Her Forbidden Rockstar: A Forbidden Rockers Novel (13 page)

“Oh, nothing. Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. I’m Caroline, nice to meet you.” Caroline smiled at him, relieved to see someone her own age.

“I am Turner Schwartz. I’m an accountant and Jewish. I know, what a stereotype right? I aim to please,” Turner said to her smiling, she laughed at his joke.

“Nothing wrong with that. I’m a paralegal studying for the bar exam for the last few years, so I get it.” She shared, instantly feeling comfortable with him.

“Awesome, a lawyer chick. So, beautiful and smart, huh?” He winked at her, then he rolled his eyes at himself.

“Shit, that was terrible. Worst pickup line ever, huh? Can you tell I haven’t been on a date in a while?” Turner made fun of himself, but it was entirely endearing and Caroline was laughing in response.

“Come on, don’t be so hard on yourself. You just had a three minute date right before me! At this rate, you’re almost a player.” She teased, enjoying his humor.

He burst out laughing at her response and slapped the table. Caroline jumped in surprise and her drink slid right off the edge of the table.

“Oh crap, sorry! I’m such a putz!” Turner jumped up to clean the spill.

“Don’t worry about it, the glass was empty. I was waiting for a fresh drink actually,” she said, gesturing to him that it wasn’t a big deal.

“Thank goodness! Let me get that drink for you then!” Turner jumped up and ran to the bar and Caroline watched him converse with the bartender, handing over some cash.

Sweet guy,
she thought,
but he’s definitely a bit strange.

Luckily, he had a good sense of humor so she wasn’t minding it too much. He was back a minute later with a fresh glass in hand and gave it to her. Just as he was handing it to her, the bell rang again.

“Kicking me out as soon as I buy your drink? I see how it is.” Turner smiled. She grinned at him and took her drink.

“It was great meeting you, Turner,” Caroline said as the two parted ways.

Caroline glanced down at her card, empty so far. She quickly scrawled down Turner’s name, because why not? He had made her laugh and she needed that. She flipped over the card, so her next suitor couldn’t see it as he was seating himself before her.

“Hello there, name’s Zak. I play pro soccer, as you probably know, and no I am not doing autographs today. You can put a request in through my blog if you want an autographed photograph,” the man said to her.

He was a bit taller than her, Hispanic, and had short, greased hair pushed back. He had a thin mustache right above his upper lip that wasn’t attached to the thin beard that lined his jaw.

“Uhm, okay.” Caroline looked puzzled at him. Of course she had no idea who he was and she was immediately put off by his arrogance.

“I’m Caroline. I work as a paralegal.”

“Rock on. You’ll get there one day, gorgeous. Not all of us stumble upon our dream jobs right away, sometimes you just have to have that special talent that only us select few have.” He coolly replied to her and then took a sip of his martini, holding the stem of the glass gingerly with his pinky finger pointed out.

Caroline had to concentrate to keep a normal look on her face. She was really beginning to detest this man.

“If only we could all be so lucky,” she replied sarcastically.

“I don’t think so, babe. We can’t all be lucky. Some people just aren’t made for the limelight.” He smiled widely at her, clearly looking down at her cleavage, instead of her face.

She didn’t respond to that and let a silence fall between them instead. Zak looked around the room and cleared his throat. Caroline fingered the straw in her glass, swirling her ice around.

“Well, doll, you know what? The bell is about to ring, but I am going to make it your lucky day. Here you go.” He opened his suit jacket and pulled a photograph out of his pocket, handing it to her. It was an autographed picture of himself in black and white, wearing only tight briefs.

“Thanks,” she replied dully, taking the photograph and reading the inscription. It was signed “
You’re welcome. Zak Landberg”.

The bell rang and Caroline breathed a sigh of relief that she was done with Zak. She put his photograph under her card and took a drink in preparation for her next date. She looked over at Aralia who gave her a smile and a thumbs up, Caroline attempted to give her one back, which made Aralia roll her eyes.

“I see your name tag says ‘Caroline’, let me guess... you must be Caroline?” her next date said to her as he sat down.

She nodded her head at him, giving him a fake smile for his attempt at a joke.

