Jalen Townsend had just wrapped up his day at work and was ready to start the weekend. It had been a busy and productive week for him as a mechanical engineer at a firm in the heart of downtown Chicago. He worked hard and loved to play hard as well, and what better way to play than to kick off the weekend at the strip on the near north side of town in between Chicago and North Avenue on Wells Street. This was his original plan unless a better opportunity presented itself.
Jalen said goodnight to some of his coworkers that were still around, and he then briskly walked toward the Metra Station on Randolph and Michigan several blocks away from his firm. It was a few minutes after five as people in mass droves exited the Loop, and traffic was at a standstill on most streets. He arrived at Millennium Station at twenty minutes after five, and the train was scheduled to leave the station at 5:27 pm. He lived in the south suburbs, and his stop was the 147th Street stop in Harvey, Illinois where he parked his brand-new white BMW 740i. He then entered the first car and sat in the second row behind the vestibule on the right-hand side of the train. He saw some familiar faces as he placed his earphones on and started listening to one of his rap playlists that he created on Spotify. He subsequently shut his eyes after he placed his monthly Metra pass inside the card holder on the seat in front of him.
Jalen awakened just before his stop as the clock read 6:15 pm, and he remembered that he needed gas before he started his Friday evening. There was a Food4Less grocery store on the corner of Sibley Boulevard and Greenwood Avenue, and he frequently bought his gas there. He pulled up at the first pump and was taken aback when he saw this gorgeous young woman at the pump next to him. He would see this young lady quite frequently but never had the courage to approach her until now. They usually rode the same train back and forth to work every morning from the 147th Street stop in Harvey, Illinois to downtown Chicago, he sometimes saw her at the grocery store alone, and this time, she was at the gas pump filling up her gas tank. She was five foot six and curvaceous, and she was wearing a halter top that exposed her navel ring and white slacks that hugged her thighs and derriere while gradually flaring out from her knees to her shoes. Her olive brown skin was smooth and shiny, she wore her wavy black hair in a ponytail, and he simply couldn’t take his eyes off of her. His car was adjacent to her car as he was almost finished fueling, so he took the opportunity to say something to her.
“Hi, I’m Jalen,” he extended his hand to her by the pump, “and I see you on the Metra from time to time.”
She carefully looked him up and down and looked at his white BMW 740i parked in front of the pump across from her, and she smiled in approval before saying, “I’m Lisa. Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to finally meet you, too. You look beautiful, by the way.”
“Thank you,” she blushed.
“So, I’m just going to ask you point blank. Do you have a man?”
“No, not at the moment.”
“Would you like to go out with me?”
“Sure, what do you have in mind?”
His gas nozzle clicked—indicating that his tank was full. He quickly placed the nozzle back on the pump and said, “How about dinner and drinks tonight?”
“I’d like that. Where do you want to meet?”
“Let’s meet up at Chili’s in Calumet City at nine. Does that work for you?”
“Yes.”
“Can we exchange numbers just in case one of us is running late or something?”
“Okay.”
They programmed their respective numbers in their phones, and Jalen drove off in the direction of his home in South Holland, Illinois, hardly able to contain his excitement after landing a date with the girl he’d been eyeing for months. He had a little over two hours to kill before his date with Lisa, so he stopped off at a florist to get a bouquet of twelve red roses for her. Once he was done at the florist, he stopped off at Jewel-Osco to buy a bottle of red wine just in case the date went well enough to ask her for a nightcap.