I circle the parking lot in her apartment complex a couple of times because I’ve gotten here early. And when the dashboard clock tells me it’s six on the dot, I get out and head up to her door. I have butterflies in my stomach. Butterflies. Me. Over a woman I know better than I’ve ever known another woman. A woman I’ve been with so many times that the excitement—sexual and otherwise—should have at least begun to wane. No point analyzing it, though. It just is what it is.
I ring her bell, and wait. I’m trying to be patient, but a tiny part of me is wondering whether she’s even home, and if she’s stood me up. Unlikely, I know, but fear isn’t rational.
The door swings open and Dani is standing there, in a maxi-dress that, unless I’m mistaken, she wore the very first time we met. For coffee. Or at least, it was supposed to be for coffee.
I look her over and realize that apart from the dress, she isn’t really ready. Her feet are bare, her hair is undone, and she isn’t wearing any makeup. I can do without the makeup any day, but I know she won’t.
“Rand,” she says, sounding flustered. “I am so sorry. I had a thing that ran over, and … come in?.”
I glance at the time. I left an hour for us to get to the restaurant, and if we hang here for too long, we’ll miss our reservation. And this is one of those tony places that won’t play. Ten minutes after reservation time, and your table is forfeited.
“Yeah,” I say, hiding my apprehension. “Sure.”
I enter the apartment and look around. It is unchanged, which surprises me. I’ve been hearing through the grapevine about her work with a bunch of guys in the League. Alexa is really dedicated to making sure I see every reference to Dani online, and the occasional pictures of her that her athlete clients like to post on Instagram.
SJ started a trend with that. Now, Dani has become the ‘latest big thing’ like a trinket all these knuckleheads have to show off. It’s suddenly cool to have a life coach, I guess. I imagine she’s not too worried about bills anymore.
The way I deal with her new visibility, is to pretend it’s not happening, but I can’t lie, there are odd bouts of a stabbing pain in my chest and gut when I think about the types of dudes she’s working with—just dirty. Like I used to be dirty.
It’s nothing to any of them to try to smash someone who’s counseling them on how to live better. I would stake my life on it that more than a couple of them have tried.
“I just need to do my hair … and put on some lipstick and stuff, and then done,” she says, walking toward the back of the apartment.
“Okay,” I say. I stand in the middle of her living room for a minute, then sit on her sofa. Sighing, I stand again. I don’t like feeling like a guest here. This used to be like another home to me. My dirty socks were in her hamper, my drawers on the floor next to her bed, a toothbrush, my cologne, and even a few items of Little Rocket’s, strewn all around.
On impulse, I head toward the back, and stop when I see Dani in the hallway bathroom, standing at the mirror, applying her mascara. She spots my reflection and smiles at me, still delicately coating her lashes.
“You don’t need all that,” I say.
Her hand pauses, and she looks at me through the mirror, but doesn’t say anything. I advance closer, until I am less than a foot behind her. I put my hands on her waist, and force myself to keep them there though, by habit, they want to slide lower and cup her ass.
“I really like this dress,” I say.
Dani gives me a little smile. “Do you remember it?”
“Sure do.”
“You kicked me out of your house when I was wearing this dress,” she says, teasingly.
“Why you always gotta remember the bad stuff?” I tease her back.
She caps, and puts down the mascara. “I remember the good stuff, too.”
When she turns to face me, I can’t help myself. I kiss her. How can I not kiss her? She’s my girl, my best friend, my missing rib.
She kisses me back, and tastes like mint. As I am sliding my hand lower, to pull her pelvis against me, Dani presses her palms against my chest.
“Rand,” she says. “I can’t …”
“Can’t what?” I ask, lips pressed against her forehead.
“I need to know. What happened? Did you bring Rayna here? And her daughter? Did you …”
I nod. “Yes.”
“And?” she sounds impatient with me now, and she has a right to be.
“We did the test,” I say. “And I got the result a week ago. Just before Little Rocket’s birthday.”
