Late March

"Bugger it," I shouted, as I lifted my damaged shoe heel from between the pavement cracks.

They were a pair of my favorite Nine West shoes. Damn! After rescuing my left shoe from the hell-mouth of dirt and cement, the heel was now blotched with scratches and a small leather tear.

Two college students, who sat under a burgeoning violet Jacaranda tree outside QUT's Graduate School of Business building, looked up and raised their eyes at me in response to my curse. I raised one eyebrow and glared at them.

"You really ought to wear flats," Maddy once told me.

Yeah, I know, I know! I rolled my eyes at the thought of my closest friend, who similarly haunted my conscience to the way in which Jacob Marley haunted Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.

Well, it was not 1843, and I didn't need a conscience on the day I killed my shoe. What I needed was to do the following:

1. Hand in my financial management assignment before five p.m.

2. Grab some food. I was starving at that point.

3. Pick up a cold beer on the way home. Fourex beer, to be precise. This was the beer brand that many Queenslanders, including myself, were loyal to. You wouldn't catch me drinking Carlton Beer or Victoria Bitter unless it was for a bet that I had lost. I lost a bet once and had to drink the other piss, after arm wrestling a guy twice my size. I had a bit too many beers at the time and thought I was invincible, like Rambo.

***

Twenty minutes later, I walked out of the business school building, feeling as light as a feather after handing in a hefty assignment that was weighed with numbers, equations, and rationales.

I headed towards a breezy, but busy outdoor cafe, which was sandwiched between the business school building and the design and architecture school building. I was a hungry woman and had one mission: food.

After ordering and receiving a quiche, a garden salad, and a soft drink, I found an empty table that was calling my name. It was the last available table, so I scrambled to it before anyone else could grab it. I was about to dig into my salad when I sensed a presence at my table.

As my eyes slowly peered up, a burst of air suddenly whooshed out of my lungs. My knees shook, and my cheeks burned with...passion? What was this feeling? I felt as if my heart was scorched by a thousand flaming arrows fired by Eros, the Greek god of love.

Thor, the Norse thunder god, stood in front of me, blocking the sunset, which created a halo effect around him. His presence struck a bolt of lightning throughout my entire nervous system.

There he was-beautiful Thor, with his blessed Nordic features and his fair hair.

Eros' love arrows pierced my heart, while Thor's lightning ran down my veins, rendering me weak and wanting more of Sven.

Shit!

My heart raced a million miles an hour as my gaze looked up, before sinking and drowning into his oceanic eyes.

What kind of strange sorcery was this?

Sven wore a pair of faded jeans and a tight t-shirt, outlining his muscular figure. He had a beaded chain around his wrist, and Ray-Ban sunglasses tucked on the collar of his shirt. It was hard not to notice his broad shoulders, slim hips, and long legs. What struck me to the point of near blindness (they say love is blind), was his dazzling, dimpled smile.

He removed his backpack from his shoulder and swung it onto the wooden table bench. I felt as if I was going to die of a heart attack.

Instead, I slowly smiled back.

"Hello," the Norse god spoke.

"Hi!" That was all I managed to scrape, as my mind was jumbled in all sorts of cuneiform, hieroglyphics, katakana, kanji, and other forms of mixed up, scrambled random symbols, thoughts, and pieces.

Have you watched the scene at the start of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, where Peter Quill breaks into a dance, singing along to Redbone's Come and Get Your Love?

Right there and then, I was feeling it. Whatever Quill felt, I felt that Star-Lord vibe. I started to drag a long sip of my soda through the straw and into my throat.

"Can I sit here? All the other tables are full." The Viking warrior's smile could charm the socks out of my grandmother's feet.

I managed to nod my head, and Sven sat down before I began to choke on my soda. Fantastic. Way to impress a guy, Eva.

"Here, this may help." Sven offered his serviette to me as I wheezed and tried to breathe the air.

"Wrong hole," I managed to speak. Wrong hole? That line had dirty connotations. He probably thought I was perverted. This was not a good start on my part.

"That's okay. I do that all the time," he responded with another killer smile.

"Huh?" I wiped my mouth with Sven's serviette. I was going to keep it as a memento forever.

"When I drink, the soda goes down my windpipe. It runs in my family, you know." Mr. Sexy grinned.

"Well, I'm glad to hear that. No, I mean, I'm glad to hear you understand." I was sure that my face was the color of a beetroot, deep hues of purple and red.

Sven laughed. His voice had a melodic tone to it. Perhaps it was the Scandinavian accent.

After a minute of awkward silence, I broke the ice by introducing myself.

"I'm Eva. Eva King." I reached my hand out to shake Sven's warm, steady hand.

"Sven Hansen," the gorgeous human specimen in front of me responded.

"Where are you from, Sven?" I was curious.

"I'm Norwegian. How about you?"

"I'm a home-grown Aussie. I'm a Brisbane girl." I winked at him.

I noticed a group of women staring at us. They were probably wondering what a hunk like Sven was doing with a girl like me when I saw a sneer on one of the women's faces. I was no Gigi Hadid with endless legs or a timeless beauty like Audrey Hepburn.

I was five feet three, with size-twelve hips and a slight gap between my front teeth. I was proud of my figure because I felt that it made me the woman that I was. I was proud of my teeth because they were what made my smile unique. People remembered me as Eva King. I was not anyone else.

Sven and I engaged in some small talk about the weather until Sven's facial expression transformed from satisfaction to fear.

Uh oh. Something was not right. Was I missing a tooth?

"Eva... There's a big spider walking out of your salad. Shit, it's fucking huge!" Sven exclaimed as he backed away.

I looked down and screamed.

A young, furry Huntsman spider about the size of a golf ball, which must have been buried at the bottom of my salad, made a grand debut, with all eight legs.

Fully grown Huntsman spiders attain a leg span of 25 to 30 centimeters (9.8 to 11.8 inches). Their legs bear fairly prominent spines, but the rest of their bodies are smoothly furry.

This one was a youth but was still big enough to put up a good scare. They are generally harmless spiders, but if you had one of these motherfuckers crawling out of your salad, you wouldn't be sitting there and smiling, while digging into the salad for another bite.

I took my bag and left the table with a frightened and confused Viking as I headed toward the cashier, where I demanded my money back because I sure as hell didn't order a fuzzy Huntsman spider salad.

After I received my refund, I turned back and saw an empty table.

Sven was gone.

Later that night, I opened a can of Fourex beer and took a sip while watching Guardians of the Galaxy in my cozy loft-style apartment. I loved the high ceilings.

The advantage of living in an inner-city apartment was that I didn't see the likes of Huntsman spiders, snakes, and other creepy crawlies that came with the warm climate in eastern Australia.

My mind shifted its focus away from the film, as I wondered if I would ever see Sven again. I kept his serviette in my handbag.

What was he studying? What was his family like?

Was he smart? Was he a good guy?

Was he in a relationship?

I fell asleep on the sofa about halfway through the film, while drifting further into the land of sleep.

I barely knew him, but I missed him already.

A/N: I hope you like this chapter. It's a little short, but the story is building up, and there will be longer chapters. The live spider salad is based on a true story. Feel free to vote and comment.