First Impressions Series (1-2)

by Nicole R. Locker

  “She seemed nice.” It seemed more like a question than a statement from Zia as I sat back down and grabbed my drink.

  “Yeah, I think so. Looks like maybe you know what you’re talking about after all, huh?” I answered.

  “We’ll see. Don’t just settle for the first girl you meet. You see where that’s gotten you so far,” Zia teasingly gibed.

  After sitting a few more minutes with Zia and my Dos Equis, I shared a few more dances with a couple of other girls. Each one had their own style, which I adjusted my own style to, and that helped me to really hone my dancing skills before the night was through.

  Of course, I could not resist asking Zia for a few more dances in between. She moved so gracefully, her hips swaying in perfect synchronicity with the upbeat music, and her footwork on a whole other level from the other girls I danced with.

  About halfway through the night, I had noticed a guy who had his eyes on Zia a little too intensely as she danced or milled around the room. Not that he was the only guy I could see eyeing her, but I could tell this particular guy had really set his sights on her from the way his eyes followed her around the room as he would smile as though he’d accepted a challenge and run his tongue over his lips.

  The guy had a sort of exotic flair about him. He was definitely not American, but maybe from a Middle- or South-American, Spanish speaking country. I could see how the girls in the room were attracted to him, as he had a sensual way that he moved his whole body when touching them and looking into their eyes when he spoke to them.

  Needless to say, I didn’t trust the guy.

  When he finally made his way around to talk to Zia, I panicked. I wasn’t sure why; whether it was out of concern that he was some type of con artist or sexual predator, or the more likely reason that I was scared as hell she would be attracted to the guy. Either way, I had to act, so I did the only logical thing I could think of at the time.

  In mid-song, I walked off from the girl I had been dancing with at the moment without so much as a word or explanation. I walked over to Zia and the attractive, skeezy, exotic guy, tapped Zia on the shoulder, and asked, “Mind if I cut in?”

  Did I seriously just do that? I mean, what kind of jealous, overbearing, controlling, territorial jerk was I being at that moment? As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I imagined Zia being annoyed with me and telling me to bug off, after she had watched me dancing with girl after girl tonight.

  But it was too late. I had already stuck my foot right into it, and all I could do at that point was commit to the follow-through.

  Needless to say, I was shocked when Zia smiled up at me, looked politely over at Mister Exotic, and told him, “Maybe another time, Hector.” She said his name, Hector, in a Spanish accent that made it sound completely different from how I would have probably read aloud from a book. Ayk-torrrr, as she made almost a rolling R sound at the end.

  It made her about ten times hotter than she already was right at that moment.

  As she took my left hand and I placed my right arm around her with my right hand at the small of her back, she asked me, “What’s up, Dylan? Is everything okay?”

  “Oh, yes, everything is great. I was just getting a little tired. I wondered if you might be about ready to call it a night,” I told her, and it was only a lie in that it was not the entire truth.

  Zia agreed, so she grabbed her jacket and hand bag and we made our way out the door. We waited outside for a cab, and thankfully it arrived quickly, since it was a chilly night and I felt like a jerk making her wait out there with me in the cold air.

  “Aren’t you cold?” she asked me as a hint of fog hovered in the air from her warm breath. Great, I really felt like a jerk. I didn’t even have a jacket to offer her, and I was at least glad she had her own jacket to wear at the moment. It was touching that she was concerned about me, too, though.

  “No, I run hot most of the time. It feels good to be out here after dancing the past couple of hours,” I explained.

  Once the cab pulled up beside us, I opened the door and stepped aside to allow her in first. Once she got in, she moved across to the other side of the back seat and I got in beside her.

  “I don’t think you live far from me. I’ll have the cabbie drop you off first and I’ll pay the cab fare, if that sounds good to you,” I offered.

  “Okay, that would be great. Thank you.” She smiled at me gratefully.

  I told the driver the address, and then we rode silently for a while as I thought about how nice the evening had been, despite being completely out of the norm from what I’d usually do on a Friday night.

  “I had a great time tonight,” I told her as we neared her apartment building. “Thanks for getting me out of my comfort zone. It was fun trying something new.”

  She beamed at me. “Don’t mention it. I’m glad you like it.” Then she looked down at her hands that she had clasped together in her lap and added, “You’ll have to tell me how things go with the girl who gave you her number earlier.”

  “Sure… So, when should we meet up next? Since it seems you apparently know your stuff.” I couldn’t let her leave without making a plan to see her again.

  “You want to try for next weekend? I can’t think of anything I have planned so far,” she suggested.

  “Yeah, okay.” I smiled, looking forward to our next meeting. “Next weekend sounds good. Friday?” I suggested. It was obviously the soonest day, but I also remembered the Halloween party that Ethan was throwing at his place next Saturday.

  “Let’s try for Saturday. One of my favorite cover bands is playing at the Daylee Grind Saturday night, and I’m thinking that will be the perfect setting for the next time,” she explained.

  “That’s Halloween night, right? No big costume rager?” I teased. She didn’t strike me as the type you’d catch upside down, mid-keg stand.