Dani exhales deeply, and she starts blinking, like really fast. There are already tears in her eyes.
“She’s yours, isn’t she? Because if she wasn’t, you would have called me as soon as you heard.”
“And what does that mean for us?” I ask her carefully.
Dani shakes her head, and briefly bites into her lower lip. “I don’t know what to tell you,” she says.
“Tell me you still love me. Tell me we’re not over. Tell me …”
She looks up and smiles wryly. “Of course I still love you, Rand.”
“And we’re not over.”
She shakes her head again. “We’re … we’re not over,” she says. But she looks defeated. “I don’t know how to say that we are. If you have another baby, if you have to welcome another child into your life and your home, I would … It would be hard, but I would …”
“You don’t.”
“I don’t what?” she asks.
“Have to welcome another child. Not unless it’s …” I shrug. “Ours.”
Dani’s eyes open wide in elation, disbelief and then anger. She makes a fist and hits me hard in the center of my chest. Hard enough that I stagger backwards.
“You made me think ….” And then she bursts into tears. Loud, messy tears. The ugliest of ugly cries. And I’m shocked because, one; I’ve never seen Dani cry like that, and two; because I thought, foolishly she would be happy. But maybe there was something lacking in my delivery?
“You fucking … asshole!” she sobs.
And I am still standing there, speechless for a moment, my mouth partly open when she grabs the front of my shirt and pulls me toward her.
“Baby,” I say. “I’m sorry. It was a hypothetical …”
“Shut up,” she says, crying into my shirt. “Just … shut up.”
But she is wrapping her arms tightly around me, and I can no longer tell whether they are tears of anger, or of relief, and joy.
“Shit.” I lift my arm from where it is wrapped around Danielle and look at my watch.
“What?” she asks.
“Seven-twelve,” I say. “We missed it.”
“Missed what?”
“Our table.”
Dani sits up. “No! We are not missing Amada again. C’mon! If we hurry, we might …”
“No. Forget it.” I pull her back down.
We are sitting on the floor in the hallway just outside her bathroom. She is all cried-out, and I am emotionally exhausted as well. Relieved, and more mellow than I can remember being in what seems like an eternity. After the crying came more kissing, and now she is just leaning against me, my legs outstretched toward the opposing wall, Dani’s folded next to her.
“We’re never going to get to eat there,” she says almost mournfully.
“We will,” I say. “Promise.”
Even though it’s early, my eyelids feel a little heavy.
“Rand?”
“Yeah?”
“What was she like?”
“Who?”
“The little girl. Rayna’s daughter.”
“I never saw her. I made sure I never saw her.”
“Why?” she asks quietly.
“I didn’t want to see her unless she was mine. Because either way, that poor kid was getting a raw deal.”
“You’re not a raw deal as a father,” Dani says sitting up and turning to look at me. “You don’t believe that, do you?”
“I’m not the worst father out there, but …”
“Rand. You’re …”
“Don’t say I’m amazing at it,” I tell her. “That’s not true, and you know it.”
“You love him as much as any father I ever saw loves his kid.”
I brush a finger across her cheek. “My little diplomat. Thank you. Would you have kids with me?”
“Of course. If one day, we were to ever …”
“No,” I say, the smile falling from my face. “This isn’t a hypothetical. I’m asking.”
Dani looks like she’s about to pass out. “Asking me what?”
“If you’d have my kids. But … marry me first.”
She leans in, like she isn’t sure she’s heard correctly. “Are you pro…”
“…posing. Yeah.”
“Rand.”
“I’ve been thinking. I want to move to Bristol,” I say, rushing through everything I prepared, planning to tell it all to her over a romantic candlelight dinner in Amada. “I want to move there, and buy a house. Something with maybe a good mountain-view, and a huge backyard for Little Rocket. Lots of rooms for Freya and Garrett and my nephews to come visit. And for you … for us … to have more kids, and you know, live a good life. A li …”
I don’t get a chance to finish because Dani straddles me, and cups my face in her hands and kisses the hell out of me. It starts as the sweet kiss of a woman who has just been proposed to, but real fast, turns into something else. And soon she is hiking her dress up, releasing me from my jeans, hoisting upward, and then lowering herself onto me.
