Four Reasons to Come

by Sarah J. Brooks

  “Hey, you left your costume at my house, and I just wanted to drop it off. I’m sure those things are expensive.”

  “Thanks, that was nice of you,” she replied as she looked at Tanner and then back toward the building. “We are rehearsing for the holiday shows.”

  “Ahh, yeah, those will be here before we know it. I’m working on a big charity event of my own for New Year’s Eve; it will be here fast, I’m sure,” I said as I tried to keep the conversation going.

  The energy between us was off. Maybe it was because we were both dressed in normal clothes, but I felt like it was something else. Like she really wasn’t interested in me at all and just wanted me to leave as fast as possible.

  “Okay, well I’m going to head back in for practice. It was nice seeing you,” she said and turned around to go inside.

  Instinctively, I reached out and grabbed her hand. I had no idea what I was going to say or how I could keep her there with me, I just knew I needed to keep talking to her. I wasn’t ready to let her go. If I’d done something, then I needed to know what it was. If she just thought I was a rotten guy and didn’t want to see me, then I needed to hear that. If she just wanted a one-night stand and nothing more than that, I had to know. Whatever it was, I had to know more information before I was going to leave.

  The touch of her skin against mine reassured me that the chemistry between us was still there. I felt the warmth from her fingers as it went from my hand to the rest of my body as she slowly turned around. This time she was only inches away from me, and the power between us was undeniable.

  Her mahogany eyes sparkled in the sun as she looked up at me with a longing that I was almost positive was real. She wanted me. Her body was telling me that she was attracted to me. So what the heck happened, and why on earth had she left?

  “Did I say something wrong or do something? Why did you leave?” I asked.

  Tact was a trait I was good at. Most of the time, I could build a business client up and make them feel wonderful, even if they clearly were not. When dates behaved horribly, I kept my cool and still navigated with a swagger that most men didn’t have. But Jenna had me off balance. She was acting in a way that I couldn’t wrap my brain around, and I just blurted out what I wanted to know.

  “No, nothing,” she answered without looking me in the eyes. “I just had to go.”

  I wanted to ask more questions but decided to wait and see if she would offer up a reason for needing to leave so early. Then it dawned on me, maybe she had a boyfriend. I hadn’t even thought of that before, but that seemed a likely reason for her to leave so early. She was a beautiful woman, kind, with a gentle heart. Clearly, another man could have swept her off her feet already.

  We stayed there in silence, her hand still in mine and the electricity between the two of us building more and more the longer we stood there. Sooner or later, one of us was going to have to break the silence, and I wanted it to be her. I needed more of an explanation as to why she had to leave. There was more she wasn’t telling me, and I was going to get it out of her. Whatever it was, I could handle it, but I needed to know the truth.

  She smiled back at me and raised one of her eyebrows as she looked down at our hands. I wasn’t letting go of her hand, and I wasn’t going to talk first; I had to stand my ground. One of my mentors had taught me that the key to a great negotiation was being comfortable in the silence. Wait for the other person to initiate an offer. Don’t go in with what you can afford, instead let them tell you what they are willing to pay or vice versa. I figured the same would work for a woman. I would wait for her to talk, for her to give me something to work with.

  “Sir, you have a flight to catch,” Tanner said as he awkwardly stood behind us and ruined all my plans to be silent until Jenna broke and said something first.

  “Okay, thanks, I’ll be right there.”

  “Where are you going?” Jenna asked as she broke a smile and looked from Tanner to me. She seemed intrigued by my driver, and I wished I hadn’t brought him. The pretentiousness wasn’t me, and I didn’t want her to think I always had Tanner driving me around.

  “Just a quick trip. I’ll be back tomorrow. Would you like to meet down by the water and go for a run or a walk sometime this week? Nothing major, just some fresh air, and good conversation. I love it down there.”

  “Yes,” she replied much quicker than I expected.

  “Wednesday?”

  “Four in the afternoon work for you?” she asked again without hesitating. “I’ll be working until then. I can meet you down there, though. I really love it down there too.”

  I couldn’t read this girl for anything. First, she sneaks out of my house when it was barely morning. She doesn’t leave me any way to contact her, but then she is perfectly fine with getting together. Certainly, she couldn’t be married or dating someone because she wouldn’t have agreed so quickly. I wasn’t normally this bad at interacting with a woman, and it was driving me crazy. Jenna just wasn’t at all what I was expecting.

  “Yeah, four works for me. How about at the park by the Golden Gate Bridge?”

  “Perfect. At the bottom of the stairs by the store?” Jenna said as she flashed me a beautiful, big smile.

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, now that I agreed to go out with you, can I have my hand back?” she asked playfully as she tugged on her hand.

  “I guess so.” I reluctantly let go of her. “So you’re really not going to tell me why you had to leave?”

  I couldn’t resist asking again. It was killing me. She’d already basically admitted that I hadn’t done anything wrong because she had agreed to see me. She was looking at me like she had the night before. She liked me; it was obvious. So why the heck had she snuck out?

  “I’ll see you on Wednesday. I really need to run. My boss won’t be happy if she finds me out here flirting with you.”

