DOLCE

British Invasion

Sick of the song "We Found Love" by Rihanna? Me too. That was, until I fell in love in a hopeless place. Here's my story.

After getting a job in the real world, I was putting in a ton of hours and was in desperate need of a vacation. My girlfriends and I were still in denial that we graduated college and booked a trip to Miami for spring break week. Yes, spring break! Where we can drink non-stop, get messy at a foam party, and chant FRESHMAN! FRESHMAN! We all packed our bags and flew down south. What we thought was going to be a never-ending frat party in sunny Florida turned out to be a Euro-trip.

I'm in Miami Bitch.
Spring Break week in Miami was the same week as the "Music Conference." AKA there were a bunch of famous European DJ's playing "trance" music at the clubs, and all of Europe came. Us four girls took advantage of this opportunity and met guys from: Spain, France, Brazil, Italy, Russia, Scotland, Ireland, Sweden, and my personal favorite, England.

The third night into our trip I convinced Gabanna and the others to walk down Ocean Drive to find something other than a club. After 2 hours of getting ready and jumping on the beds to Sak Noel's "What the Eff" song, we took the elevator down to the lobby. As we were leaving the hotel 3 Brit's came up to us asking where we were going, and if they could tag along. The one guy came up to me and his dimples had me instantly, shotty!

Meet Damien. He was 23, A "copper" aka cop from London, drop-dead gorgeous, and his accent made me think of 10 different things I wanted to do to him.

As we walked to Ocean Drive, Damien and I trailed behind trying to mock each others accents. "You sound like you're from London!" Wasn't as funny to them as we thought it was. Besides him never having mac & cheese before, he was pretty normal and quite awesome. When we got to the bar I noticed my friend Amber was talking to Damien's friend.

"Amber, I love how we shottied the Brit's! What's your guys name?"
Drunk Amber smiled and said "This is Lorax!"
The Brit chimed in at this point "My name is Lawrence, not Lorax! Who the hell is named Lorax?"
"Sorry bro, your name is "The Lorax" now." ...and it stuck.

The entire night was full of tequila shots, dancing, and chanting "The Lorax" with the Brit's.  Gabanna got caught up with a French guy that apparently didn't know how to French kiss. (Dude, it's like your duty to know how to do that! "French" is in the name). I got a little too tipsy to dance in heels so Damien and I snuck off to the beach for a late night swim. His friend Pat followed behind with some Irish girl he met. Damien and I ran up to the lifeguard stand, stripped down to our "skivvies" as the British say (aka underwear), and ran into the water. Coolest. Thing. Ever.

It was like a scene out of twilight except for the whole creepy vampire/getting knocked up part. After realizing we were in shark-infested waters, we got out and and ran back to the lifeguard stand. He couldn't help but smile, tell me how beautiful I was, and kiss me. All I kept thinking was, "why the hell does he have to live in London. Eff my life."

We grabbed our things and decided to find Pat. Noises were coming from the other lifeguard stand and Damien ran over to interrupt.

"Pat, Dolce and I are going back...oh my god, I'm so sorry!"

Yea, it wasn't Pat. Turned out it was two random people getting it on, on the beach. Yeaaaa buddy.

If that wasn't enough, after we made it back to the hotel, we heard giggling coming from the guys room. Lorax was in there with Amber and due to "bro code" we sat around by the pool to wait. Damien began to tell me about his job, how he supports his mom, spoils his niece, and has a huge passion for travel...like I didn't fall for him enough in the past few hours. Geez dude, I'm moving to London.

Bed Time.

We finally made it to bed around 5 am, and he let me be the little spoon. I woke up the next morning in his boxer shorts and t-shirt to find Amber missing.

"Lorax! Where is Amber?"
"What? Why the hell are you calling me Lorax?"
"Do you remember anything from last night?"
"Nope, I blacked out." he replied. No wonder why Amber snuck out.

Thankfully Damien didn't black out, because he wouldn't let go of me. We spent the next couple of nights together but there was no way this spring fling was going to end up like it did for Sandy and Danny Zuko.

"If you want you can keep my skivvies."
I looked down at his boxers and gave him a puzzled look, "No, I'm good. We really don't do that here in America, but thanks."

I really don't need to keep your underwear to remember you by. A picture or a nice kiss will do.

As we said our goodbyes on the last night I ignored his comment, "I'll see you soon." I was not letting myself get carried away with a guy that lives in a different country. (Even though it sounded so cute in his accent.)

So what came out of this fling? A bitter-sweet memory. And a few pictures of us together to show my friends (damn, those dimples).

Moral of the Story:
- Sometimes we need to let loose and put ourselves out there for strangers. It's important to know you can feel something...even if it is just a fling.

- "There's plenty more fish in the sea." (in my case, across the Atlantic). There's a whole world of people out there, you can find a connection with more than one.
- It doesn't matter where you're from. Damien and I grew up in different countries with different backgrounds but we still sparked.

- If a guy asks you to jump in the ocean with him in your skivvies...don't be a girl and freakin' do it!

- Don't hold on to things that can't last. You can hold on to the lovely memory, but that's it.