“I am. Good guess. You must be Ellis.” Caroline responded and shook his hand, checking his name tag.

“How did you know?” He laughed.

Caroline just forced a laugh back, because she really had no idea how to respond to that or what to say now. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

“Do you like cats?” Ellis asked suddenly.

Caroline looked at him with a funny expression and then responded that she did. He got very excited at that and reached into his pocket, pulling out his wallet. He slid out a couple of small photographs and laid them out on the table in front of her. There were eight photographs in total and all of them were of different cats wearing different seasonally themed outfits.

“So, this is Tidbit, my calico. This one, here, is Spots. See, she loves Christmas. And this little fellow in the Leprechaun outfit is Clover, get it? I thought that was pretty clever. Over here is Gibson, Lightning, Jinxy, Nibbles, Rosey, and Cally. I got her when I lived in California, so that’s why I called her Cally,” Ellis went on and on, describing each cat in the photographs. Caroline just nodded her head and smiled, pretending to be fascinated by what he was saying.

It was not an easy task.

Mercy showed itself and the bell finally rang again, Caroline couldn’t possibly have been more excited. The host got back on stage and addressed the crowd.

“Hello again, potential matches! We are at our half way point, so let’s take a little intermission. Everyone get some drinks and mingle!” The host had a high pitched, irritating voice that instantly irritated Caroline. Either way, she was glad for the break. She got up and walked over to Aralia, Jackie quickly joined them, and they headed for the bar.

“So, how were your dates?” Jackie asked the girls.

“Let’s just say that I would be totally fine with skipping out right now,” Caroline said.

“I am close to feeling that way, too,” Aralia chimed in. “But I am an optimist and I think it will probably get better. Probably. We saw some cute guys when we first came in! Eventually, they will have to sit at our tables, right?”

“Logic hasn’t always been on my side.” Caroline chuckled.

They all ordered refills at the bar and finished the drinks they had. The two cousins headed back to the tables after they picked up their drinks, but Caroline lingered at the bar a moment longer. She sipped on her drink and watched everyone getting back to their tables, gulping her nerves as she scoped out the men and didn’t see anyone she was interested in getting to know further.

“Can I have one more?” Caroline asked the bartender, finishing her drink again. She was feeling a little buzzed, but she wanted to feel more than that if she was going to sit through some more awkward dates.

“Lawyer with a drinking problem. Now who is the stereotype?” A voice from behind Caroline said.

She turned around to see Turner, the Jewish accountant who had been her second date, smiling at her. She laughed.

“I guess you got me.” Caroline smiled and leaned against the bar to face him. “But can you blame me for wanting to be drunk when meeting some of these people?”

“Oh heck yeah, did you see the girl with the rainbow colored hair and piercings? She has more heavy metal on her face than I have on my iPod,” Turner said to Caroline, gesturing toward the woman across the room.

Caroline burst out laughing at his joke.

“Well, I don’t know if that can beat my train conductor who was overly excited to tell me how he gets discounts at crappy motels.” Caroline made a grimacing motion at the thought of it and Turner raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Yeah, I think you got me there. Cheers to crappy dates.” Turner chuckled and lifted his glass to her, the two clinked glasses together and sipped their drinks, looking at each other over the rim of the glasses.

Caroline felt a little flutter in her stomach, which she couldn’t quite explain. Turner was sweet and funny, but had a nose you could hang a hat on, a massive amount of curly hair, and what could be described as a beer belly at the very least.

Only a few weeks ago, she had been in the arms of a man with chiseled, magazine perfect features, and a negative percent body fat whose arms around her made her lose all control of her body and her thoughts.

Now she was entertaining the idea of Turner, a sweet guy who she felt pretty confident would never hurt her, but instead be the romantic and sensitive lover she had always wanted. But all that came in a nerdy seeming, clumsy package, not exactly someone who comes riding in on a white horse in a shining suit of armor.

“So, Ms. Caroline, are you hungry?” Turner asked her, placing his drink on the bar along with a few bills to pay both of their tabs.

She smiled at him. “I could eat.”

“Let's play hooky then,” he said and winked at her, extending his arm to her.

