I am a white woman and my stories from West Palm Beach occurred from the age of 24-34 years old. (I'm now 41 years old, married, and living back in Virginia now). At the age of 24 I broke up with my boyfriend of four years and moved from Virginia to Florida; West Palm Beach to be exact. I moved in with a friend of mine who I had met in college prior to both of us dropping out. I was hired as a waitress at a bar/restaurant I will not name. My stories pick up from there. The names have been changed for anonymity.
Upon moving to West Palm Beach from Virginia, I was able to secure a job as a waitress with no experience. Needless to say it took some adjusting. To be honest I had never held a job other than being a swim instructor growing up. Waitressing was a fun job but very stressful at first - especially for someone who has bouts of anxiety such as myself. Top it off with having to make new friends and living away from my family and I was a certifiable mess.
One of the things that I found solace in was sports - especially my Washington Redskins. West Palm is a very transient city so there were a lot of football fans from all over the United States. I worked all the Sunday's I could as the tips were good. Banter amongst the staff was common and playful. One particular Sunday a bartender, we'll call him Jimmy for the sake of this story, had a friend at the bar watching football who had just moved to WPB from California. He was short, about 5'8", but not shorter than me. I was 5'6" and weighed about 135 pounds give or take. I had blond hair, not yet bleached, brown eyes and had West Palm boobs (36c) but not a West Palm body. That is to say I wasn't fit but I wasn't exactly what most areas of the United States would call fat. I just wasn't toned.
Anyways, Jimmy's Philadelphia Eagles were playing my Redskins so the trash talk was flowing. Prior to the game Jimmy offered a me a bet - if the Redskins won he would put in a word with his friend about getting me training and a bartending job at a different bar/restaurant. If I lost I had to go on a date with his friend who was sitting at the bar - who we will call Shane. It was a close game but to get to the point, the Redskins lost by two. I didn't particularly want to go on a date with his friend - he was cute enough but fairly unremarkable. He was white and his short, dark brown hair was thinning young (he was 28). He was slightly overweight but by no means fat. He did have these great blue eyes though.
I gave Shane my number and agreed we could go out for drinks sometime when I was off the next two days. Shane called me on Monday and asked me to meet him for happy hour drinks downtown. We agreed on a taco place that had decent happy hours. I threw on some jeans, a cute black tank, and I met him around 5pm.
The talk was stale at first - he was a golf instructor, moved here for a new start, had big family - and I sought solace in my margaritas to ease the awkwardness. I'm not sure whether it was the margaritas, his genuine interest in me, or the fact I didn't eat many tacos to soak up the margs - but I was finding myself more and more interested in Shane. So much so I agreed to grab more drinks down the street.
We arrived at a tiki bar where I switched from margaritas to a Red Bull vodka (bad idea) and we exchanged a kiss at the bar. It was a good kiss. Nice soft lips but the kiss was still firm. His hand on my cheeks pushing my mouth onto his. In short, I liked it. He asked me if I wanted to go back to his apartment for more drinks and I agreed.