an overbearing, protective big sister role.
Why don’t you date someone worthy of your time? she’d always ask.
It’s not necessarily a bad question. In fact, it’s one I probably should have considered a hundred times over at this point.
And I might have…if she hadn’t been such a bitch about twisting the knife of my own mistakes every time she asked. This time was no different.
I knew he wasn’t right for you, Lucky.
He’s a freelance photographer. Of course he’s flaky.
See? Bitchy.
That’s right, Hazel, I called you a bitch. The time has finally come.
I love you, I do, but sometimes you’re just kind of a bitch, okay?
Pat me on the back, guys. I’ve never stood up to my sister before. It feels good. I feel alive. I feel invigorated! This is the best day of my life.
In other news, my funeral will be held on Tuesday at eight p.m. I hope you’ll all attend.
[sighs]
Obviously, I’m kidding.
But needless to say, I turned defensive. And blatantly dishonest.
He didn’t turn flaky. He just missed his family back home.
I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t ready to tell her the truth and disappoint her. Again.
It didn’t matter anyway. She didn’t stop there, hurling insults into our message like an Olympic champion hammer thrower.
What the hell does freelance even mean these days? It feels like a flimsy excuse not to hold down a job.
And don’t even get me started on the whole I’m a sexy Brazilian and will sometimes just start speaking Portuguese in the middle of a sentence. I mean, it’s great he’s bilingual, but for fuck’s sake, no one understands what you’re saying.
My personal favorite, however, came after a failed attempt at protection from Willow:
Maybe if she’d stop dating the absolute wrong guys, there wouldn’t be so many breakups to weather.
Ouch, right?
[sighs]
I guess that’s why they say the truth hurts. If it weren’t true, it wouldn’t sting. If it weren’t true…I wouldn’t be spilling my guts to all of you.
When it comes to me, it seems the writing is on the wall. Lucky Wright—unlucky in love and cursed for good.
After that, I did my best to do crowd control like security in an arena, corralling my sisters into a pen of happier subjects.
My job, for instance, and the amazing opportunity I found myself in the middle of.
I’m not going to be home for the next three months.
Their reactions were about as you’d expect.
Three months??? Where in the hell are you?
What the hell kind of assignment takes that long?
Whose decision was it to give YOU a sports-related piece to cover?
Fielding their hysteria took some time, but all in all, it was better than being forced to stroll any longer along Lost Romance Lane.
After giving succinct answers to each full-volume virtual yell, promising Willow questionable pictures from “down under,” and assuring I’d call my dad the next day, I finally settled down the sisters and tossed my phone aside.
After a quick call to room service for a pancake breakfast with a side of bacon, I headed into the bathroom to start up the shower.
Once the water heated up, steam billowed inside the room, and I slowly undressed and prepared to luxuriate under the liquid warmth.
But my phone had other plans. It pinged with a notification, and I picked it up off the bathroom counter and found a message from Allie.
You make it to the hotel okay?
Regretfully, I stood naked in my Australian hotel room and texted my blissfully unaware friend back.
Yep. All is good in your homeland.
Allie, if you’re listening, I don’t make a habit of texting you while naked. This isn’t, like, a thing. This was just an incident of horrendously bad timing, and unfortunately, thanks to this podcast, it’s no longer a secret.
Sorry, but you’re going to have to get over it.
This is an important staple of the story.
To Allie, she was asking about my welfare. Had Ollie picked me up? Did we get along okay? That sort of thing.
To me…well, to me, she was opening up an entirely unexpected channel into the obvious attraction I’d been so careful to avoid when I actually met him.
It’d been news to me that he was a celebrity.
It’d been news to me that women would so willingly throw themselves at him.
It’d been news to me that he had Allie’s attitude without the care.
But most of all…it’d been news to me that the son of a bitch would so immediately make me feel.
Allie assured me Ollie would watch out for me, but I knew the truth from the first moment I met him.
I, Lucky Wright, self-proclaimed jerk-lover and unlucky in love, should watch out for him.
Like, stay far, far away from him.
I’d just put myself in jerk rehab, and I was no quitter. I would stay true to my word.
I set my phone down on the counter, and when I caught sight of my makeup bag, I got an idea.
With a tube of lipstick in my hand, I wrote out my new mantra across the bathroom mirror.
Stop falling for jerks stared back at me in big red letters.
For the next several months, I’d focus on my job. I’d learn as much as I could about surfing and give these articles everything I had.
And, all the while, I’d stop being so stupid when it came to men.
At least, that was the plan…