Valentine’s Day stories: Summerlin couples share how they met

NEARLY MISCONNECTED

Paul Kraft and Lori Nelson met 4½ years ago. It was her alma mater’s alumni event inside one of Red Rock Resort’s VIP suites. Paul spotted Lori talking to the Eastern Michigan University president. When she broke off toward the food stations, he made his move.

“I was attracted to her; there was something about her that caught my eye. So I thought I’d walk up and see what kind of person she was. I said, ‘Hey, how are you doing and who are you?’” he recalled. “We kind of chit-chatted a bit.”

He asked her out for a drink after the party. She said no. He tried coffee. Lori had a long day, so no again.

“All I wanted to do was go home and get into my PJs, so I sort of turned him down … I didn’t connect the dots that he was flirting with me,” Lori said.

Paul assumed she wasn’t interested. But he got her business card and a couple of weeks later, he was thinking about her. He emailed her, reminded her of the event and asked to meet for drinks. This time, she said yes.

They had lunch and hit it off, discovering they had a lot in common. She recalled thinking, “He’s so cute. I like him.”

Paul was commuting from Southern California, opening Wahoo’s Fish Taco restaurants with no intention of making Las Vegas home. But eight months into their relationship, his move to Vegas was permanent.

“The real clincher was when her dog started liking me more than her. So, she had no choice but to like me,” Paul said.

They now live together along with Shadow, Lori’s dog from a rescue shelter. But is there something more permanent in the works?

“That would be great, but she hasn’t asked me yet,” he joked. “But, yes, we’re heading in a positive direction. Things happen with time, but we’re definitely on the right track.”

Shadow, he said, will be at the wedding as best man.

MARRIED WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

Deon and Jamelle Johnson had a storybook courtship.

They both have a love for books. So, of course, they met at a library.

Jamelle moved from Queens, a borough of New York City, to tend to her mother, Carol, in Las Vegas. The shy type, she preferred to stay at home and spend time with Carol. That changed when Deon spotted her at Summerlin Library with her mom. It was a chance meeting, but he made sure they bumped into each other again before she left.

“I was there with my mom, just looking at books, and I didn’t notice him at first but my mom saw him. He was kind of stalking me,” she giggled. “He popped out and asked me for my number.”

He was her type: tall and with a sweet personality. They both were studying at the College of Southern Nevada — him real estate, her business. They began hanging out on campus, going to the library and comedy shows, having study dates, but everything was platonic. Things continued that way for about two years.

She wasn’t looking for more than friendship. He was.

“She was sweet,” Deon said. “She was smart. I liked that she had direction.”

Jamelle said she was not the type of person he’d grown up knowing in Los Angeles, where girls are “into themselves and all about how they look.”

Instead, they had conversations — about books, politics, current events.

When she turned 21, they had their first date. Deon took her to dinner at Cheesecake Factory, then a Cirque du Soleil show. Back at her place, he walked her up to her front door, said goodnight and suddenly kissed her.

“I was surprised. I wasn’t expecting it,” Jamelle said. “After that, I went, ‘OK, maybe we’ll give this a try.’”

Things progressed, and they moved in together. Jamelle knew he was “the one” when she realized how much she missed him when his job took him out of town — that there was no one else she wanted to be with.

One night, Deon came home from work about 2 a.m. to find she’d fallen asleep on the couch, waiting for him. He slipped the promise ring he’d given her from her finger and used it to propose.

“I’d been thinking about it all night, all the drive home,” he said. “The time was right.”

That storybook courtship came together where it began. The pair married at Summerlin Library in 2008. Jamelle has a wedding-planning business, XOXO Jamelle.

HOT BODY CONNECTION

Pete and Kathie Castro met at Gold’s Gym about 12 years ago. She was in management; he was hired to work the front desk.

“Romance was in the air the moment I saw him, or at least it was for me,” Kathie said. “He looked like a Chippendales (stripper), and it was ridiculous how good-looking he was. He had every girl on the planet falling all over him.”

Theirs began as a boss-employee relationship, but they got to know each other while talking in the break room. They would meet after work at a bar to talk. Pete was always careful to say he wanted to be like Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner and remain single until he was in his 50s.

One night, he had to work the graveyard shift at Gold’s Gym and was in the child care room when Kathie rushed in to get something. She didn’t realize he was so close.

“I turned around and there he was, right there,” she said. “Our lips touched. It was one of those ‘whoa’ moments.”

They began dating and enjoyed long, meaningful talks. Pete admired that she had more substance than girls he usually dated. But he still clung to his bachelorhood, unable to commit.

He was escorting a date to dinner at Foundation Room at Mandalay Bay but found he could not stop thinking about Kathie. He cut the date short and took his date home, having realized he’d found the woman with whom he should live his life.

“That was the night I burned my little black book,” he said.

He asked Kathie to marry him; she said yes. They honeymooned in Mexico, where they swam with dolphins.

They’ve gotten used to each other’s idiosyncrasies; she’ll bake cookies, then admonish him for eating them. He’ll take the long way to drive somewhere, while she, a real estate agent, cringes, knowing streets that could get them to their destination faster.

Pete’s growing business as an artist, castroart.vegas, means his creativity is always ramped up. He keeps his sketch pad at hand, which can lead to her pet peeve.

