Chapter 8

Dakota

“You’re actually going to wear that out?” I asked Emma as she came out of her office in a dress with a slit almost up to her belly button.

“What? It’s the style.”

“I can see your vagina.”

“Oh, sorry, the slit is supposed to be on the hip,” she said as she twisted her skirt to her hip.

“So it’s supposed to show your entire leg? Are you sure about this?”

It wasn’t that I was a prude. I enjoyed dressing sexy when we went out dancing too. But I was much more demure in my clothing choices. On that night, I had chosen a brilliant green sweater that was at least two sizes too small for me. It accentuated my eyes and made my tits look two sizes larger than they were. But to counteract my sexy top, I was wearing a pair of skinny jeans and some black heels. My hair was pulled up and I had on some die hard high heels that would probably end up breaking my ankle at some point during the evening. For me, it was important not to overdue the sex appeal. Instead, I wanted to be sophisticated and sexy all at the same time.

“Yes, I’m sure. Now are we going to get to the club or sit around her and share fashion advice all night long?”

“Dancing for sure,” I said.

Emma and I gave each other a hard time about a lot of things in our lives, but we both knew that the other’s style just wasn’t our cup of tea. I would never pair the crazy combinations of colors and styles together like Emma did, and she would never wear a piece of conservative clothing in an attempt to fit in.

I liked fitting in, though. Most people were always trying to stand out, but I enjoyed slipping into the backdrop and being totally invisible from judgment. The only time I enjoyed being in front of people and having them watch me was when I was dancing. Sin Dan Club wasn’t like other clubs, though; I felt at home there. I felt like I owned the dance floor, and when Emma and I were there, I didn’t worry about people watching or judging me.

When their eyes were on me at Sin, it felt exciting. I was invigorated by that place, and as much as we tried out other bars and clubs, inevitably we ended up back at Sin. The bouncer knew us, the bartenders knew us, and even the waitresses knew who we were. It was our home away from home, and we both spent hundreds of dollars there each month on drinks.

Sure, we could get drinks for free if we flirted with guys. Any woman in New York could get herself some free drinks if she wanted to. It was the truth; you didn’t have to be beautiful, and you didn’t have to be thin or even funny. If you were a woman in New York City, you simply had to sit at a counter alone for about five minutes, and some man would buy you a drink.

So when Emma and I arrived at Sin that Friday night, we went straight to the bar, handed them our credit card to scan, and opened our tab for a night of fun. Not many people could actually have a tab in this day and age, but people knew us there, and they knew we always paid up at the end of the night. Our drinking and dancing fun at Sin was way too important to us for us to sneak out and not pay for our drinks on any night.

“It’s super busy tonight, Bruce,” I said as we arrived. “What’s up?” I asked when he let us skip the line and go straight to the door.

“A few wealthy bigwigs are in there and Dean Morrison. You know the ladies aren’t leaving if he’s in there. We don’t have any turnover, so I can’t let many people in.”

“Oh, he’s handsome,” Emma said as she pushed past Bruce and into the club. “I’ve got to find him.”

“Thanks Bruce. Good luck with all the wild ladies.”

When we got inside, it was even busier than it had been outside. The dance floor was packed, and we weren’t going to be able to take it over like we normally did. But we had seen this type of thing before. As soon as the celebrity left, all the girls would give up and go home too.

“Drinks?”

“Yep.”

We stood at the bar and sipped on our Vodkas while we watched the crowd. Dean Morrison was swarmed by women and seemed to have a few other guys with him, although we couldn’t see them through all the ladies. The women of New York loved themselves a hot celebrity man to fawn over.

It made me laugh that those women thought they actually had a chance with any of those guys. They might get an invitation to the bedroom for the night, but that wasn’t going to win the men over. It baffled me how women still thought they could land their dream guy even after having a one-night stand with him. Even I knew that men didn’t marry women like that; not that I necessarily wanted to get married. But I at least knew the rules of dating better than half the women in the club that night.

“One more, and then we are dancing. These lame-os are just going to have to deal with it. I need to get my dancing energy out.”

“Sounds good,” I agreed.

When the dance floor was packed, it was a lot harder to dance, but we had our ways of getting people out of our way. No one was more dedicated to a good night of dancing than the two of us were. The energy in the room pulsed from all the bodies moving with the music, it was nearly orgasmic.

One more drink turned into four more drinks, and Emma and I were sufficiently intoxicated by the time we pushed people off the dance floor. Emma started wildly dancing around and flailing her arms as she moved to the beat. People quickly moved away from her, and just like that, we had our dancing space cleared out and ready for us to take over.