  “See you Wednesday,” I said as she ran off toward the front door of the building.

  Jenna paused for a moment and looked back at me before flinging the door open and running inside. I couldn’t stop smiling as I climbed back into the SUV and headed to the airport. That meeting couldn’t have gone any better.

  Chapter 7

  Jenna

  “I need to leave by three if I’m going to make it to the waterfront by four,” I said during lunch with the girls.

  “Why on earth did you agree to go running with him? That sounds like the worst date in the world,” Elaina added. “I mean, I thought he actually liked you? Why would he ask you to go for a run? If a guy asked me to go for a run, I definitely wouldn’t be giving him a second date.”

  “I know, I mean, how are you supposed to look cute if you are getting all sweaty. You seriously should have told him no. Maybe suggested a picnic or something different. I don’t even know how you are going to talk to him. Are you going to talk while you’re running?” Stacy chimed in with her opinion.

  Elaina and Stacy cracked me up. For two girls who basically worked out all day long, they really weren’t a fan of running at all. I, on the other hand, loved to run and was looking forward to spending some time with Kevin while working out. You could tell a lot about someone by their effort level while working out.

  I didn’t often get a chance to go to the gym, but when I did, I liked to check out people while they were working out. Men and women had interested rituals when it came to the gym. But no matter what their rituals, I felt like you could tell someone’s overall life and work ethic by how much they put into their workout.

  People who left everything on the floor during their workout I imagined did the same thing in life. If they pushed themselves as hard as possible in the gym, I could only imagine that they had that sort of personality which made them push in other areas of their life. If they barely broke a sweat and watched television during their whole workout, I suspected they didn’t put much effort into the areas of their life outside of the gym.

  Of course I had no real data on my hypothes
is, but I was relatively certain my observations were true. I couldn’t wait to see what sort of workout guy Kevin was. I had my suspicions that he was an all-out, work your butt off, sort of guy. Someone who had amassed such a large business with success had to be willing to work hard.

  “We should do your hair,” Elaina said as she climbed onto the picnic table and turned me around so she could play with my hair. “What about a French braid?”

  “Those look weird on me, maybe do two braids?”

  “You’ll look pretty damn young if you show up with pigtail braids,” Stacy added. “But it might be cute.”

  “Okay, let’s do it,” Elaina said as she split my hair down the middle and sectioned it off. “I have a good feeling about this guy. So don’t do any more of that disappearing crap. Be nice to him, smile every now and then, and don’t push him away like you normally do.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I laughed.

  Men and I just didn’t work out well, and this guy and I weren’t off to the best start. I met him under a false pretense. He thought I was a dancer in the show and certainly didn’t know who I really was. How would I ever have any sort of real thing with this guy? I just didn’t see it happening. But I figured one date was worth a try. Not a real date. Not a date where I got dressed up, and he picked me up from my crappy apartment, but a jogging date was as much as I was willing to accept.

  The rest of the afternoon, Elaina and Stacy added makeup to my look whenever we took a break from practicing. Each time I thought there wasn’t possibly another thing they could add to my look, one of them proved me wrong. By the time I actually took off to catch the train, I had a full face of makeup on and various pieces of workout apparel that had been given to me by my friends.

  Stacy thought I should take my shirt off and run in my sports bra, but that definitely wasn’t going to happen. I did agree to wear a tank top, though, since the warm afternoon was likely to make me pretty sweaty while on a run, and I hated the sight of sweaty armpits on shirts; at least on my own shirts.

  As I walked down the stairs to our meeting point, I practiced how I was going to tell him that this was going to be our only date. Sure, he was handsome and fun to be around, but he was also a rich CEO, and I lived in an apartment that had more rats than people living in the building. Nothing could ever come of us, and I wasn’t going to let myself slip into a delusional thought process that I could actually keep this guy. I had to just let him go.

  I saw Kevin before he saw me. He was looking at his watch and looking around the dock to see where I might be. He was noticeable because he had on this brilliant blue tank top, and his muscular arms glistened in the sun’s reflection. I walked slowly as I watched him and relished the moment of getting to look at him without being seen just yet.

  Kevin had a confidence about him that was undeniable. He was clearly one of those guys who had women throwing themselves at him, which was why it baffled me so much that he was attracted to me. Certainly, I wasn’t hideous, but I wasn’t a six-foot tall bone thin model either, and I imagined he dated those types. In fact, I’d run across a few pictures of him online with women like that.

  I took in a deep breath as I stealthy approached from behind. The last few seconds where I could still leave if I wanted to, and I contemplated doing exactly that. I could just turn around and run back up the stairs, and he would never know that I was there. But I suspected that he’d make an effort to come talk to me again, so it was probably best just to have this date and be done with him for good.

  “It’s warm out today,” I said as I approached him from behind.

  “Jenna,” he replied enthusiastically and wrapped his arms around me and gave me a big, sweaty hug. “I was a little worried I was going to have to track you down again at the studio. You know I don’t even have your phone number.”

  I just laughed off his comment. If I wasn’t going to be able to keep him, I certainly wasn’t giving him my phone number. As I pulled away from his embrace, I knew this was going to be a very difficult day for me. I liked having his arms around me. I longed for more of him.