“He’s constantly sketching. When he’s done, he’ll wad it up and toss it up in the air,” Kathie said. “The trash can is, like, right there, but I’m always picking up these wadded-up papers.”

The couple likes to listen to old-fashioned music such as Frank Sinatra’s, take road trips, watch foreign films and tease each other.

“You have to laugh a lot,” Kathie said. “Enjoy each other as a friends, and don’t sweat the small stuff.”

TV ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF THE EARTH

Newlyweds Que Yang and Ashton Liu knew each other 6,000 miles from Las Vegas before becoming romantically involved.

Both lived in Beijing, where he worked in health care and she worked as a project coordinator for an architectural firm. It wasn’t long before a mutual friend merged their social groups. Suddenly, Que was part of a larger social network, one with a guy she found “handsome.”

They always seemed to gravitate toward each other within the group.

“One day, my friends were ribbing us and said, ‘Cut the BS. Are you two a couple or not?’ And we went, ‘Yeah, I guess we are,’” Ashton recalled.

They began dating. Things didn’t get serious until one night.

“I got a little bit drunk,” she said. “He helped me get a cab to go back home, but I pointed in the wrong direction and we got out of the cab in the wrong place and we had to walk. It was so cold.

“Winter in Beijing? I mean, cold.”

When he got her home, she invited him in and they shared their first kiss.

“It wasn’t a quick one. It was one of many that night,” Ashton said.

But Ashton had advancement on his mind. He applied to get his master’s degree at a college in Ithaca, New York, and was accepted. He left Beijing.

Que visited him a couple of times. The spark was still there.

Que was still in China, busy with her career, which included her own designer shoe line, Qyang Footwear, sold on Instagram.

To keep connected, they’d watch TV together. Sort of.

“I’d be here (in the U.S.) and I’d set a chair in front of the TV, right here,” he said, gesturing. “And then I’d set my iPad on it so we could watch ‘Game of Thrones’ together. She didn’t have HBO.”

True love for sure.

She flew to the U.S. for his graduation. Ashton’s expertise in revenue management landed him in Las Vegas.

After being long distance for nearly two years, Ashton invited Que to move in with him. Soon after, he took her to view the night sky at Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. It was a balmy night far from the bustle of the city.

“We were about to go and I said, ‘Hang on. I’ve got something I want to ask you,’” he said.

“He had a ring and I went, ‘What?’” she said.

It wasn’t totally unexpected. Que had dinner with Ashton’s dad on a trip to Beijing, where her soon-to-be father-in-law let slip that his son revealed she was “the one.”

Married since November, the pair is settling into married life and loving no longer having to watch TV together via iPad.

RIVAL HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEARTS

Brian Williams met his wife when he was 13 years old, during a “college for kids” class taught by her mother.

At least, that’s his story.

“She’d sit in the back of the room, and on breaks and whatever, we’d go get doughnuts and things like that,” he said. “She kept to herself.”

He called her quiet but interesting.

Rachel Gewelber-Williams recalls it differently, saying she met Brian 1½ years later at a football game at then-Anaheim Stadium.

They were from rival high schools in Southern California but had mutual friends. She was sitting on the rival team’s side when he came over.

“I was smitten with him from the beginning,” she said. “But I had heard great things about him; he was really nice, he was respectful, funny.”

He was an athlete — a swimmer — and his body was sculpted from sports, something of which she happily took note.

“I decided that he would be mine,” Rachel said.

They dated, only he didn’t seem to realize they were dating. She would make sure to sit by him, touch his arm when she talked. No response.

“I was kind of clueless,” Brian explained. “I thought I was going out with my buddies, but she’d always be there. After the third or fourth time, I went, ‘Oh.’”

It wasn’t until she ensured they saw a horror movie together, and she buried her face into him at every scary scene, that he took the hint. They have been a couple ever since and still celebrate the day they decided to go steady.

Even though they went to different colleges — Brian to California State University, Fullerton and Rachel to California State University, San Bernardino — they were in close proximity, close enough to maintain the relationship. Two years into college, their talks included what each wanted from life. Turned out, they had similar goals.

Brian arranged for her to meet him at a restaurant where he had the staff armed with disposable cameras. As soon as she walked in, he dropped to one knee and proposed. Camera flashes went off all around them and patrons applauded.

They married at their synagogue and, being poor college students, took a weekend road trip for their honeymoon, to Julian, California, a town near San Diego that’s known for its apple pie.

“We’ve always been into road trips and trying new places off the beaten path,” she said.

They put up with each other’s habits; he talks loudly, she has to have her own space. They’re both cool with having friends over at the last minute, knowing they don’t have to check with the other first.

“A lot of couples have to ask permission of (each other),” Brian said. “We don’t do that.”

He said the spark is still there, and he has come to appreciate how thoughtful Rachel is. She said he has taken on the role of being the protector and is more conscious of her feelings.

“He no longer tries to fix it, or fix me. He lets me talk,” she said. “Now, if I ask for help, he helps me work it out. He used to try to fix me, and I didn’t need that. I just needed someone to listen.

“I feel like our souls truly connect.”

To reach Summerlin Area View reporter Jan Hogan, email jhogan@viewnews.com or call 702-387-2949.