“Ugh!”

Shelby grunted trying to squeeze the jeans onto her chubby frame. She had fit into these jeans perfectly three months ago and now they were a size too small. Her heart sank as she took them off and threw them back in her closet.

It was disheartening to know that she was still gaining weight. She had never really fussed about her weight too much, even though she had always been a bigger girl. She had always just been herself and did not define who she was by her size. She knew some people tried to define her that way and that they tried to make her feel bad about herself, but she had always been blessed with bulletproof confidence and she just let that stuff roll off her back.

She found herself thinking about Aaron and how shocked he had been when she had not given him her number. He was probably someone who thought she might be an easy lay or that she would be so grateful that he’d asked her out that she would have jumped at the chance.

She was wondering when she should call him, or if she should. Maybe she would allow them to run into each other again and then pretend that she had just been too busy. Either way she was going to have a bit of fun with him.

Grabbing a skirt from her closet Shelby finished getting dress and adding a few finishing touches to her makeup. She grabbed a wine cooler from the fridge and continued her pre gaming for the evening. It was going to be a somewhat epic night from what her girlfriends were saying. They had all ditched responsibility for the evening and decided to go nuts and wild tonight.

Shelby thought about how many more of these kinds of nights she and the gang had in them. They were all nearing thirty and none of them seemed remotely close to the possibility of settling down. This was a bit troubling to her at times, but she was not in any position to settle down either. She dated regularly and had even had a few serious relationships, but eventually it always went south.

She was fiercely independent and that seemed to threaten a lot of guys, who were used to being in control of things. Shelby couldn’t change who she was and she absolutely refused to do so. It was just the way it was. Any man she ended up with for the long term was going to have to understand that and he was going to have to understand she had a life outside of him.

She sat down in front of her computer and began some proofreading of her newest writing project, correcting typos, adding words to fill in gaps of description, and moving things around to make the overall flow more readable.

Shelby had been a freelance writer for eight years and she could not imagine doing anything else with her life. She had started writing when she was eight years old and had never stopped. When she came to Arizona State she majored in creative writing and had continued to write her own stuff on the side, working on her own creative voice. She had been lucky enough to have several mentors during her college career that helped her get her break into the world of freelancing. And the internet had made the whole market explode with the success of the Kindle publishing model and the creation of a multitude of freelance websites that brought freelancers and clients together faster and more easily than they ever could have been before.

The hours were long because she forced herself to work long hours. That was the thing about freelancing; you could work as much or as little as you wanted, but the world of freelancing was also very uncertain. You might get a lot of work one month or hardly any. It was fickle that way. That was one of the reasons why she pushed herself so hard, but she also loved to write. She liked to joke that she had never had a job in her life because she had always earned her keep from her passion.

Unfortunately working sixty hour weeks as she did, left little time to devote to a mate. That was one of the reasons her relationships had always suffered. It was a bit cliché, but she was truly married to her work. It always seemed to come first and she didn’t always mean for it to. She always felt that she needed to find someone who understood that. She needed someone who loved their work as much as she loved hers.

Her friends had all tried to talk her into settling for someone who was 'close enough'. They were all under the same assumption that she was too picky and that she put a wall up around herself.

Shelby understood their concerns, but she was not going to change to suit anybody else. And Shelby Wilkes had never been the type to settle for anything.

Her doorbell rang right then. She finished off the wine cooler and ran to the door, tossing it in the trash from across the room. It landed smoothly. Nothing but net. Yes, she was that good.

She opened the door to see her two besties Michelle and Rachel standing there. They were both wearing their sluttiest dresses, so that meant they were going to party hard tonight. Shelby was with them. She needed to blow off some steam and try to forget about work for a bit.

“Alright, loving the outfit, but do we clash now?” Rachel said.

“Clash? Why, because I went with elegant and down to earth while you two are wearing outfits that scream 'paw me'?" Shelby asked.

Michelle laughed, handing Rachel and Shelby both a beer from the six pack she had brought over.

“So where are we going tonight?” Shelby asked.

“Image bar?” Rachel suggested.

“No, we’ve been there too many times. I always feel like I’m babysitting at that place,” Michelle said. “How about Dorben’s? Or J.P.’s?” She took a long drink of beer.

“No one really goes to Dorben’s anymore and I heard that J.P’s was dead ever since they got busted for letting minors in.”

“How about the Sky bar?” Michelle said.

“Oh, yeah. That place is supposed to be cool.”

“I haven’t heard much about it,” Shelby said. “You guy’s been there?”

They both shook their heads.

