3 Guys You'll Never Date

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, we're making our final approach into Dallas. At this time, please stow your tray tables and return your seats to their upright position. And remember, there are some guys that you should never date."Samantha Stone's eyes popped open and she straightened in her window seat. As the rest of the flight announcement floated away, she realized that in her dream state she had projected her own thoughts through the PA system. She'd definitely had too much wine with the girls.Next to her, a young couple sat with their shoulders and heads close, poring over brochures of Hawaii -- their obvious destination after connecting in Dallas. Their excitement and love for each other overflowed in every glance, every gesture. They could barely keep their hands off each other.Sam's heart squeezed with an unidentifiable emotion -- envy? The way the young man's fingers mirrored the young woman's, pressing intimately before intertwining, pinged a memory chord. Unbidden, a set of hooded green eyes rose in her mind -- he had laced their hands over her head as he had settled his body over hers, with the most intense eye contact and the most complete connection that she had ever experienced with a man.Sam blinked. Only Teague Brownlee hadn't been a man -- he'd been a handsome rebel boy with raging hormones and a desire to bed a girl way out of his league. They'd shared a one-night stand the night of graduation...the culmination of four years of flirtatious looks across the crowded halls of their high school from the safe confines of their respective cliques -- hers the most popular, his the most notorious.She willed away the distant memory, as she had a thousand times before, but it stubbornly lingered. Forgetting Teague Brownlee had become an automatic reflex after she had left Gypsum, a suburb of Dallas, to study architecture at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. She had been single-minded, determined to get her degree in record time while maintaining top honors.That forbidden night with Teague had crept into her thoughts often in those days, usually at night when she'd pulsed with homesickness and loneliness. But the desire to be in his arms had been overridden by her desire to succeed, to prove her mettle to her successful father, to make her mark in what was still primarily a man's industry. Being involved with someone like Teague, a guy with no ambition and no prospects, would only have held her back. Besides, she'd burned that bridge the morning after their illicit night together.She hadn't thought of Teague in years and blamed the flashback on the lunch talk with Abby and Carley. Deep down, she wondered if her vehemence in denouncing men who were less driven had something to do with Teague Brownlee. She remembered feeling frustrated and angry that he'd seemed directionless and bound for mediocrity because she'd thought he could do better for himself...that they might have had more than one night together if he hadn't been willing to settle for a small life in the small town of Gypsum. She idly wondered what had become of him and decided that he was doing something with his hands or working in one of Gypsum's factories, probably married to a pretty Gypsum girl, the two of them raising a gaggle of wild Gypsum kids.Through the small rectangular window the Dallas skyline came into view. Fondness swelled Sam's chest. She knew each building by its shape and height, knew the architect's name and the approximate year it had been erected. Someday she hoped that her own unique structures would pierce the skyline, that the name Samantha Stone would be synonymous with progressive architecture and an era of new growth for the city.The young woman next to her laughed, touching her boyfriend's face. They were oblivious to her. Sam shifted slightly in her seat to give them more room, more privacy...and to distance herself from their intimacy.When she was their age, she was contemplating postgraduateBond, Stephanie is the author of '3 Guys You'll Never Date ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780373837182 and ISBN 0373837186.