The lucky escape

As Justin sat at the table waiting for his girlfriend to arrive, he touched his pocket continuously to make sure it was still there. His heart was pounding, as was the pressure in his head leaving his ears ringing. This was going to be the best dinner of his life; nothing fancy, just him and his girl eating pizza. As he was waiting for her he couldn’t help but bask in the smell of garlic coming from the table next to his. Then the smell of pepperoni and cheese hit him like a blow to the head. ‘That’s why I love it here!’ he said to himself and smiled touching his pocket again.

He turned his head as in walked his girl, the woman of his dreams in a barely legal, red party dress that showed almost everything. He looked at her beaming and was the perfect gentleman as he got up and pulled out her seat and helped her, or hindered, depending on how you would look at it, push the chair into position. He sat opposite her and the prosecco came out automatically…at his expense. He wanted everything perfect.

‘Oh my, how I do love bubbles!’ she said taking a sip out of her glass before burying her nose in the menu. He straightened his tie for about seventh time in ten minutes as he felt it was obstructing his airway. He was that nervous and felt like a kaleidoscope of butterflies soar through his veins. He was also grateful he had worn a blazer and put on a copious amount of deodorant and cologne as the pit stains from him sweating were presumably massive. He smiled continuously and commented on her dress.

‘Yea I have to wear it now before it won’t fit nomore!’ she explained fanning herself with the menu. He was confused. ‘Baby’s gonna to blow up my belly and I’m gonna to get fat and have lots of stretch marks so I figured id give it its maiden voyage as I paid a lot of money for it.’

He swallowed hard, ‘baby?’ he asked, ‘what baby?’ He presumed it was his and this was how she chose to tell him. He began to get excited, the type of excitement he would get from a vending machine when it spat out two crisp packets instead of only the one you paid for.

‘My baby stupid,’ she tapped his hand with hers.

‘And is it…well is it……,’ he took a sip of water, ‘is it our baby you mean?’

‘No silly,’ she flicked her hair with her hand, ‘I told you before bout travis!’

‘No, but go on,’ he said deciding to take the tie off altogether and open the two topmost buttons on his shirt. Justin took a gulp of water, nearly chocking as she proceeded to tell him that travis was her boyfriend, her real boyfriend!

With water almost coming out of his nose he asked, ‘when were you going to tell me about this travis person?’ in a tone that was louder than he had planned as everyone in the restaurant looked around.

‘I thought you knew cutie!’ she smiled at him.

‘Eh, no!’ he said and took his grandmothers engagement ring out of the hole it was burning in his pocket and placed it on the table with an audible thud.

She looked at him doe eyed and put the menu down before placing her hands on her chest. ‘Is that for me?’ she asked innocently.

‘Not anymore!’ he said and asked Hugo for the check.

She greedily tried to take a peek at what was inside the box, at the heir loom that once belonged to his grandmother, but he stopped her by putting it back into his pocket, safe in the knowledge that this whore won’t get her hands on it.

‘I can change!’ she cried.

He looked at her with a blank expression on his face, ‘you came in, sat down, and proceeded to tell me you were carrying another man’s child…. how can you change that?’

‘I don’t have to go through with the pregnancy!’ she cried grasping at straws.

He tapped his card on the card machine for the prosecco and took the bottle with him as he got up and left.

‘Stupid!’ he said to himself. How could he have thought that a woman like her would be right for a man like him. ‘Well that was a lucky escape!’ he said taking a swig from the bottle of prosecco, the bubbles tickling the back of his throat, and hailed a cab, his grandmothers ring safely nestled in his pocket.

As the cab pulled away, he noticed a red dress run out of the restaurant screaming for him to come back.

‘Phew!’ he thought to himself, ‘that bitch is bat crap crazy!’