“Ok, then we will try it out. Somebody else suggested it to me,” Shelby said finishing her beer and feeling the buzz starting up. Pre gaming was her favorite part of the night some nights, so she was going to be damned if she was going to not do it right. Sometimes the bar sucked so bad that the pre gaming was all you had to remember.

“Who?” Michelle asked.

“Just some guy,” Shelby said.

“Ooooh! You got a mystery man?”

“No, it’s just some guy I met walking Bailey.”

“What’s he like?”

“He was pretty nice, and gorgeous if you have eyes in your head. He gave me his number.”

“You didn’t give him yours?” Michelle asked.

“No. I got to make him work for it,” Shelby said.

“That’s awesome girl!” Rachel said. She and Shelby high fived.

“Isn’t that kind of childish to play silly games?” Michelle asked.

“I don’t think so. I just met the guy. How does it look if I give him my number? Besides he asked me to meet him at Sky bar tonight, but I turned him down.”

Both Rachel and Michelle gave her that look.

“What? I just met the guy. He might be a serial killer or something.”

“How many gorgeous serial killers do you know of?” Rachel asked.

Shelby looked at her. “Your logic is scary.”

“So I guess you got a fella for tonight when we get there already picked out.”

“I don’t know if he will be there or not since I turned him down,” Shelby said.

“You’re right. He is probably home waiting by the phone for your call,” Michelle said.

Shelby slapped her playfully on the shoulder. “Shut up!”

“Ok, so it’s settled then; we are going to Sky bar,” Michelle said.

The girls finished their beers and headed out the door.

* * *

Sky bar was located only about ten minutes downtown from Shelby’s neighborhood. It was ultra-hip and trendy, but it seemed to have a good mix of both college age kids and older patrons as well. This immediately made Shelby feel a bit more comfortable. It was getting to the point now that Shelby and her friends were often among the older patrons of the bars they were attending. There were some more clubs that catered to an older crowd over in Scottsdale, but she found that she dreaded travelling that far more and more, just as she dreaded being out after midnight a lot of nights. Maybe she was getting too old to do this sort of thing.

But tonight it was on. Rachel and Michelle let out a few hollers as they entered the club and instantly headed for the bar. The dance floor was packed. The music was loud. The neon lights were bright. Everything about the place screamed out total fun. Shelby tried to loosen up a bit, but the buzz she’d had earlier was already mostly gone and she wasn’t sure that she even felt like drinking anymore. She had worked a lot that week and was starting to feel the effects of sleep deprivation. She had been crazy excited to get out of the house tonight, but now that she was out she just wanted to go home and curl up on the couch with a cup of tea and a good book.

She grabbed a vodka tonic from the bar and began to sip it. Maybe she just needed to be re-lubricated with some alcohol. She actually hardly ever drank except for the occasional wine cooler at the end of a long day of work.

Rachel grabbed her out of nowhere and began pulling her towards the dance floor. Michelle hopped in on the action and the three ladies began to shake their groove and tear up the dance floor. After a few minutes Shelby was starting to get the old fun feeling again that she used to have. Sometimes it just took her crazy girls forcing her to be a little crazy and loosen up.

Shelby caught the glancing eyes of several guys lined up on Hawkers Row, which is what women secretly called the line of horny guys who stood in the corner watching all the girls dance like creepers and hoping eventually to ingest enough liquid confidence to have the nerve to ask one of the girls to actually dance with them. This “asking” was usually just a guy coming up from behind the girl and grinding on her, hoping she didn’t kick him away. It was beyond pathetic, but it was also laughable. Shelby loved to be sexy and it was a powerful feeling to turn a man on just by something as silly as dancing with your girlfriends.

There he was.

Aaron was standing on one of the upper levels of the club that had a bar and a group of tables. The downstairs was mostly just a bar and a huge dance floor. If you wanted to sit down with your drink, but you didn’t want to sit at the bar then you went up there.

Aaron had noticed her and he was looking at her with a sexy smile. Had he come expecting to see her? Was he hoping to just score with some random club skank? Somehow she didn’t think either was true. It appeared that he had planned to come to Sky bar anyway and had simply invited her to hang out with him. That was interesting…

“What is it?” Rachel asked her.

“It’s that guy!” Shelby replied.

“What guy?”

“The one I told you about. He told me about this place.”

“Oh, yeah! Where?”

Shelby pointed him out.

Rachel glanced and gawked at Aaron, completely being obvious and stupid. Shelby tried to look away but she caught Aaron’s laughing face as he noticed. Damn. Now he knew she had been thinking about him. Oh, well. The game could still continue.

