"Yeah, me too!" I interrupted him, and he squeezed my hand, hinting that it wasn’t my time to speak, so I didn’t.
"Now, since Naomi read your application forms, and since you really don’t know anything about her, I'd like to tell you a few things you probably don’t know about your bachelorette."
"Wait, what?" I couldn’t help myself.
"So gentlemen, please meet Naomi Sloan!"
All the men around cheered and clapped as I hoped whatever Nick planned to tell them wouldn’t be too embarrassing for me.
"I'll start by saying that Naomi is a little crazy, but I suppose you could have assumed that, just by this evening taking place."
"That's true." I took a small bow.
"She's also very sensitive. More than the average woman in any case."
"What? I am not!"
"Oh, I'm sorry. Did I offend you?" Nick turned to me, and everyone laughed a little, including me. "Gentlemen, you should know that just when you think she's strong and steady, a kind word that comes from the bottom of your heart will be sure to crush her composure to pieces and will allow you a glimpse into her heart."
"Umm…" I grimaced and then nodded and gestured my hand toward him, signaling that he should go on.
"Naomi is most beautiful when she wakes up in the morning, and she's hungry at any given moment. Her favorite activity is dancing until the wee hours of the night, but if that isn’t an option, she'll settle for cooking meals fit for royals and watching a good show on TV."
"True. All true." I actually liked how he chose to describe me.
"Naomi has never been in a committed relationship, and the one non-committing that she had, left her suspicious and hesitant." I hated that he brought up my well-known ex into that evening, though he probably would have come up sooner or later. "If you think this means she's lacking experience, you're wrong. It's important for me to make it clear that Naomi did not save herself for marriage."
"What?! Hey!" I scolded him as chuckles were heard from across the room, and a rosy blush crept onto my cheeks.
"In fact, I can testify firsthand that over the years I've known and loved her, she has shared her bed with a fair amount of men."
"What the fuck, Nick?" I grumbled, and the chuckling sounds turned at once to a roaring chorus of manly laughter at my expense.
"Gentlemen, if you'd be so lucky to get to know her, and I mean really get to know her, you'll find a warm, wise, loving, and a loved woman. You'll discover a woman who can be your whole world, but that's only if you'll set aside your games, your maneuvers, your egos, and your fears. If you'll expose yourself to her, I guarantee she'll come out of her shell, and trust me, she's as good as God made them!"
None of the men were laughing anymore.
They all seemed to be searching for my gaze while I tried to avoid theirs.
"Now," Nick went on, "I'd like to give you a heads-up! If you're pretending to be something you're not, you'll find that Naomi has a special ability to detect forgers from afar." I wondered if he knew that was a lie, though I kept quiet. "And when she does, you'll find yourself on the other side of that door." He pointed at my apartment door, and I swear I noticed three or four guys swallowing hard.
"Enough, Nick. I'm not that scary." I tried to ease the mood, though Nick was absolutely right to freak them out about being fake with me.
"Gentlemen, to break the ice, I'd like you to answer some simple questions with a raise of your hands," Nick said, and all the men nodded in agreement. "Who among you would be afraid to hit on Naomi if you saw her sitting in a coffeehouse on your street?" Everyone except Omar, Roy, and Benny, raised their hands in the air.
"That’s interesting." I was impressed by Nick's ability to lighten the mood.
"Now, who among you still thinks he has no chance of finding love with Naomi?" Nick went on and Mason, Elijah, Logan, and that pediatrician whose name I couldn’t remember raised their hands.
"But now," I began, taking over the conversation, "who among you is happy to be here and is eagerly waiting for this stupid questionnaire to end so we can get this party started?" Everyone, with no exceptions, waved their hands in the air and smiled at me.
"Okay, okay…" Nick huffed. "But keep in mind that at the end of the evening, we'll gather here again, and Naomi will invite eight men for a toast with her. That toast will be an offer to join her in this adventure." Nick insisted on reminding everyone that we had an hour and a half and that we should make the best of it.
"So basically, two men will be leaving tonight?" Nathan Real asked, but I didn't recognize concern in his expression or fear of the evening ending badly for him.
"That's right. From now on, every Saturday, we'll meet here for a cocktail party, and at the end of it, we'll say goodbye to another man, thus take another step toward finding Naomi's one true love."
My one true love.
It was unbelievable that my one true love was among those ten men who surrounded me, though to be honest, I could easily see that happening with some of them.
Even though I didn’t know them so well, I could see myself ending up with almost every one of the men. While some were still raising many question marks in my head, others were a definite valid option for me, and I was anxious to be at the beginning of that journey with them.
"Come, sit by me." Nathan pulled me to the couch, and the rest of the men crowded around us.
"So..." Logan said as he sat down on Nathan's other side, "do you come here a lot?" he began, once again stretching my lips into a smile and breaking the ice with a witty joke. Logan, the joker!
"Oh, you know... Not that much. I mainly come here when I'm bored." I giggled lightly.
"So how long have you been living here?" The pediatrician asked, and I wondered how I'd be able to get him to mention his name in a non-insulting way.
"Hmm, I think it's almost five years now," I replied, and then had to deal with a series of questions that were directed at me from all sides until my head started spinning.
I could see with certainty that none of the men around me had acted naturally. They were all fishing out questions which they didn’t care about, and I felt I could no longer answer, so I turned the situation around. I started asking the men some general questions, to which the answer didn’t really interest me, and I took advantage of the time it took them to reply to really pay attention to their body language.
I watched them. All of them. I paid attention to the way each was present in the room, I examined how they looked at one another, I followed their gazes, and I was amazed.
They all seemed so on edge while only one of them looked complete and confident. It was Omar. While the others kept trying to sit as close to me as possible, make eye contact or impress me with their hilarious answers to my unnecessary question, Omar sat in one of the chairs around my dining table, far away from the crowd of men surrounding me in the couch area, with a quiet unshakable expression on his face. It didn’t look like he didn’t want to be there, yet he wasn’t overly enthusiastic like the others. He looked like Nick described him on the twentieth-floor. He sat peacefully as ever, stared at me in silence with a straight face, and as I smiled at him, he gave me the most captivating smile in return, thus making my insides melt away.