Chapter 10

Dakota

Emma and I slept through our normal morning workout and right past our lunch time as well. We were both exhausted from the night before, and I felt like I had a massive hangover too. Our Sunday workouts were how we burned off the alcohol we had consumed. It was also how I managed to keep my butt in shape when I spent most of my days in my office with vocal students.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the guy from the club. Maybe we were meant to run into each other. Maybe this was all a sign that I didn’t need that dating app at all, and I was perfectly capable of meeting a nice guy on my own.

With a clear mind, I went back to my purse to see if I could find his card. My fingers glided through ever piece of paper in my purse and on the table around there. Nothing. I had actually lost it.

“What’s the matter?” Emma groggily asked as she walked into the kitchen.

“There was a cute guy that gave me his number, but I lost it.”

“I never saw you with a cute guy.”

“He was a friend of that rude guy you danced with.”

“Oh, Merrick,” Emma said with a dreamy look in her eye and a smile.

“What was that?” I demanded.

“What?”

Emma looked like a teenager who had a crush on a boy in her class. I never saw her looking like that. I especially didn’t think she would be looking like that toward a guy who had been so rude to her.

“You are smiling like you actually like this guy. What’s going on? I thought he was rude to you, and you didn’t like him. But then you were dancing with him, and now you’re smiling like you and he have a secret or something.”

She looked demurely away, and I could tell she had a little crush on this guy. Perhaps she wouldn’t be willing to admit it, but I could see it in her eyes. And Emma never showed emotion when it came to the guys she had around her. This was a unique and fun moment for me, and I wasn’t about to let it just drop.

“He’s handsome and nice,” she replied.

“And very rich.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Oh, come on; his suit looks like it was made by hand with a hundred tailors painstakingly working on it. He’s rich. Do you know what he does for work?”

“I didn’t ask him.”

“Do you know what his name is?”

“Merrick,” she replied. “Of course I got his name.”

I cringed a little at her response. I should have gotten the name of the guy I had talked to. It normally was the first thing I asked, but I had been swept up in the moment and forgot. But there was a little hope for me after all. If Emma liked this guy Merrick, then she could go out with him, and I could find out what my guy’s name was. It all felt very high school, but I was okay with that.

“What’s that face about?” she teased me when she saw my response.

“I talked to his friend for a little bit.”

“Oh, the cute one?”

“Did he have an ugly friend?” I laughed.

“What was his name?”

“I don’t know; I lost his card. Do you have Merrick’s number? Are you going to go out with him?”

“Nope.”

“What the hell. You like him; I can clearly see this. Why don’t you want to go out with him?”

“I do?”

Sometimes Emma drove me insane. She was playing word games with me, and I didn’t like it. If she liked the guy, why wouldn’t she go out with him? Why wouldn’t she call him? Damn this girl frustrated the hell out of me sometimes.

“Explain,” I demanded.

“He left without asking me for my number.”

“What? He wanted to dance with you so bad. You two clearly had chemistry. What the hell?”

“I don’t know. But I’m sure we will run into him again. I’m not worried about it.”

The truth was that Emma was never worried about anything. It was just her normal personality to be laid back and casual and my normal personality to worry about everything. We actually balanced each other out very well but also drove each other nuts too.

“I dreamt about my guy last night. Well, not my guy, but you know what I mean; the guy I talked to. It was seriously the hottest dream I’ve had in a very long time.”

“And you didn’t even get his name; that’s a crying shame.” She laughed with no sympathy for me at all.

There was a dinging noise coming from my phone, so I hurried and opened it just to see the locked screen from the Date Tonight app. I hadn’t even thought about that app in days, so it caught me a bit off-guard.

---Green Power Coffee tomorrow at 7:42 a.m.---

“What is it?” Emma asked.

“It’s a coffee shop, and I think I’m supposed to go there or something.”

“Oh, this is so exciting. It must be to meet up with your match. I bet he’s going to be your absolute perfect guy. Can I come with you?”

“That would be a little awkward don’t you think?”

“I’ll sit somewhere else. I just want to see him. I’ll take a picture of the two of you meeting for the first time. Wouldn’t that be so romantic?”

I had to admit the idea did sound very romantic. The app was going to place us both in the same restaurant at the same time and give us the opportunity to meet up. It seemed fun, but how would I know which guy was him? I only had a very general description of the guy and no pictures at all.

“Yes, you can come. But you have to sit far enough away that you’re not distracting me.”

Emma started to dance around my kitchen and spin and twirl as she laughed.

“Distracting? Who me? I’m never distracting,” she said with a laugh.

The idea of meeting up with this stranger from the app was starting to scare me. I didn’t know him at all. I had no idea who he was or what sort of man he would be. How was I supposed just to sit and talk to this guy without knowing him more? What if I didn’t like him? What if there was no chemistry between us.

I had just met a really nice and very good looking man at the club. Maybe he was a good fit for me? I certainly felt the sexual chemistry between the two of us. If there was that much of a physical connection, I was convinced the guy from the club couldn’t be bad for me. But I might never get to actually see him again, and I didn’t want to waste the opportunity to meet up with this guy who I matched with so perfectly from the dating app. It would haunt me for a very long time if I thought I had missed the connection with my one true love.

