Cold and hard

Ashley dabbed gel at his blonde hair. That damned cowlick, he thought. Oh, well. He was already 25 minutes late for his date. A date! He thought. Finally, after all these years. He’d finally met the man of his dreams, the perfect partner for all time, and a man whose destiny intersected with his.

A man named Rhett, with jet-black hair, a thin moustache, and sexy loins.

What could be more perfect? Ever since he first encountered Margaret Mitchell’s magnum opus, he’d longed for a boyfriend named Rhett, Brent, Stuart, Will, Alex, or Gerald. But not Pork or Uncle Peter, he was from Clayton County, Georgia after all – though he wouldn’t have minded a Big Sam or two in a pinch. And here he was – not one of the minor characters, but the big enchilada himself. And this one even came from Charleston.

Ashley made it to the Atlanta Starbucks and found Rhett on his cellphone to some girl named Scarlett. No, he was kidding – Ashley had no idea. But Rhett hung up after just a short time and said, “Where are my manners.” What a gentleman, Ashley replied. And they made smalltalk, all the while Ashley stared down his open shirt at the bronzed, hairy chest and up at the sharp, white teeth – sharp yes, but also even and in keeping with the crisp muscles in his jawline. Boy, did Ashley frankly give a damn.

And then the phone rang again. A co-worker from the bank, Rhett said. Ashley nodded and lip-synced, don’t worry – I’ll get a beverage. And then he looked at the counter, long line of gray-clothed millenials staring into their smart phones. Oh, well – Ashley was thirsty.

So after a while he got his ice water (hey, it was free – Ashley had no cash and his mother had cut off his credit cards) and sat back down. Yadda, yadda, yadda – so said Rhett on the phone for about fifteen more minutes – yadda, yadda, yadda. Ashley grew stir-crazy. What was this, he thought, a date or an appointment with the town’s busiest doctor? But ... he kept his cool.

Click. Finally, after fifteen minutes of Ashley’s waiting, looking at the beams in the ceiling, feigning interest in the trendy coffee mugs that Starbucks was pimping out, Rhett said his goodbyes. But no ... more conversation from the other end. Another five minutes passed, and then he hung up the phone.

“Sorry,” Rhett said. “That was kind of rude of me. I hope you didn’t mind.”

Ashley thought about it. He thought about what he was about to say, and wondered how Rhett would react. But he cared less about how this jet-black-haired, thin-moustached Rhett Butler look-alike responded than he did about being honest.

“As a matter of fact,” Ashley said with as calm and friendly a voice as he could muster, “I do mind.”

Rhett’s face froze in place, cold and hard. “I’m not feeling like dinner after all.”