The Dating Bender Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  *BONUS* INSTANT ACCESS TO A SECRET CHAPTER!

  GET (5) FREE READS EVERY FRIDAY!

  The Dating Bender

  By Christina Julian

  The Dating Bender

  Copyright © 2017 by Christina Julian.

  All rights reserved.

  First Print Edition: August 2017

  Limitless Publishing, LLC

  Kailua, HI 96734

  www.limitlesspublishing.com

  Formatting: Limitless Publishing

  ISBN-13: 978-1-64034-086-2

  ISBN-10: 1-64034-086-6

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To my parents, who loved the hell out of me, even when I refused to let them. And to Candy Jackson, who taught me that anything is possible. As long as you believe.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  *BONUS* INSTANT ACCESS TO A SECRET CHAPTER!

  GET (5) FREE READS EVERY FRIDAY!

  Chapter One

  Dad was tanked, which was no surprise, yet he stood eager and ready to walk me down the aisle. I peered out from the back of the church and saw no less than four hundred of my parents’ friends and family. I wasn’t sure if my vision was distorted due to the sweat that had seeped in, but it looked like the majority of the attendees were tipsy too. Perhaps it was my delay in getting to the church. I could have just been paranoid and projecting.

  But this sizzling May day was all mine. I scratched my nose for courage, steadied my father, who looked dangerously close to toppling, and we set off down the chapel’s gangplank. The cameras clicked, I smiled, and Dad gripped me for support. I felt as robotic as a Stepford wife.

  Two steps in I realized why my wedding planner recommended against the full-length beaded silk organza gown. Its raised surface gave my father something to cling to when he clutched my forearm and pulled off the intricately stitched beading.

  Sheldon stood side-by-side with the priest up ahead. From far away he looked like a little boy, afraid to meet his teacher on the first day of school. My father had that effect on people.

  “Are you sure you know what the hell you’re doing? We’ve never liked Sheldon,” my dad said. His boozy breath almost made me hurl. He sounded just like Grandpop, who used to snap the fridge shut and snarl every time we reached for a Ding Dong.

  I stopped mid-step and contemplated. Of course I knew what I was doing. Sheldon was an escape from the craziness, and he was my best friend, which had to count for something.

  We continued forward. The crowd must have heard my father’s comment because everyone had hushed to silence. With each step we took, I felt my cheeks turn from rosy to firebomb red. As if Sheldon had sensed my discomfort, he caught my attention with a subtle flip of his clean-shaven chin. He motioned for me to keep walking.

  As we neared the rest of the wedding party, my father almost tripped. He grabbed my shoulder to stabilize. His maneuver knocked my pale pink baby’s breath veil to the side of my sweaty noggin. I arrived at the altar with a headpiece that looked as tipsy as my father.

  He handed me off to my spouse-to-be, swatted me on the back, and said, “Good luck, you’re gonna need it,” thinking he was whispering, but he spoke loud enough for the priest and everyone in the front row to hear. His behavior made it difficult to love him, but his reign over my life would soon end.

  He belched and left me there to face my destiny as “Trumpet Voluntary” hummed in the background. That song and my dad’s disorderly behavior threatened to make me cry, but I resisted.

  After all the years in the trenches, I was finally going to be free. In a matter of speaking. Sheldon looked pleasant in his tuxedo. What I’d call cute-subpar, but he was mine. A section of his chestnut hair flopped over one of his coffee-brown eyes. He mouthed “I love you,” which made me giggle.

  I tried to center myself by looking at the ground. Father Sigfried must have expected more, because he stooped down to glare at me. He pushed my chin upward, forcing me to focus on my parents’ dismal church. It was dark and dank with not a bit of stained glass to be found.

  An unbearable span of time passed, while he droned on and the readers spouted a multitude of ridiculous religious passages. “Love is always patient and kind,” he said, a point often lost on my parents.

  Thirty minutes later, he brought us to the pinnacle of the ceremony. At a glance, it seemed like half the crowd was snoozing. I looked into Father Sigfried’s eyes through his large purple-framed glasses—an odd choice for the occasion. He had done a bad job at hiding his bald spot, which gave me a target to stare at.

  He waddled over to Sheldon and me, joined hand in hand. Mine was thick with sweat, but my fiancé squeezed it lovingly anyway.

  “Are we ready to recite the vows, folks?” he asked.

  It was impossible to not laugh. First inside, then out loud.

  My sister
-in-law Jackie sidled up to me, grabbed my hand, and pulled me away from Sigfried.

