Returned

“Come on Abby! Just do this for me! It’s my birthday are you really going to be such a killjoy on my day?” Emily pouts, showing her googly eyes in front of me. “Pretty please?”

“You’re already drunk, Emily. God, why are you so weak in alcohol?”

We’re currently inside a famous bar in the city. Since she pleaded to take me with her to celebrate her birthday, how could I say no?

I let out a sigh in disbelief.

It’s only been a few drinks yet I still can’t seem to believe how my best friend always gets drunk so fast. It’s not that I didn’t want to do her dare, but my best friend of 20 years is basically trying to dare me to

seduce an impossible man at the bar table right in front of us. Multiple women already tried to flirt with the dude but all of them ended up getting humiliated and ended up running for their lives in tears. We didn’t know the guy but he looked powerful enough to send a few ladies out of the bar with just a raise of a hand.

I sighed, why am I still surprised at this point? Emily Zhang never fails to create a memory whenever she gets drunk, and if you don’t go with her wishes, she turns crazy and we somehow end up in the police station. Yes, it’s true. It has happened, not once, not twice! But plenty of times already that I'm not even scared to hang around the police station anymore. Most of the time I’d play along with her, but if the dare was too hard, I end up faking the deed to calm her down.

I glanced at the guy facing away from us.

He had a sad back for some reason and it was easy to tell that he was going through something by the way he was chugging the alcohol like water.

That my friend… is a Red Flag.

“Right!” She jolts up, “Didn’t you say that you wanted a child on your own at this age? I remember you said that when we were in high school! We’re already 26 years old Abby, might as well get the good genes of a stranger that you always fantasized about! I mean look at the guy!”

Ha… here she goes again.

“You don’t even see his face, his back is literally facing us, Emily.”

“Whatever! He has a sexy back and I'm here for all of it! Sexy back means handsome guy! I bet a hundred dollars that he’s hotter than any celebrity that

you’ve seen in your life!”

“You said that with every guy you try to hook me up with.”

“And you always say no whenever I hook you up with a hot guy! It’s my birthday. Come on, the last thing I’d want is my best friend turning into a 30-years-old virgin.” She embraces me, playfully shaking my body while pleading. “Think about it, you get the baby with good genes and also get to experience great sex on your first night! How great is that!”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on Abby! This is the last time I’d ask this for you!”

She was wriggling my body a bit too much that I had to stop her at some point. I raised my hand in surrender to her persistence and stood hastily from our

table. I wasn’t going to win against her whims anyway, so might as well just let her have her fun on her birthday… right?

Can I really trust a drunk person? Well, it’s not like I was being forced to do this, when in the first place, Emily just knew how I wanted to be a single mother even before senior year. I vividly remember how she laughed at me when I said that. Who’d believe a woman to say so anyway?

In my case, I don’t really believe in marriage or the love that everyone speaks about. For me, love is filled with lies and unhealthy devotion. One way or another, it’s always going to be more painful than it was ever so blissful. Thinking back, I learned those things the hard way. I had to watch my mother believe in the lies of my cheating father with her whole heart.

She was simply blinded. That’s why I'm not

going to be married in this life, nor I'm going to be like my mother. In the end, seducing a guy isn’t much of a big deal. After all, it’s not serious and it's just a one-night stand to get what I want in life.

“Fine!” I sighed in frustration. “But if he’s not as hot as I think, I step out, okay?”

“Deal!” She shouts, raising her glass in the air in excitement. “Don’t worry b*tch, I’ve always been good at distinguishing handsome men even in a baseball stadium! I'm sure you’ll like this one!”

As I walked toward the bartender’s table, my heart started to pace faster. There’s this weird air of cold-heartedness around the guy that it makes it hard for anyone to approach him after all the scenes he just made earlier. At that moment, no one else but me was on the way to approach him. The women dispersed on time that I had

the space to sit beside him.

Yet I don’t plan to do that since I don’t want to get my ass dragged out of the nightclub so I had to be careful. I slowly made my way to a nearby seat close to him, with a chair between us, I ordered a martini and waited. It was then I had a sudden realization as I sat there dumbfounded.

Oh no, being single all my life… how could I forget that I suck at flirting?

I cursed under my breath. How do I even dare forget? The reason I also keep rejecting the blind dates my best friend sets me up with was that I suck at pretending to be nice! I was praying that he would not be my type and I could just run back to my best friend. However, for some shitty reason, my jaw almost dropped when I saw how he looked.

He had blue eyes, a perfectly chiseled

nose from my view, even his jawline looked like it came right out of a magazine. I blatantly stared at him in disbelief as he continued to drown himself in alcohol. I simply couldn’t believe that my drunk best friend's prediction would come true. But… this is beyond my expectation! This guy’s out of my league! Maybe he’s a celebrity or model? But wouldn’t he be famous if he was?

Without knowing, I didn’t know I was already blurting out some nonsense that I thought was all in my head.

“How could a guy like you exist? God, you’re perfect!”