  I still didn’t see what it was he found so appealing about me, but by the smile on his face and the look in his eyes, his affection definitely appeared genuine. But it was affection for someone he thought I was, not the real me. There was no way a wealthy guy like him wanted to hang around a girl like me, not the real me. I was going to let him down easy and just move on with my life. Nothing good could possibly come out of continuing to see this guy past today.

  “Should we get started?” I said as I motioned down the path toward the city.

  “Yes, I just ran in from the park, we could walk if you’d like to talk?”

  “I’ll race you,” I said as I started running down the path. “I’m not really the walking type.”

  The less talking we did, the easier this was going to be. I couldn’t believe I’d agreed to even see him again. We had nothing to talk about. We were from two totally different worlds. But talking wasn’t exactly what I thought of doing with Kevin when I looked at him. Instead, I imagined all the delicious time in his bed we had already had; damn he did look good naked in that bed.

  As we jogged down the long dirt path near the waterfront, I noticed Kevin was staying a few steps behind me. I wasn’t a fast runner, he easily could have kept up with me or even tried to hold a conversation during the two miles between the bridge and the park, but he was purposely staying behind me. It was the best possible outcome for me; I didn’t even have to talk to him as we made our way down the path and toward the park.

  When I slowed down a little, so did he. When I picked up the pace, Kevin followed at the same increased pace. He never got closer to me or farther away from me. I couldn’t help trying to analyze what this workout style meant about who Kevin was. It was confusing, though. He clearly was a successful businessman. He had millions of dollars and a huge business that I’d seen tons of stories about in the paper. Why on earth wouldn’t he just run with me? I was baffled.

  In the day since I’d seen Kevin, I had found myself looking him up online. I didn’t just do it one time, I was drawn on several occasions to see if I could find out more about him. Maybe I was looking for an excuse not to like him? Or perhaps I just wanted to know what I was getting myself into, but either way, I came away from my research knowing that he and I just weren’t a good match. He was more like my fantasy man than I’d ever known to imagine. Sure, there were some bad stories about his philandering with the ladies, but other than those, it was mostly stories about his business and charity work. Plus, he looked like a movie star in almost every press photo I saw of him.

  “You can run with me,” I finally said as I turned back toward him. “You don’t have to stay behind me.”

  “I like being behind you,” he replied with a boyish grin as his eyes focused directly on my ass.

  “Wait, what are you doing?” I laughed as we both stopped running. “You were staying behind me this whole time so you could look at my ass?” I playfully pushed him off the path and into the grassy area next to us.

  The whole time I’d been trying to analyze what was going on, and it was just manly hormones. I couldn’t stop laughing as we stood there. Some women might have been offended by something like that, but it was oddly reassuring to me. I had such a lack of confidence in whatever was going on between the two of us but suddenly felt a whole lot better about his attraction to me. Obviously, it didn’t change that we came from two different worlds, but I wasn’t exactly sure I’d be willing to give him up after this date. Not with that naughty look he had in his eyes.

  “I couldn’t help it. Your ass is amazing. I’ve never seen anything more perfect. It’s got to be all that dancing you do,” he said playfully as he pulled me closer to him.

  The firm touch of his hands radiated through my body, and I smiled up at him as if he was the only man I’d ever been touched like that by. He leaned in as if he was going to kiss me, bu
t I pulled away. Just the mention of dancing was a reminder that I wasn’t who I was pretending to me. I wasn’t this amazing dancer who led the San Francisco Ballet company. Instead, I was just the loser assistant who spent her days getting yelled at by Cassandra. If he actually knew how low on the totem pole I really was, he wouldn’t be nearly as excited to look at my ass.

  “We should keep moving,” I said as I started walking. “How about you just come walk with me.”

  Disappointment flashed across his face as he realized I wasn’t reciprocating his affection. The problem was that I desperately did want to kiss him. I loved having his arms around me and just having him close reminded me of the incredible night we had spent together. But if things weren’t going to work out in the long run, I couldn’t bring myself to continue to flirt with him or accept his advances. Or at least I was going to do my best not to give in to those feelings.

  “Did I do something wrong?” Kevin finally asked about a half mile down the path. His lips curled up as if he was going to ask something else, and he looked incredibly frustrated with me.

  “No, not at all.”

  “Then what’s going on?” He was exasperated as he stopped walking and flung his hands in the air.

  “Nothing’s the matter; we just don’t know each other all that much, and I take a little bit to warm up to someone. I know since we slept together that night it is probably hard to believe, but I usually like to get to know someone before I’m kissing them. The other night was out of the ordinary for me. I hope you understand.”

  It was gibberish; I was just blabbing on and on because I couldn’t think of any other good reason not to kiss him. The words sounded ridiculous coming out of my mouth, and I looked away in regret as I waited for his response. This didn’t feel right to me at all. I was going around and around trying to push Kevin away when he was trying desperately to get closer. Lying was a horrible way to start any kind of relationship, and if there was a way out of it, I might have considered a date with Kevin for real, but I’d ruined everything with my lies.