  “Sam, stop cackling. Your mom is on her way up to the altar.”

  I watched my mother bumble toward me.

  Oh, Christ.

  Suddenly, the church temperatures and my anger were climbing high. I glanced over at my bridesmaids in their hot pink cocktail dresses. They stood at attention, makeup melting off their faces. My poor tulip bouquet wilted in the humidity.

  “Samantha, what do you think you’re doing?” she slurred into my ear.

  Somewhere between buttoning up my dress and getting to the church she’d found a moment to get smashed, rivaling only my father. What ailed these people? Just because their marriage teetered between silence and barbs, didn’t seem like a justified reason to booze it up.

  I wiggled my nose vehemently to instigate deep breathing. I’m not sure if it was her beady eyes or the priest’s failed comb-over, but all I could do was cackle.

  Dear God get it together. This is embarrassing.

  “Don’t make me get your father,” she murmured through clenched teeth.

  Between snorts, I tried to quiet her. When that failed, I pulled her out of the center of attention.

  “It’s bad enough you dishonored us by living out of wedlock with your man-hussy, but now you’re mocking the sacrament of marriage in front of a goddamn full church. Show some respect.”

  Church did little to deter her tendency to curse.

  She genuflected and stormed off the altar.

  Poor Sheldon tried to settle me, the crowd, and my flailing mother. He excelled in crowd management, especially my unruly family. We Serranos were a scrappy bunch. Sheldon loved me in spite of that.

  He peeled away the throng of bridesmaids as my maid of honor swathed my forehead with a lavender-scented hankie. It was supposed to be my “something new.” Now not so much, since I’d soiled it with the spit of my laughter.

  “Sam, you can do this,” Sheldon said. “You’re about to walk away from this craziness. I promise you’ll never look back. That is my commitment to you.”

  He kissed me sweetly on the cheek. I giggled for just a moment longer, and then said I do.

  ***

  One hour and three hundred snapshots later, the marriage was sealed. My father teetered across the grassy knoll of Annapolis State Circle. The town looked surreal with its cobblestone streets, crackerjack buildings, and lines of midshipmen walking in calculated formations. A parade of American flags waved in the background.

  Dad broke up our huddle with the photographer. “Are you done yet, Samantha?” he said. “We want to get the party underway.”

  “Sorry to let my wedding photos get in the way of your binge drinking,” I whispered.

  My parents weren’t full-blown alcoholics, just weekenders, but in times of stress they drank themselves into a stupor regardless of what day of the week it was. They brought new meaning to the phrase “drinking and driving” because they not only drank and drove, they drank while driving. I prayed to God they might find a new coping mechanism.

  My father gave me the stink-eye and then toddled toward the festivities.

  Sheldon, in his first role as my husband, snatched me up into his arms and away from my father. He swung me across the lawn and ushered me into our reception. My man to the rescue.

  I stood at the entrance, staring at the ornate room where we were about to make our first public appearance as man and wife. It felt like a soul-touching moment until I peered toward the dance floor. In front of everyone, my mother shouted, “Hail to the Redskins, hail victory, Braves on the war path, fight for old DC!” as she performed the equivalent of an Indian tribal dance, hobbling barefoot across the dance floor. My father trailed behind her, martini in hand, always the loyal soldier. Martha Stewart Living warned that serving cocktails during a party could lead to unexpected “happenings.”

  “Sheldon, do something. Make them stop.”

  “Where’s your brother? Didn’t he say he would take care of them tonight?”

  I tore through the crowd trying to find Jimmy. He had forsaken his familial duties.

  The DJ announced the father/daughter dance. The last thing I felt like doing was dancing with him, but if it put an end to my mother’s chant, it was worth it. I recalled a fleeting moment of sobriety when my father and I slow danced to Sinatra the night before my fifth-grade cotillion. Today was not such a moment.

  I tried to muster some love for the man who had given me life, and realized I felt nothing but annoyance. I was about to buckle, but Sheldon grabbed my hand and squeezed it gently. “Go on, Sam, you can do this,” he said. “And when it’s over, we can start our new life. Together.”

  As I looked back at him, he nodded at the precise moment I was about to flee. He gave me the courage to continue.

  “The Way You Look Tonight” came on as I walked toward my father and extended my hand to him, which he needed to stay upright. I stared back at Sheldon, who wouldn’t break eye contact, and knew I made the right choice. He would be my rock—my escape route out of Hell.