It was exceptionally hot in the club that night. With a full-capacity crowd, I was sweating after only five minutes on the dance floor. The beat of the music radiated through my body, and I closed my eyes as I moved with it. The music felt like home to me. I loved how loud it was and how it made me feel like I was in my own little world. But I had clearly had too much to drink and felt dizzy when I closed my eyes.

I stumbled a little bit and opened my eyes when I felt someone’s hands on my hips offering me a little stability. There were so many people in the club that when I turned around to see who had stabilized me, I couldn’t figure out who it was. I went back to dancing, but again as I closed my eyes, I felt wobbly.

My hips suddenly felt the hands of a stranger on them, again. It wasn’t unusual, though because that’s what guys did when they came out on the dance floor; they found a pretty woman to dance with. Sometimes I’d keep dancing with the guy when he was close to me like that; sometimes I’d pull away. It all depended on what vibe I got from him when I turned around to look at him.

Slowly, I opened my eyes and turned to look at the man who had so boldly put his hands on my hips. I pulled on Emma’s hand to pull her away from the man she was dancing with and so I could use her as my decoy if I decided not to keep dancing with this man.

As we both turned around, I looked into the man’s face and instantly recognized him. He was the guy who had been hitting on Emma when we were at Uber Elite a week prior. His hands stayed on my hips, but I was pretty sure they were there as support only and not because the guy was actually hitting on me. He looked like a man with money, the kind who didn’t bother to dress up because he had no need to show off. His jeans and button up shirt seemed more fit for the office than a dance club.

“You!” Emma yelled out.

I pulled away from the man as I registered what was going on. Emma moved close to him as she built up her energy for what I knew was going to be a very outrageous scene if the guy didn’t back off this time.

“It’s nice to see you again,” he said to Emma. “Dance with me?”

He held his hand out to her, and I watched in total disbelief as she took it and started to dance with him. She was such a total contradiction. I watched the two of them for a moment and then moved off the dance floor toward the bar to get some water.

“I have a feeling he’s won her over,” a man said to me as he watched me walk toward him at the bar.

“Who?”

“Your friend. She’s the one who yelled at my friend the other day. I think she likes him.” He laughed. “He obviously has a thing for her.”

My eyes locked in with his and for a moment I thought I might wobble to the ground as my ankles gave out. His boyish grin and rugged jaw line mesmerized me.

His laugh was contagious, and I found myself instantly smiling with him. I also looked down and saw that I had unconsciously placed my hand on his forearm as I had laughed and smiled with him. It was as if my body had been drawn to him, but I also needed a little support since my head was spinning. I quickly pulled away from him so I wouldn’t give him the wrong idea.

“Wait, I know you,” I said as I looked up at him again.

“You do?” He smiled slyly at me.

“Yes, I grabbed onto you at a bar outside of the subway when a guy was chasing after me.”

It was like a light was switched on in my brain as I flashed back to that moment and remembered the electricity that had been between us. His sharp jaw line and tanned skin was what finally triggered my memory. I hadn’t really talked to him or even looked at his face longer than a few seconds, but it was definitely the same guy who I had thrust myself next to after the scary subway incident.

“Oh, yes! You were the topic of conversation for a while that evening.”

“Really?”

“Yes, my friends said I was lazy for not running after you. I told them I was just being practical, and I’d look like a maniac if I started to run after you.”

“Considering I had already been through an episode of thinking a man was chasing me, it wouldn’t have served you well to think I was being chased again.”

I laughed. He laughed. There was an undeniable connection that I couldn’t wait to explore more. If Emma was going to ditch me for this dude from the dance floor, I was going to make the most of my night and at least enjoy some dancing.

“So you are friends with the redhead?” the man asked me.

There was a constant smile at the edge of his eyes. It mesmerized me, and I couldn’t stop staring at his eyes. This guy was handsome, well dressed, and charming. So far I figured I couldn’t lose if I just had a conversation with him. His green eyes were much brighter than mine, and I felt lost in them as I looked up to him.

He was tall, probably a few inches taller than most men I knew. His sandy blond hair looking light brown at times too, and I had this undeniable urge to run my fingers through it.

“Yep, she’s my friend. Sorry she yelled at your friend the other night.”

“Oh, don’t be sorry. He deserved it I’m sure of it.”

“Ah, well okay then.”

“We have to go,” a young man dressed sharply in a designer suit said as he quickly approached the guy I was talking to. “Dean is already at the car. There are paparazzi all over, and we need to go with him. He is going to get himself in trouble. Grab Merrick and meet us out back,” the man said.

