Caleb's Story

****Continuation of the fictional series****

The first thing you need to know about me is that family is number one; not just the family I was born into but the family I created with my close friends. Each of them helped put a piece of the puzzle together for the person I would eventually become. Standing out above all others was my father because it was him who taught me the craft I would dedicate my life to; ever since I was a child I followed him around like his shadow assisting him with household projects until I could do them on my own. By the time I was eighteen I was well versed in electrical, plumbing, woodworking, and all other things I could create with my hands. It was also my father who taught me how to be a man. Being a man comes down to one thing and that one thing is integrity.

My parents have a great relationship. They're loving, respectful, and honest with one another. Nothing is perfect and neither are they but they work at it every day. Small romantic gestures, lots of affection, and putting their children above all else are the rules they live by. I knew someday when I found that special girl, that I wanted what my parents have with each other.

All my friends constantly teased me about being a late bloomer. While everyone started some form of dating in middle school I stuck to sports and home life. Don't get me wrong, I liked girls, but I was real shy. Reid always knew what to say or how to act around them and even tried to teach me some things. What can I say? You can't teach a frog to soar like an eagle. Most school dances I was the tag-along amongst all my friends who had a date. And I was okay with that.

Believe it or not my first girlfriend happened when I was nineteen. I was already working as a subcontractor for a small local company when the boss's daughter came by with a bunch of her friends. Sarah caught my eye. Most guys wouldn't have noticed Sarah; she wasn't the prettiest, the tallest, the thinnest, but she was my kind of girl. Growing up in Italian family I learned to value women who looked like women and not like fourteen year old little boys. A real woman to me has meat: thighs, butt, breasts, stomach. That's sexy! I'm also drawn to darker features once again probably an Italian thing.

At nineteen I got to experience what most of my friends had experienced at thirteen, the joys and pitfalls of first love. Of course I thought she was the one. Of course I was blind to the blatant red flags that everyone else saw and tried to warn me about. Of course I was a complete idiot. Everything that could have turned ugly did.

Sarah was a blatant bitch to me. She had a brilliant way of giving me back handed insults. None of my friends liked her, my family didn't like her but at the time I didn't care because I was so smitten. She had a way of reeling you in and keeping you in her grasp. A master manipulator. I was there whenever she called or texted trying desperately to make her happy. Somehow my efforts always came up short. People thing it's women who always get the brunt end of a bad relationship, that's just not true.

She even came on to a few of my friends and my happily married brother right in front of me. I chalked it up to her just being flirty. She explained that I had jealousy, insecurity issues that I needed to deal with. I was new to this whole dating world and figured she was right. We weren't married, so why limit ourselves? That's what she said although it didn't feel quite right to me, but I didn't want to lose her so I just kept quiet. Sarah stood me up when we had plans. I always paid for everything, she never offered even once. I lent her my car to run a quick errand and then didn't hear from her for two days. By no means am I a square but that girl was a certified pot head, something like six times a day...

One of the things that hurt the most was how she reacted when I got the house. My good friend Tyler is in real estate and found me this old re-possessed house that I could buy for cash real cheap. The problem was it would need a lot of work, but that was what I did so this seemed like a dream. Since I didn't go off to college like my older brother and sister, my college fund had remained untouched and I used some of it to buy this house. I would use the rest of the money to invest in fixing it up. I saw this house for not what it was but what it could be. The idea was that once it was all done Sarah and I could move into it to start our lives together.

I took her on a tour of the house explaining all the plans I had for it. She looked utterly disgusted and even suggested I just sell the house to buy us a nice condo instead. This was a double edged sword, I was happy she wanted to live with me but hurt that she didn't want to do it in this house.

"Fixing up this house is going to take a couple of years." I tried to explain to her.

She rolled her eyes, "Well I don't think I can wait that long. I want a condo now. Can't you just buy a condo now? You still have all that money?"

"You know if we lived together you'd have to help out with the cost too?"

"Why? I thought you were a man. A real man takes care of his woman."


I know you're thinking that should have been the end of us, however it took one near catastrophic event for that to happen. That would be the STD. I'm not getting into any gory details here. What you need to know is that Sarah was the only girl I had been with intimately and what I contracted from her was 100% fixable by antibiotics. The sad thing is that she left me. She told me I was boring and she had found something much better. Our entire tryst lasted three years. Three years of me loving someone who never loved me back. Another part of being a man is admitting when you're hurting. Women don't own the market on heartbreak.

The best thing for me was to throw myself into that house. The majority of my spare time was spent renovating my dream home. Fortunately I had a lot of connections in the area to know where to get good deals on the supplies I needed. I also had family and friends willing to help me out. Maybe this won't make sense to you but I felt like this house gave me a sense of purpose. This house would never cheat on me or break my heart. And I had other forms of love in my life, just not the romantic kind. Secondly without Sarah on my life I was better able to focus on my work. I went from being part of a small local contracting company to getting the head foreman position at a major union contracting company.

Don't think I was a hermit. I dated here and there. I even had my experience of casual sex. But there was no depth, no real connection with the girls I dealt with. It was probably my fault, I just wasn't that into it. How do you learn to trust again? How do you know someone isn't playing you? You don't and to me the risk just wasn't worth it.

One night my friends had an intervention. Most of them happily paired off and wanting me to find the happiness that each of them had. Perry had taken it upon himself to sign me up for a bowling event through some friend making internet site.

Perry pleaded, "You need to meet new people. All you do is hang with us and work on the house."

I got defensive, "What's wrong with that?"

It was Tyler's turn, "It's been almost eight years since Sarah. Maybe you could meet a nice girl or even just make some new friends. Get yourself out there."


Reluctantly I agreed. Bowling used to be one of my favorite past times when I was a kid. No expectations, just go to have a good time. The day of the bowling event I got there real early. Punctuality: gift or curse? I didn't see anyone and had never been to this alley before. There was a girl, no a woman, a beautiful woman sitting by herself waiting for the group. She had the deepest brown eyes I had ever seen, dark curly hair, fair skin, and this sexy voluptuous body. Most of all I wanted to know what her smile was like. You can tell so much about a person by their smile.

I sat a few seats next to her and avoided eye contact because I was so nervous. I knew I should say something, anything. Comment on the weather? No, that was lame. Although what I said was equally lame, "Do you bowl?" Of course she bowled. Why else would she be here?

She looked over at me, "Yes, but not well. I specialize in guttering. Do you think they'll give us bumpers? It really helps my self esteem."

I laughed while catching her smile. It was warm, friendly, and honest. There was only one other person who had a smile like that and that would be my mother. If you know anything about us Italian boys then you know we are always looking for a girl like our mother. Something about her seemed different although I had no idea what. But I was intrigued enough to find out. Her name is Lila.