Mike be cool ok. Not you trying to be cool just be actually cool. I have no idea what I’m getting into here. Did she really want me to come along tonight?
With a gentle glide my car pulls up to her curb. I flip my dash light on, the sound of my heartbeat is louder than the click of the light. Janice walks towards my car...
I can’t hide the smile on my face, grabbing the passenger door handle, with a embarrassing clunk it doesn’t open and my smile slides off my face. Mike points at the back door, but quickly smiles unlocking the door.
“That wasn’t funny.” My voice trembles sliding into the seat.
“So why are you smiling?” He asks with a look that cuts through my “tough chick” armor...
Was that too much? Reel it in Mike. I can’t believe I’m in this moment right now, I find it hard to to keep looking at her beautiful sitting next to me. Her scent fills my car, like flowers. Not artificial ones but a real flower and it calms me. I’ve very rarely had girlfriends or girls interested in me for more than things I can do for them. But this one seems different, this one feels different.
We pull up to a small downtown back street that looks so beautiful, string lights dangling between the buildings all the storefronts aglow with neon open signs. Placing the car in park Janice hops out. I stay sitting.
“Hey? Aren’t you coming?” Her face is framed by the car door.
“Did you really want me to come with you?” My fear and hope colliding at once.
Her eyes roll, “Yes!” That sweet intoxicating laugh gets me out of that car.
We walk into an office that’s new and hip, I’m not sure what they do but I can tell they aren’t a stuffy corporate company. We loft past desks that are all unique and walls that have art from all over the world but she isn’t giving me time to stop and admire anything. I guess because she sees them everyday. The unmistakable sound of a party grows and we enter a big warehouse with probably twenty five people broken into little groups seems full of life. My fear and senses are now on full alert and I sink inside myself.
“Would you like something to drink?” She says walking to a table but I’m kinda frozen still.
Hours go by and she introduces me to person after person but not because she is just itching to show me off but rather to prove she’s here and with someone on top of it. After she makes her rounds to say goodbye we head back outside I notice a cool metal sculpture on a desk glinting in the faint closed office light.
“That’s my favorite.” She calls back from a few steps ahead, “I got it for helping close a deal to help send clothing to Singapore for women in need.” She turns to walk even faster now as if she can’t be in here any longer.
Back at my car I wait for her phone to alert. When it does and she checks it I have my plan ready and jump wishing the fall won’t kill me, “So sorry but you have to pay for the ride otherwise you get put on a no ride list.”
“You’re kidding me right?” She looks angry.
“No really it has to be done on your end otherwise it looks like you skipped out.” She hits the icon on her phone so hard I can hear it.
Step two in my plan is a go, “Hey so this crazy girl I gave a ride to that seemed like she wasn’t going to pay just did... you want to get some food?” I hope this all sounds as smooth as I wanted it to.
She plays it cool without a expression, “Don’t you mean I’m buying?” I think she jumps in the car to keep me from seeing her smile.
Mission success.
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