  “No,” she said, laughing. “I’m sure they might have a theme or something, but it should be pretty laid back.”

  “Alright, sounds good,” I agreed. I’d rather spend Halloween night looking at her pretty face than seeing Ethan running bare-assed across his front yard in a yeti mask, like last year, any day.

  The cab took the final corner and neared the front of her apartment. Zia looked over at me, but didn’t say anything for a short while as though she were deep in thought. Then the cab stopped in front of the doorway entrance, and the way we were facing, her apartment building was on the side of the street nearest her side of the cab.

  “Let me come around and get your door for you. Don’t move,” I told her as I opened the door on my side and walked around to help her out of the car.

  Before she walked inside, she stopped in front of me. “Dylan?”

  “Yes?”

  She became serious. “You said you wanted a girl with a mind of her own. The thing about girls with minds of their own is, you have to try harder to catch them. And work harder to keep them. They have higher standards than the girls you’re used to dating, than those girls over by the bar tonight with their dignity hanging out,” she explained.

  Wow, I thought. That made a whole lot of sense. It suddenly occurred to me that this girl was legit. She really could teach me a thing or two about finding the right girl. I remembered thinking how all the guys in the Book Shelf who were eyeing her but not approaching her were out of her league, and thinking I wasn’t. Now, I wasn’t so sure she wasn’t a few leagues even above me.

  All I could do was nod, acknowledging her words, as I looked down into her serious, light-blue eyes.

  Then she smiled and broke the silence to lighten the mood as she began walking away toward the doorway. “Nice moves, by the way.”

  “Right back at ya, Zia,” I said with a laugh.

  “Oh, and Dylan?” she added.

  “Yes, Zia?”

  “If you’re free next Friday, maybe it would be a good idea for us to meet up? I need to do my due diligence if I’m going to do this right. I need to find out a little more
about you. You know, to figure out what kind of girl you would really like.”

  It was clear that Zia was taking this whole thing seriously. I figured it was about time I did the same.

  “Okay, Friday. I’ll come by after practice.”

  CHAPTER 4: ZIA

  I made it through another week of school and work. By the time Friday rolled around again, I was anxious. Tonight Dylan would be stopping by to hang out so that I could get to know him better.

  It was supposed to be all business, but I couldn’t help my nerves for some reason. I chalked it up to performance anxiety.

  If I was honest with myself, I had to admit that Dylan was growing on me. I had definitely had the wrong idea about him the night I saw him at the Book Shelf, and I was looking forward to finding out what else I didn’t know about him. So far, he had been really easy going, and really easy to talk to.

  The more I thought about it, though, the more I thought he probably treated me differently than the girls he usually hooked up with because he didn’t see me in that way. I was more of a friend or maybe even like one of the guys, although I wasn’t much of a Tom-boy by any means.

  Who knows? I just knew that things were a lot different than I thought they would be, despite not being aware of any pre-made expectations of how this all would go.

  That night, I dressed down in a comfortable pair of jeans, a white, fitted, Coca-Cola T-shirt, and some mismatched ankle socks. My hair was pulled back in a messy bun. I wanted to be as casual as possible.

  I decided to make dinner for Clara and me, a chicken stir fry with a side of jasmine rice, and we ate it in the kitchen with some fancy chopsticks I had found in an Asian food store a while back. We were getting really good with those chopsticks.

  I finally decided to tell Clara about Dylan, more out of necessity than because I wanted to, since it was pretty likely she would see him when he knocked on our door tonight. I didn’t want to give her the opportunity to get the wrong idea about Dylan and me. I almost had to cover my ears when she squealed in delight.

  “Dylan freaking Porter? Marzia Benagli, are you kidding me? When did this happen? How did this happen? Has he kissed you yet? I mean, how are those amazing lips? I’ve heard he has magic lips. Is it true?” Clara was obviously overreacting. So much for not getting the wrong idea.

  “No, Clara, seriously, it’s not like that. This is really a sort of school project. Like a case study type of thing that he’s helping me with. I just happen to be helping him in the process. It’s like a mutual benefit kind of thing,” I tried to explain.

  The look on Clara’s face told me she was not buying it.

  “You don’t have to believe me. Just don’t be all gawky and make things awkward when he gets here, okay?” I pleaded with her. “Please just be cool.”

  “Okay, okay. Geez. I’ll try to make myself scarce. I was thinking about going over to the Book Shelf to see who was there tonight anyway,” Clara said.

  “Where is Cason tonight?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. He said he had some work to do out of town this week and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. I don’t mind, though. It gives me some time to hang out with some other friends I haven’t seen in a while. I’ll meet up with Cason tomorrow night when he gets back into town.” Clara wasn’t quite ready to give up her promiscuous lifestyle just yet, apparently, even if she did have it pretty bad for Cason.

  At about eight-thirty p.m., there was a knock on the door. Dylan had arrived. I let him in, took his jacket, and showed him to the sofa to sit while I offered him a drink. I was having a glass of wine, but luckily we had some beer in the fridge, since that was Clara’s preference.