For the first time in years, I felt torn between two men. Neither of them was a clear winner in my situation because I hadn’t actually gotten to know them enough. For me, it would just have to come back to a feeling I got when I was with them. So I had to agree to meet the guy from online and just test it out to see how we might feel about each other when we met in person.

Maybe all my bad love luck was about to change. I might even be on my way to finding a guy that was such a good match for me that there would be no doubt at all in my mind if he were the right one for me or not.

The problem I was currently having was that I had such an insane dream about the guy from the club, and it only made me want him more. In my dream, he had come home with me. There was no talking, probably because we really hadn’t talked all that much. But there was so much more than talking ever could be.

We walked into my apartment, and he pressed me up against the wall as his hand moved into my panties and started to play with me. He was forceful and playful all at the same time, and I loved it. I was dripping wet for him, and as my dream lurched forward, we were suddenly in bed, his body thrusting on top of mine.

If I closed my eyes at that moment, I could still imagine what his naked body would look like on top of me as I spread my legs around him and let him thrust deep inside of me. I wanted this guy. I didn’t know a damn thing about him, but I wanted him so desperately that I was literally dreaming about him before I even knew his name.

When Monday finally rolled around, I woke up early, did my hair and makeup and made my way to Green Power Coffee. I arrived around 7:30 a.m. and ordered my drink and found a spot in the corner of the café. It was a delightful little café that had small tables and even smaller chairs, but made for the perfect meeting spot near work and home. I wanted the best possible view as I waited for this mystery man to arrive.

I checked my phone to see if the dating app had given me any further instructions, but there was nothing else. I didn’t know if he had the same instructions I did. I didn’t even really know what he looked like.

Secretly, all I kept hoping was that the guy from the club would come walking in the door. Maybe he lived around there? Maybe he liked to get his coffee early in the morning before work?

I looked over at Emma as she giggled with anticipation. She was doing really well until a balding man with a large pot belly started to look around the coffee shop. My heart sank. I wasn’t a really judgmental person when it came to looks, but how would it be possible that I could have a one hundred percent match with a man who I wasn’t at all attracted to?

I swallowed hard and closed my eyes as I tried to decide if I was even going to acknowledge he was there. The man looked right at me as he made his way across the room, though, and there was no denying that he was coming to talk to me. I resigned myself to at least having a conversation with him.

“Hey,” the man said as he extended his hand toward me. “I’m Robert, are you Kimberly?”

Thank God.

“Hi Robert; I’m actually Dakota.”

“Aww man, I’m sorry. I’ll keep looking. It’s a blind date.”

“It’s alright,” I said as I noticed Emma laughing hysterically across the room. “You know you should check with that girl across the way. She’s been watching for people this morning. Maybe she’s the one you’re meeting?”

When I pointed to Emma she instantly stopped laughing and sat up. Robert turned to look at her quickly and then back at me.

“Oh, she’s pretty. I hope it’s her. Thank you,” he said as he hurried off toward her.

It was very entertaining to watch Emma have to deal with the same interaction I had. She was nice to him, from what I could tell, but then sent him on his way. Her death star that she sent me was enough to make me laugh, though, and I could hardly stay in my seat as the anticipation built up.

Both Emma and I continued to wait for this mystery man to show up, but Emma got bored and started to play on her phone. I didn’t want to miss the guy, so I continued to sip on my drink and watched the people as they came in and ordered their coffee.

Whomever I was supposed to meet wasn’t there, or I had missed him. It was very disappointing, but after thirty minutes, we decided to leave.

“So maybe the app was wrong?” Emma said as she tried to reassure me.

“Or maybe he took one look at me and turned around.” I laughed.

“If that happened, he would have turned around because your beauty scared him, and he didn’t think he was worthy of you.”

“It’s alright. Let’s just get to the studio. I’ve got a client coming in at noon and was going to reorganize my room a little.”

Emma and I walked in silence as we made our way to the studio for the day. We didn’t need to talk. Emma knew I was feeling self-conscious and that talking wasn’t at all what I wanted to do.

I wasn’t ugly; my brain knew that. Yet I still felt the sense of ugliness and lack of confidence when it came to men. I wished I could walk into a room and feel like I was as beautiful as the rest of the women, but my brain just didn’t work like that. I constantly looked at the other women and what they were wearing. I examined how their jeans fit and how much better they looked in them than I did.

Being aware of your self-esteem issues didn’t exactly mean I could fix them, though. I just didn’t know how, and things like this made things worse for me. I ruminated on the possibility that the guy from the app had indeed come to the coffee shop but had not been interested in me at all. It was a sad feeling to think that you weren’t good enough; I hated it. The feelings were etched from my past and often came up for me, but on this day the feelings took over a little more than I wanted them to.

“Stop ruminating about this. I can see the thoughts going through your head!” Emma demanded.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

“Seriously Dakota, you aren’t going to do this. You’re ten times more beautiful than me, and I’m not going to have you feeling all sad because some douche bag stood you up. How about we find out who those guys were from the club? I bet Bruce knows or can find out.”

“Yes!” I said instantly.

It was the first real chance I thought there was to figure out who that handsome stranger was. Maybe Bruce did know him or his friends. Maybe he would be able to get us in touch with them.