I don’t quite remember asking Daniel to tag along on my adventure, move out here with me, and become my manager, but here he is. When I got into the car after saying goodbye to my parents, he was sitting in the front seat and refused to get out. He’s been driving me crazy ever since.
“Dude, are you ever going to try to get laid?” he asks as he sinks his hands into his hair and nearly pulls two fistfuls of it out in frustration. “What is wrong with you? You’re a rich, good-looking virgin. By choice!”
I shake my head as I turn to him. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“You’re right!” he shouts. “I don’t understand! I thought you’d be getting over this ridiculous notion of finding ‘the one’ when we moved out here. There are a ton of hot bodies down there waiting to get with the handsome hotel owner and his goofy but charming friend, and you’ve locked yourself up here in a voluntary celibacy prison! You’re waiting for some magical vagina that doesn’t exist, dude! And you’re killing me in the process!”
The guys on stage are doing pushups as the crowd watches. They start dropping one at a time. I could last longer than any of those fools.
“You’re the worst wingman in the history of picking chicks up!” Daniel whines. “You have all the assets to get the job done! Flawless face that girls find sexy but is also non-threatening, check. Respectable profession, check. Stacked bank account, check. Shredded abs, check. Look at your stomach, man! Those things are a chick magnet yet you always have your shirt on! I don’t get it! Why the hell do you do all those sit-ups if you’re not planning on showing the results off. Sit-ups suck so bad.”
I glance down at his pudgy stomach and he frowns at me. “I have a sore back, you know that!”
“Whatever, man. I have work to do.”
“This is part of your fucking job!” he whines. “Consorting with the guests. Chatting them up. Making them feel welcome. And maybe, you know, asking if they’ll suck on the hotel manager’s pecker, just for a bit.”
I sigh as I turn back to the window. He’ll never understand. Daniel was the type of guy who was in love with every girl we passed. He even had a crush on our bus driver and she had a mullet. He can’t grasp the concept of waiting for the one. He doesn’t understand that my girl is out there and I’m only interested in her.
Some buffed-up frat boy with white sunglasses on his head drops a bottle of beer by the pool and it shatters on the concrete. “Motherfucker,” I mutter as the partiers move away from the shards of glass. There are no glass bottles allowed around the pool anyway. The prick must have snuck it in.
I look around to see if any of the staff notices it and relax a little when I see Frank pushing his way through the crowd with a broom and dustpan.
It’s then that she catches my eye.
My body stills as I watch her. I’m fucking frozen. I can’t move.
There’s a knot in my stomach as she follows her friends through the crowd. Horny shirtless guys are all around her and I’m up here. She’s completely vulnerable. Any of those fuckers down there can touch her, talk to her, look at her. Just the thought of that sends my heart pounding and makes my body all flexed and tight.
She’s with a group of friends, but at least they’re all girls. I couldn’t handle her staying in a room with a guy. I’d burn my hotel down before I let that happen.
I know immediately that she’s the one. The obsession is taking me over. It’s blinding. It’s all-consuming. I can feel it creeping through my body, cementing into every cell—this intense possessive need to own her.
She’s the one thing that money can’t buy and the one thing I can’t live without.
Daniel is saying something, but all I can hear is my heartbeat thrashing in my ears as my eyes follow her through the crowd. She struggles to keep up with the four girls she’s with. They’re all ignoring her. They don’t know what they’re missing.
I swallow hard as I take in every inch of her that I can see. Her black hair is tied back in a ponytail and she has thick black-rimmed glasses on her adorable face. She seems unsure as she nervously looks around at everyone. I can tell this isn’t her scene. She looks like she’d be more comfortable in a library than at a frat party and I love that about her. I can tell she’s the kind of girl who’s hard to get to know. The kind who puts up a protective wall around her. The kind of girl with lots of layers and I can’t wait to peel back each one and discover a new part of her.