Chapter 1 - fantasies

“Guess who messaged me the other day!” Martin boasted, sitting down to some beers with his friends for the last time. He admired their looks of interest before he uttered the name. “Jenny Johnson!”

The response was a mixture of laughs and eye rolls. “Are you still pining after her?” Jimmy laughed. “She’s been married for… five or six years by now, surely?”

“Exactly! It’s the seven year itch!” Martin grinned confidently. He had hoped that the guys would have been more impressed by his news, but mockery seemed to be the default response to everything with these guys. “She wants me! I know she does!” But even as he said it, he didn’t really believe it; a guy could still dream though.

“Let it go!” Liam nodded. “We love you man, we really do. But Jenny Johnson was one of the most attractive girls any of us have ever seen. And you… you’re pretty handsome,” he admitted grudgingly. "But you're like an eight, maybe an eight and a half on a good day. Guys like us don’t get girls like Jenny Johnson. That’s why she married that poster-boy army marine and went off to live in New York.”

“Where she will probably live happily ever after!” Jimmy interjected, trying to shut down Martin’s delusions.

“She was pretty amazing though, wasn’t she?” Liam interjected, dreamily. “Jenny Johnson!” He breathed out, remembering the name fondly and slipping his finger into his collar to let some air in; as if it had suddenly got very humid at the bar. “I used to jack-off thinking about her every night in high school!” He laughed, looking at the shocked faces around the table, surprised by his blunt honesty. “Come on! Admit it! We all did!” he scoffed. “What a pair she had! And that ass! Mmm! Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!”

“Some of us still are jacking off every night, thinking about her,” Jimmy joked, elbowing Martin in the ribs and laughing.

“You guys don’t understand,” Martin sighed, “Jenny contacted ME, not the other way around. She said that she had heard I was moving to New York with work and that she wanted to meet up for a few drinks one evening.”

“Forget it!” Liam chuckled. “It’s never going to happen. She’s married to that army guy, Vincent. The sooner you accept that, the better for everyone.”