EXCEPTional

Ch. 29 (Chance)

*Chance*

I stared at yet another offer from some stranger to be my girlfriend. My recent status as "single" suddenly gave women—and men—around the world the opportunity to sell themselves as my "perfect match."

Because I had broken it off with Adriana, even though I had lost the status of being a part of the "Dream Couple," I did regain the title of "Most Eligible Bachelor." The title was both a blessing and a curse. It was a good thing, because it offered more variation in photo shoots. But it was a curse thanks to the thousands of fangirls who wanted to be with me.

After opening the email from the stranger who claimed to be the perfect girl for me, I replied, sending, "Thank you for the consideration. I am greatly honored that you took the risk to contact me. However, I am not interested in a relationship at this time. You will find your Prince Charming—I know it. –Chance Olson."

I clicked on the next email. It read, "You don't know me, but I know you and I know you'd be interested in a girl like me. I've been told I'm great in bed, and I'm good looking. Even if you're just looking for someone to fool around with, I'd be glad to be that girl for you."

Sighing, I typed, "Thank you for the offer. I am honored that you took the risk to contact me. However, I am not interested in an arrangement like that at this time. You will find your Prince Charming—I know it. –Chance Olson."

There were about ten other emails similar, and I had already gone through twenty of them. But I was known for responding to fan-mail as best I could, and I wanted to keep at least one good thing to my name.

So I rolled my shoulders back, popped my knuckles, and got back to the grind. Eventually, it just turned into copy and paste.

About an hour later, I was done staring at a computer screen. Yawning, I shut my laptop and got up. I snatched my phone off the table and went downstairs. I disappeared into the office.

I had begun a personal project. It was something I could do when I couldn't hang out with Bridget (which I couldn't until Wednesday—she had a stressful deadline approaching). So to pass the time, I made collages of photos I had taken.

It started with the pictures I had taken of Bridget and the ones she had captured of me. I arranged them in a spread that had Bridget on the right side, me on the left, and the two of us in the center.

After that, I created a Bridget Collage and then one of me. When I ran out of the high quality photos from that day, I took my camera outside and snapped shots of everything.

Even the blurry photos got a collage of their own. When I'd studied the final, framed project, I determined it was incredibly artsy for someone who couldn't even make macaroni necklaces in elementary school.

I wanted to give one of the spreads to Bridget, since she had given me a great vacation, despite all the shit life had thrown at me. I wanted to pay her back for dealing with me, and I thought one of the spreads was the best way to do that.

The only thing I had to decide now was, which one to give her. I considered giving her the one of purely me, but I knew she would take that as I was just being arrogant. So it was between my eclectic nature collage, and the first collage I'd made of both of us.

I finished printing off the last few pictures I wanted for my latest spread. It had been inspired by Bridget, Sunday night. I called it, "Drunken Thoughts," and it was a mix of blurred photos and couples in the park.

My favorite picture was the close-up of just a pair of lips that were touching each other.

When I had walked through the park Monday afternoon with my camera around my neck, I had gotten a good response. I would ask people if I could take their picture, and they would immediately say yes. After all, I was a famous male model asking for the average person's photo—of course they would agree to that.