  Chapter Two

  We argued our way through Central Park in a smelly NYC yellow cab, trying to catch the Jitney bus to the Hamptons. Smashed wedding cake coated my arm, courtesy of a quick-braking cabbie—not how I’d hoped to start my one-year anniversary getaway. It seemed like a symbolic representation of the last year of dreaded bliss. Moldy smashed cake.

  “Get us through the park or we’re going to miss our bus,” Sheldon commanded.

  Wow, he could be obnoxious. They didn’t warn me about spousal metamorphosis in the Marriage for Dummies book my parents gave us as a wedding gift.

  Sheldon continued to repeat himself until the cabbie stopped short in the middle of the bustling street. Manhattan seemed impervious to road rules.

  “Park no open, mister,” the driver said.

  I teetered between optimism and annoyance as Sheldon continued his verbal assault. At times like these, he made it difficult to love him.

  We spent the next two hours waiting for another Hampton Jitney, sweating curbside on the Upper East Side, because just like the cabbie warned, the park was closed. So much for Lonely Planet’s brilliant idea for an easy-breezy way out to the Hamptons.

  ***

  Despite arriving in South Hampton twelve hours later than planned, I vowed to make the best of things by ignoring the fact that we had set off on our sojourn when the sun was rising, and we would catch the sunset only if we were lucky.

  We arrived at the bed and breakfast and started unloading the car. With each step we took toward the front door, mosquitos descended upon my arm, biting me and the cake remnants that lingered. Brides magazine offered no tips for traveling with the top of your year-old wedding cake. Bite welts peppered my arm. I ignored the itching because I could see Sheldon needed his ego plumped.

  “Pooh Bear, why don’t we explore the town on a seaside stroll? It really is a beautiful spot you’ve chosen.”

  “Sure, anything to get some air. Bus rides give me motion sickness.”

  A sulking man is not attractive.

  “Great, I’ll get the champagne and fishy glasses we got at the wedding, and you grab a blanket,” I said.

  Sheldon stared at me with annoyance. Even in our worst hours at least one of us (okay, me) tried to remain optimistic.

  Why was he so damned depressed all the time? The first year of marriage is supposed to be the best time of your lives, though I felt more like newly dead than wed.

  I was nothing if not tenacious, though, so I pushed us out the door, and within five minutes, as we walked hand in hand, my bites stopped throbbing and I felt a foreign sense of arousal. Maybe this trip would be a chance to reconnect.

  In the months that followed our wedding, Sheldon worked nonstop in an ever-failing attempt to get his faltering rent-a-cop security company out of the red, and with every month he did not meet his goals, he took it out on me. It started with subtle jabs about my sal
ary at the Home Shopping Network not matching his expectations. As the months dragged on, he mastered the art of verbal abuse. Just like my father, he paid special attention to critiquing my inability to complete sentences.

  Shared morning coffee and canoodling fell to the wayside by month four. Dr. Phil warned about the seven-year itch but made no mention of the four-month “bitch out your bride” phase. I tried to remind myself that Sheldon loved me more than anybody ever had. He only wanted to take care of me. So what if he worked too much? There were worse offenses than wanting to succeed.

  For our first anniversary celebration, the serene view of South Hampton, with its whitewashed Victorians sandwiched between cool white sand dunes, put me at ease.

  “Hey, Pooh, isn’t this a spectacular sunset?” I said.

  “It sure is, Cubby. Shit.”

  And then he toppled. I dropped to the ground to help him. Blood spurted right on top of my adorable white eyelet sundress and into my sun-kissed brown locks, which had been highlighted for the occasion.

  A cracked bottle of tart-apple Mad Dog lay in the wake of Sheldon’s sandy tumble. At least we smelled delectable. More blood oozed out of Sheldon’s foot. I screamed until I realized nobody was coming.

  Men should never cry. I understand they feel pain too, but there was something disturbing about a guy whimpering like a sea lion.

  “Honey, let’s try to get some help. Do you think you can walk?”

  “Christ, no I can’t, Sam. There is a glass shard stuck up my foot. How stupid are you?”

  According to my father, very.

  Sheldon launched into a small rant, ending his fit by bouncing around like a clown at the circus.

  I scratched my nose gently as if to wipe away his barb—an annoying habit that had only gotten worse since the wedding.

  O magazine said crisis showed the strength or weaknesses of a relationship. Sheldon waved me off and called me an unrepeatable profanity. Would she count that as a sign of weakness?