“Go ahead; I’ll see you later,” the tall, handsome man said as he looked at me and tried to get rid of his friend.

It was clear that the man I was talking to did not want to leave at that moment, he turned toward his friends and then back toward me. He wanted to stay there with me.

I felt his desire for me. The sexual attraction between the two of us was palpable, and at that moment, I truly felt what it must be like for women who decided they were willing to have one-night stands. If they felt even half as much attraction as I felt with this man, it was totally understandable to want to be naked with the guy.

“We need to go now. There was an incident. You don’t want to be here when it gets out. I’m sure the police are going to come, and it’s going to be one big disaster. Let’s just go.”

“I’m sorry. Here’s my card; call me please,” he said as he handed me a card while his friend pulled him away. “I’ll be waiting to hear from you.”

I grabbed his card and felt the luxuriously soft material as I put it into my clutch as I watched the very tall, light haired delicious looking man walk out of my sights. As the distance between us grew more, my desire for him lessened, and I was finally able to look back on the dance floor to find Emma.

“What was that?” I scolded her.

“He was really hot; I had to give him a chance.”

“You were the one who said he was a jerk,” I reminded her.

“Sometimes I’m hard on guys. It’s not horrible to give a guy a second chance. I know I would want one if I had done something bad.”

As always, Emma was a walking contradiction. I decided not to tell her about my little encounter with her rude dude’s friend. It was too early in the process to know if he was going to even be worth talking to. But my guy certainly had a better way of communicating with women.

We stayed at the club much later than usual since many of the people started to thin out after Dean and his friends left. It was back to our normal hangout spot by one in the morning, and we ended up dancing for a few more hours after that. It was much more fun to dance there when all the annoying people left for the evening.

Finally, in a state of total exhaustion, we managed to get ourselves out of the club and into a cab. We crashed at my house since it was the closest to the club, and neither of us said a word as we downed a couple of aspirin and drank our orange juice before falling into my oversized bed and sleeping off the alcohol that was buzzing through my system.

When the spinning from the alcohol started to calm down, I found myself thinking about the man who I had touched at the bar. I had officially touched him twice now and felt an amazing spark between us, yet I didn’t know his name. How could I have met him twice and still not know his name? It felt like a little bit of a defeat for me, and I needed to know his name at least.

Quickly, I jumped up and grabbed my purse to find his card. I was tired and didn’t feel all that well. I was very close to vomiting, and all I could think about was that I needed to know his name. It was the late in the night, and all my brain wanted to do was think about this guy, so I at least needed to know his name.

I needed a name to go with his dreamy green eyes as I thought about him while I drifted off to sleep. I needed to know his name so I could say it over in my head as I imagined getting up the nerve to call him. My heart pounded and my hands shook as I tried desperately to find his card.

I scoured my clutch for the card and then emptied the entire thing onto my kitchen table as I desperately tried to find his name. I wasn’t going to call him in the middle of the night. I didn’t even care what it was he did for a job. All I wanted was to know his name. Just his first name; I didn’t even need to know his last name.

It wasn’t in there.

The card was gone.

I sat down at the table and rested my head in my hands as I tried to think about the moment when he handed me his card. I was certain I had slipped it into my clutch. I played the moment over again and felt my hand slide down my purse, but I didn’t remember opening my clutch. Was it possible I had literally just let his card slide down the side of my purse and right onto the floor?

I felt sick.

I barely made it to the bathroom when all the alcohol I had consumed exited my body, or at least whatever was left in there. I had literally just lost the opportunity to go on a date with a guy that I had electricity with. A man who I actually felt a physical connection with and that the connection had been so strong it drove us together. In my own drunken stupor, I had just lost my chance with what I imagined was a really good man.

I couldn’t move from my spot by the toilet as my mind searched through possible options. I could call the club and have them look for it. Certainly, there couldn’t be that many business cards on the floor of a dance club. Or better yet, I could go back there in the morning with Emma, and we could get Bruce to meet us, and we would just look for ourselves.

Somewhere between thinking about how I could find this guy’s business card and vomiting in my toilet, I drifted off to sleep right there on the bathroom floor. My mind filled with romantic possibilities of what it would be like to date a man like the one I had met at the club that night. His bright green eyes stuck in my mind while I envisioned my fictional life of happiness. Yet I didn’t know his name, where he worked, or any other way of getting hold of him. I had met the perfect man, but wouldn’t be able to meet him again. I was devastated.