“I know him, and I’ve seen him with other women. He’d be more into someone like, to be honest…you.”
She shook her head, came to me, hooked arms, and guided us to and through the door.
“This is what shy chicks don’t get,” she started. “Guys like that have had me, over and over again. If they wanted girls like me, they wouldn’t throw us back.”
She seemed very sage, however, it should be noted that was a sad thing to say, but she didn’t seem sad at all in saying it.
Maybe she’d found one who didn’t “throw her back.”
“Are you with someone?” I asked.
She made a scoffing noise, complementing it with, “Hell no. Hark back to aforementioned field experience. But also, I’m not settling down. I don’t have a hold on even half my own shit. I don’t need to take on some guy’s shit too.”
I pulled on our arms before we climbed the steps that led back into the bar so we’d come to a stop, and considering what she heard in the bathroom before she came out, I shared, “I don’t think I have to tell you that I’m leagues away from owning anywhere close to half my shit.”
Dani grinned. “Okay, what I didn’t say was, even if that’s the case, if a big, broad, hot, seriously-into-me guy got up in my space, and we clicked, like, bones and hearts and souls and stars aligning clicked, and he wanted to be along for the ride as I figured it out, I would not say no.”
Stars aligning.
“I’m twenty-eight,” I told her. “And I’ve never had a long-term boyfriend.”
She swayed back. “You a virgin?”
At this question, I started to pull away because it was in that moment it hit me how much I was baring to a complete stranger.
She held on tight.
Even so, I said, “We’re getting kind of deep. I think you’re cool, Dani, and I appreciate you cheering me on, but I just met you.”
“That’s fair,” she replied. “We won’t go there. And you’re right, we don’t know one another, so I may be wrong, but maybe you haven’t had a long-term situation because you never took the risk. I mean, I got experience, and some of it tore me up.” Her grin returned. “But that doesn’t mean I haven’t also had loads of fun.”
I had no reply because I knew she was right, and it wasn’t like I didn’t want to admit it, it was just that I didn’t know where to find the courage to go for it.
She got closer. “Nothing is permanent, Alex. Not peace. Not happiness. Not joy. People don’t understand that. They want those feelings all the time. But they’re just not to be had. Also not permanent?”
Her last sentence was a question, an indication she wanted to be sure I wanted her to continue imparting her wisdom on me.
Obviously, I nodded.
She continued, “Heartbreak. Or pain. Or fear.”
Holy wow.
She was right again.
“Once you understand that,” she started to sum up. “Once you get that everything comes and then it goes, you learn to take the leap.”
When I had no reply, she kept going.
“You even learn how important it is to take it.” Dani turned her head toward the stairs, looked back to me, and gave me a big, encouraging smile. “Leap, sister.”
She then gave me an arm hug, let me go, and she and her panama hat floated up the stairs and into the bar.
I stared after her.
Then I remembered the way Rix looked when he stopped staring at my mouth, he gazed into my eyes, knew he had me, and he wanted that.
He wanted me.
“Leap,” I said under my breath.
Still totally scared to death, I nevertheless lifted my chin, headed up the stairs and straight to our table.
Chloe, Judge, no Rix.
Did he take the opportunity of me leaving the table to hit the loo as well?
I was almost to my vacated chair when I noticed Chloe and Judge were not sitting close, murmuring to each other, like they had been when Rix and I were doing the same.
They were staring back where I came from, across the space, to the bar.
And they looked ticked.
Even Judge, who was the single most easy-going guy I’d ever met. His jaw was all tense and a muscle was flashing up his cheek.
Curious as to what was pissing even Judge off, I turned in the direction they were staring and stopped dead.
I’d walked right by him,
Rix.
He was at the bar with a blonde, mountain-fresh, tanned goddess. He was also in her space, listening to her with rapt attention.
I could almost hear the propellers lifting up my heart, making it soar, splutter and give out and then it was in a nose dive.
Free falling.
I’d been gone…what?
Ten minutes?
“I gotta go,” I said, again loudly, and both Chloe’s and Judge’s heads swung my way.