  Dylan thanked me for the beer, took his jacket off, and got comfortable. He seemed to feel at ease here, which I liked.

  Clara came in and I introduced her to Dylan.

  “Hi, Dylan, it’s so nice to meet you. I hope you two have fun tonight. I was just heading out, but I look forward to seeing you again soon. We’ll have to all hang out sometime, like a double date or something.” Clara really needed to work on her subtlety.

  I watched Dylan to see his reaction, expecting him to protest in some way, but he didn’t. He just gave Clara an award-winning smile and told her he looked forward to it.

  “Sorry about that,” I apologized as soon as Clara left the apartment. “So how was your game last week?”

  I turned on a Netflix movie but turned the volume down, more for some background noise than anything else.

  “It was great if you don’t consider that we lost by two points. It was a close game, though, and we played hard. We played a good team.”

  “I’m glad to see you’re such a good sport about it.”

  I thought it was pretty telling that he was so positive about the other team winning even after his own team lost the game. Most guys would have talked crap, but that didn’t seem to be Dylan’s style. I had to admit, I liked that about him.

  If I was being honest, there was a lot I already liked about him. Now it was time to learn more.

  “So tell me about you. Where are you from? Tell me about your family,” I said, getting us started.

  “Well, I’m originally from Houston, but we moved to Tennessee for a while after my mother died when I was two. My older brother, Devin, and I were raised by my dad.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry about your mom. Did your dad ever remarry?” I asked.

  “No, he really never settled down with any one person after my mom. I guess you could say he played the field a lot after that. I don’t think he really ever got over my mom, so it was almost like he tried to fill the void she left by dating one woman after another.”

  Interesting, I thought. This could go a long way toward explaining his attitude toward women.

  “Do you remember your mother at all?” I made sure to use the same word he used, mother instead of mom.

  “No, not really. Sometimes I dream about her, but I don’t know if they are memories, or just things my mind makes up to fill in the gaps, you know? I was so young when she died. My brother remembers her a lot better than I do.”

  I noticed his beer was getting low, so I got up to grab him another while I asked, “So it was just you, your dad, and your brother growing up? No women?”

  “Thank you,” he said as I handed him the beer and sat back down beside him on the couch. “Yep, it was just us guys. I really haven’t been around a lot of women growing up, now that you mention it, other than maybe a babysitter here and there, teachers, or friends’ moms, things like that.”

  “So what does your dad do?”

  “He owns an international company based out of Tennessee. He’s a pretty successful businessman, you could say. The company has branches all over the place,” Dylan explained.

  “Did your dad spend much time with you growing up?”

  “You know, he really did. My dad was a busy and important man, but he also made sure that my brother and I knew we were important to him. He was always at our games, always made it to parents’ night at our school. He’s a really good guy. A lot of people think because he has so much money, he must be some kind of jerk, but my dad is really a charitable person once you get to know him.

  “He donates a lot of money to a foundation for cancer research, which of course was how my mother died. He donates gifts to the children’s hospital every Christmas. And, of course, he donates every year to the university. He got his business degree here himself a few decades ago now.” I could see the pride showing on Dylan’s face and in the way he held his head up high as he spoke of his father.

  “He does sound like a great guy. I guess I know where you get it from now,” I complimented.

  “What about you? What is your family like?” he asked as he touched my knee and then brought his hand back to his own lap.

  I told him about being the oldest child with one brother who was a lot younger than me, so we had never really related very well to each other growing up. My parents had divorced when
I was young, and we did the standard visitation gig until I moved away to college a few years ago.

  I explained how my mom was an assistant in a corporate setting, while my dad worked as an architect. They were very different people, but they still got along well after they had split. Both remarried, but neither had any more kids.

  We talked about school for a while, how he was majoring in sports medicine with a minor in biology, and his ultimate goal was to find a profession helping people in some way eventually.

  He talked about how different it had been last weekend going salsa dancing, being in a place where not everyone knew him. I had asked if it was different in a good way or a bad way. A very good way, he had insisted.

  After a while, we got around to the topic of dating, and what type of girls he was attracted to as well as what kind of characteristics he would hope for, other than the basics we had already established when we had first met.

  The verdict… he had no clue. He mentioned that everything he thought he wanted had turned out to be less than fulfilling so far, so he thought it was about time to figure out some new standards.

  “What about you? Why aren’t you dating anyone?” he asked, turning the tables on me.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I mean, I’m not closed off to the idea or anything. I just don’t feel like I need it to be happy. It also doesn’t help that the relationships I’ve had in the past did not do much to make me all that happy. So when you’ve been happier not being in a relationship than you’ve ever been while in a relationship, let’s just say it hasn’t earned a top spot on my priority list.”

  “Wow, you must have really been burned,” he said, shaking his head.

  “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’ve had my share of heartbreaks, but it really hasn’t been anything that traumatizing. I’m just content with what I have: my friends, my family, school. I’m okay with waiting for the right guy. I’m not so desperate for love that I feel like I need to go out and find it in just anybody.” I shrugged and took a sip of my wine.