She kisses me again, tongue in my mouth, on my jaw and Adam’s apple, riding out her first orgasm in less than five minutes. I slide my hands up her thighs and grab handfuls of her ass, squeezing and pulling her down on me hard, so I can feel every pulsating movement inside her. Then, when she is still, and limp, I wrap my arms round her in a bear-hug and take over the action, pumping upward, feeling my mind swirl with nonsensical and incomplete thoughts. Until finally, I groan out my own orgasm.
I am still panting, and now, sweating, when Dani nips my earlobe between her teeth. I quiver a little and she smiles against my jaw.
“Damn,” I say. “I think we just made the first kid.”
“Second,” she corrects me. “It would be our second kid.”
And that makes me smile.
I wait until I recover enough to stand, and manage to maneuver so I can do so without taking her off me. I waddle, jeans at my knees, into the bedroom where I ease myself carefully onto the edge of the bed, Dani still astride me.
“Wow,” she says. “You are so talented.”
“Quiet,” I say.
I’m giddy, because it feels like we’re us again.
“Dani,” I say, sobering up.
“Hmm?” she is starting to warm up again, and with arms wrapped around my neck, has begun a subtle undulating motion with her hips.
I appreciate her enthusiasm, but it’s going to take me a minute, because when I came, it was so hard, it felt like the top of my head—and other places—blew off.
“I love you,” I tell her.
“Yes, I know,” she says, still concentrating on her little hip movements.
“Oh, so this is just ho-hum to you … me sayin’ I love you?” I pretend to bristle at her nonchalance.
“No, but I just trusted that … that you would say it when you were ready.”
I hold her still, and tip her chin back, and kiss her until we are both breathless. Soon, I’m good to go again, and just about to flip her over onto her back so I can really get into it, when Dani jerks to a halt.
“Rand,” she says. She sounds reluctant.
I am turning her over, but she is gripping my shoulders.
“I’m supposed to be on a plane at eleven.”
I freeze. “Where to?”
“Cleveland. A big new client. Potential client.”
“Who?”
She tells me the name, and even I am impressed. I can’t lie, though. I’m disappointed that she would even consider leaving right now, but I also can’t deny that this name isn’t someone to be cavalier about. If I respect her, and respect the work that she does, I have to let her do it.
I lift my weight part of the way off her, prepared to let her up when she grips my forearm.
“No,” she says. “Y’know what? Forget it.”
“You sure?” I ask.
“I’m sure,” she says. “I just got engaged. I’m not going to freakin’ Cleveland.”
I laugh. “Don’t know that it matters which city,” I say. “But this could be big for you. Huge. You sure you’re sure?”
She nods.
“Last chance, Danielle,” I warn, looking down at where we’re still connected. “Because … it’s about to be on up in here. So … stay, or go?”
She looks at me, and there are a million jumbled emotions in her eyes. Lust. Love. Certainty.
“Stay.”
Also by Nia Forrester
Commitment
Unsuitable Men
Maybe Never
Mistress
Wife
Mother
The Seduction of Dylan Acosta
The Education of Miri Acosta
In the Nothing
Secret
The Art of Endings
Lifted
The Come Up
The Takedown
Ivy’s League
The Lover
Afterwards
Afterburn
Young, Rich & Black
The Fall
Acceptable Losses
Paid Companion
30 Days, 30 Stories
Still (The Shorts – Book 1)
Coffee Date (The Shorts – Book 2)
Just Lunch (The Shorts – Book 3)
Nia Forrester lives and writes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where, by day, she is an attorney working on public policy and by night, she crafts woman-centered fiction that examines the complexities of life, love, and the human condition. She welcomes feedback and email from her readers at [email protected] or tweets @NiaForrester. And visit with her, at NiaForrester.com
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