World, hold on

Coincidence level: 6/10 Category: Fucking weird

When I did my rounds in Lagos, Portugal I partied PROPER.

I’ll forever cherish the night that Christina kissed me (a German/Dutch beauty with piercing blue eyes like none I’d ever seen before and freckles applied liberally by God, thank GOD), thinking that I was with my boyfriend, a Spaniard I’d been kissing all night, very publicly, who also tried to convince me into a foursome. Anyway.

She apologized after: “I’m sorry I kissed you in front of your boyfriend.”

It was a fun night. And then, there was the next night.

I’d been partying with some acquaintances at the same bar, when randomly, a blond girl grabbed me.

She was with a group of boys — her boyfriend, her boyfriend’s brother, and then a couple random stragglers (maybe they were a couple). We moved on to the next bar, somewhere smack dab in the middle of town. The boyfriend’s brother was all over me. He was cute. The boyfriend was cute too, he had freckles all over his face.

And her — well, I don’t even remember her name. I was just having one of those party streaks, I hate to admit — for example, that very same week I’d also passionately kissed a very handsome paraplegic Argentinian man and forgotten his name.

She was distinctly non-Portuguese looking, as most Portuguese women I didn’t find very attractive in general. She was blond and so very cute and full of life. She had a few very distinctive moles prominently on her face, one right where her eyebrow met her nose.

We all shared drinks, ran about town a bit. They were all from Lisbon, they said, and taking a holiday there.

Finally, when we were on the streets, I said to the girl, “I want to kiss you.”

The boys were mesmerized.

“Don’t watch us,” I said.

“Turn around!” she said giggling.

And when they did, boy did I kiss her. Did we kiss each other. Probably only for a minute, but that minute stretched to eternity.

And the boys had totally turned around.

Well…what ensued… not the hot scenario you’d expect (you would think it would be every boy’s fantasy), but instead, her boyfriend saying,

“Wow, I didn’t expect to be jealous.”

And then within a minute, starting a fight with her, and off they were. The boyfriend’s brother walked me home. And he stole a few kisses on the way, I didn’t mind.

I didn’t exchange numbers with any of them, and that night faded into memory, all but for a Portuguese song she’d shared with me that I’d slapped onto my playlist.

And that was it, so I thought. The weird coincidence? A year later, I had returned to Lisbon and had been bar hopping with a New York friend around Bairro Alto. This was the same night that I met Isabella for the first time. Well, I couldn’t remember which bar it was (it might’ve been even her bar) where a freckly guy came up to me.

“You’re doing well, still?” he asked me, or something to that effect.

“What?” I said, totally confused.

“I see you’re still doing well,” he said.

“Do I know you?”

“You don’t remember me?” he asked. “From Lagos.” And then it occurred to me why this guy was still acting so pissy.

“How’s your girlfriend doing?” I asked.

He looked at me with a straight face, as if about to start a fight, and then walked out of the bar.

. . .