She grabbed Rachel and pulled her closer to her, enjoying the dancing and the closeness. It had been too long since she and her girls had done this. It was just so hard to get out of the house and force yourself to go.

Michelle moved up on Rachel as a few guys made their way over to the group. They blended in slowly and began to dance in close proximity to them, without going into a touchy touchy bump and grind scenario. Michelle and Rachel were both just drunk enough to split up and start dancing with the guys. They were pretty cute, but not Shelby’s type. They looked to be about twenty-two, which apparently didn’t matter at all to Rachel and Michelle. Those girls were hopelessly lame, Shelby thought as she walked back to the bar.

She sat down at the bar. She didn’t really want another drink, but the bartender sat another vodka tonic down in front of her. She gave him props for remembering but had to take points away for assuming. That sort of thing kind of pissed her off, but the drink immediately took the edge off.

She watched as Rachel and Michelle were living it up with the college boys. The boys were all up in their business now, and they probably thought they both had a shot at getting lucky tonight. Shelby loved to see how her girls made guys squirm. Those guys were going to buy them lots of drinks and then go home alone.

“I’m tired of dancing too.”

The voice came from her left and she spun to see who was speaking with her. Aaron was standing there, drinking a beer.

He was looking very calm and nonchalant, barely glancing at her, so they were both turned around watching the crowd on the dance floor.

“I haven’t seen you dancing,” Shelby replied.

“You just haven’t been watching close enough,” Aaron replied.

Shelby smiled. He was playing the game and she liked that.

“So how was work today?” Aaron asked.

“You want to know how my work was today?”

“Yeah, I was just curious.”

“What kind of work do you think I do?” Shelby asked.

Aaron stepped in front of her and looked her up and down as if trying to decide something very precise and delicate.

“You teach Karate to rabbits.”

Shelby laughed so hard her drink almost came out her nose.

“That’s very close, actually,” she said. “I’m a writer.”

“Wow, that’s way more interesting. What do you write?”

“Whatever people pay me to write,” she replied. He looked at her inquisitively. Shelby clarified. “I’m a freelancer, so I basically write a bunch of different things for a bunch of different clients.”

“Very interesting…”

“How about you?”

“No, I’m not much of a writer. It’s far too dangerous. All those paper cuts…”Aaron joked.

Shelby slapped him playfully.

“I meant, what do you do?”

“Oh, well I train fighters.”

“Really? What kind of fighting?”

“Mixed Martial Arts.”

“How did you get into that?”

“I used to be a fighter, but now I pass my knowledge on to others.”

Shelby looked at him carefully and realized he did have the body of a fighter. He was athletic and lean, but obviously very strongly built. She found herself getting a bit hot and bothered admiring his rippling physique beneath his tight fitting shirt.

“So were you a good fighter?” Shelby asked flirtatiously.

“Well, I won a lot more than I lost.”

“Well, that’s good. I would have liked to see you fight sometime.”

“There are still a bunch of my fights on YouTube.”

Shelby’s interest was now piqued. “I will definitely check that out.”

Aaron smiled at her. A few minutes passed without them saying anything to each other, just the casual glance. Shelby had to admit that she was becoming a bit more intrigued by Aaron. He was very comfortable with himself and was obviously very proud of his accomplishments. She admired a man who was dedicated to a passion like she was. He was somebody who might just understand her a bit.

“I admire a woman who likes to watch sports.”

“Well, I don’t really, but animalistic aggression like that is pretty hot,” Shelby said. She had not meant to say it that way and she was aware of how naughty it sounded.

“Is that so? Well, I hope you are able to control yourself if you watch my fights,” Aaron said. He was almost unable to get it out without laughing.

Shelby felt embarrassed and lashed out with a playful jab to his shoulder. Aaron pretended to be really hurt for a second and continued laughing.

“Maybe you should be a fighter. You’ve got some pretty strong moves.”

“Think you’re pretty funny do ya? Think you’re pretty slick?” Shelby joked.

“I’ve been told I can crack a joke or two,” Aaron replied.

He flashed her that grin that made her blush. She turned her head and took a long sip of her drink to hide it. He wasn’t going to get her that easily.

“So, what are you doing for dinner tomorrow?” Aaron asked.

Shelby looked at him for a few seconds before answering. She was debating what lie to tell him to keep him guessing about her. She was hoping to find something that was a bit off beat and not the usual run of the mill lies that women used to shake a guy.

“I’m not sure yet. Why do you ask?” Shelby replied.

“I was just wondering,” Aaron said before he turned and slowly walked away.

Shelby couldn’t hold back the laughter. This guy was definitely smooth. That was the type of response she was looking for.