She grinned, accepted his arm, and followed him out of the restaurant. Caroline knew that Aralia and Jackie would be mad at her, but she really didn’t care. She was exhausted meeting so many new people after having holed herself up in her room for so many weeks.

Turner and Caroline walked a few blocks down and across Manhattan’s busy streets until they stopped at a small red door with a flickering red sign saying “EAT” above it. Turner reached for the door and Caroline stopped in her tracks.

“Uh, are we actually going in there? I pointed out like eight different places on the way here that didn’t look like a morgue,” Caroline told him, which made him laugh.

“Yes, but none of them are going to be as good as this place. I can guarantee you that you will never see food the same way again. Do you trust me?” Turner extended out his hand to her.

She gave him a halfhearted smile and took his hand. Turner opened the door and led her inside to a small restaurant, no bigger than her apartment, with small booths that were decorated with dingy, red checkered table cloths. They picked one on the right side and sat down.

“Well, you certainly know how to wine and dine a girl,” Caroline said, sarcastically, with a chuckle.

“That’s what makes me such a successful player,” he joked, stretching his arms out to act bigger than he was. The waitress walked up to them and looked like she was only a few years shy of one hundred.

“What can I get you?” she asked in a hoarse voice. Caroline looked at Turner confusingly, they didn’t even have any menus yet.

“We will both have the Hebrew special,” Turner said to her.

Caroline didn’t say anything ,but wondered what she was about to be in for.

“Drinks?” the waitress asked.

“Coke?” Caroline said.

Turner echoed her choice in agreement. The waitress left their table and headed back through a swinging door into the kitchen, at least what Caroline assumed was the kitchen.

“So, a Coke lady?” Turner said. “Most dates I have been on, the lady always orders a diet Coke.”

“Coke tastes less like chemicals.” She laughed.

“Brains and beauty. Why are you on a date with me then?” Turner grinned.

“One of life’s great mysteries.” She teased back.

Very quickly, their food arrived and Caroline inspected it carefully. She really couldn’t tell what it was, just a whole bunch of mystery ingredients and sauces in a wrap of some sort. Caroline bit into her falafel, as Turner had told her it was called.

She was delighted to find that it was delicious, even though she still couldn’t tell what was in it. She looked up at Turner with a surprised look on her face.

“Turner, this is delicious!” Caroline quickly took another bite.

“Told you to trust me,” he said while gulping his food down as well.

The two finished their meals and chatted about their lives, leaving few pauses in their conversation. Caroline spent most of the time laughing, since Turner was an expert at witty banter. The things he actually shared about his life were quite dull, but his sense of humor made up for everything.

He was an accountant living in a studio apartment, who still did laundry on the weekends at his parents' house in New Jersey. He dreamed of owning his own accounting firm and living in the suburbs of Jersey with a white picket fence and a dog. It all seemed so easy and simple.

The couple finished up eating and paid their bill, then headed out to the street. Turner hailed a taxi and the two hopped in.  Caroline gave the driver her address and they headed back to her house, Turner was going to drop her off and had kindly offered to pay for the cab. A few minutes later, the taxi slowed to a stop in front of Caroline’s apartment building and the duo hopped out. Turner handed some cash to the cabbie and asked him to wait for a few minutes.

“Are you escorting me to my door?” Caroline asked him, blushing.

“What kind of gentleman would I be, if I didn’t?” He smiled, extending his arm to her, which she happily accepted. The two headed toward the door which the night doorman opened for them. Once in the lobby, Turner pressed the elevator button and then turned to face Caroline.

“I am really glad I went to that event tonight. I didn’t expect it to actually work though,” Turner told her.

“Expect what to work?”

“To actually meet a girl that makes me excited to wake up tomorrow, just so that I can call and ask to see her again,” Turner said softly, looking down and then back up at her.

Caroline leaned backward against the wall and smiled at him.

“Maybe she will wait by her phone tomorrow.” Caroline grinned, looking at him from under her eyelashes.

She felt a stirring in her stomach, like fluttering butterflies. Turner took a step toward her and placed his hands on her upper arms, pulling her towards him lightly.