Four Reasons to Come

by Sarah J. Brooks

  “What did you do Dean? How on earth did you get yourself into trouble in a club filled with your admirers,” I asked.

  “A joker decided to start mocking me while I was talking to a woman. I can’t just sit back and take that crap.”

  Dean was an artist; I knew that about him and was still his friend. But he certainly couldn’t control his emotions, and I suspected his inability to control himself might be one of the reasons he wasn’t getting more movie parts. Movie executives didn’t care how old he was. Sure, he was older than the normal young leading man, but stars like Tom Cruise had been holding films long into their 50s without an issue. Dean was just as handsome and charismatic as those other celebrities, but he was harder to control because of his emotional outbursts.

  “You ignore it, Dean. You’re famous; you can’t just give in to any old heckler,” Luke added. “You are better than those guys and that behavior. If you want to get back on top, you can’t be seen acting like that.”

  “I can’t ignore that crap.”

  And right there was why Dean Morrison was really on Broadway now and not doing films. His agents could have gotten him back into films. He probably would have played a little older hero than he had been playing before; perhaps he would have even had to play the evil character in films. But in the end, it was Dean’s own ego that kept him from the things he wanted in life. His managers that stole all his money could have been prosecuted. It would have been a public disaster, yet they could have actually had to pay for their crimes. Instead, Dean let them run off with it because he didn’t want to make a bigger scene than was already going on. He wanted the scandal to die down and hoped he could get back to work; his ego got in his way.

  I couldn’t continue arguing with Dean about the right way to handle his fame. Obviously, I wasn’t famous, and I was just speculating on what might work for him in his situation. As his friend, I supported him; I just wished I could have supported him after getting the hot blonde’s phone number and name.

  “Has the app given you any other instructions?” Ren asked just before our vehicle pulled up to his house.

  Actually, I had totally forgotten about the app all night long. There had been dozens of women coming up to me and flirting, but none stood out as anything unusual. Nothing about the evening had seemed out of place from what I would expect at a dance club like that.

  I pulled my phone out to see if there were any directions that I missed. I was nervous that I had missed something, and Ren’s ridiculous theory about the app might actually be true. But I planned to just follow what it asked of me for the next few days. So far the app hadn’t been outrageous at all, and I didn’t see a reason to delete it. Actually, I had a lot of fun at Sin that night, and I wouldn’t have gone there without the app suggesting it; so for me, the game seemed to be playing out well.

  “Nope,” I said as I pulled the app up, and it still had the message about going to Sin.

  “Anything weird happen at the club tonight? Any women who stood out?”

  I had to laugh. Hell yeah, there were women that stood out, about a dozen of them. That club had been filled with young beautiful women, and they were all dancing and flirting with me. But they were also dancing and flirting with Dean, Luke, Merrick, and Ren. I hadn’t noticed a woman who specifically sought me out to flirt with me. The only one I had really enjoyed talking to hadn’t even been looking to talk to me at all; she had simply been pushed out of dancing with her friend and found her way to the side of the dance floor.

  “No, it was a normal night.”

  “What about that girl who you were talking to when we left?”

  “No, she’s friends with a girl Merrick was dancing with. I just went to talk to her after Merrick tried getting her friend worked up.”

  “Ahh, well let me know if it asks you to do anything weird. Talk to you later.” Ren jumped out at his apartment.

  “Merrick, what was up with that redhead?” I got the chance to ask finally.

  “Man she’s a firecracker. Lots of fun. She wouldn’t give me her number, though.”

  “She didn’t? Now that’s funny!” Luke and I both said.

  It was unusual that Merrick had a woman he liked, and she wasn’t reciprocating. Merrick was used to getting what he wanted, so it was fun to watch him get frustrated when what he wanted didn’t want him back.

  After everyone was dropped off, I had the driver drop me at my house. It had been a long night, and we had all collectively decided that we weren’t going to have our investment club meeting the next day. It was better for us to have spent the evening getting comfortable with our group again. We had over a half of a million dollars invested together; the club was a great starting point for people, and I didn’t want to let that down. My hope was that we would all be able to start recruiting some more and then build the club up into a strong network in the industry.

  Being friends with other investors meant that you were able to find out information long before you normally would. Not insider information or illegal information, simply the detailed information about companies that you didn’t have time to follow. My goal for the group was to have them helping me build my investment fund into one of the most successful in the industry.

  The Triple T Investing Club was my baby, and I had so many plans for growing it and using it to become a better investor. I might even decide to branch off and start my own company someday if I was able to be successful enough in managing my investment fund.

  I looked over at my clock after taking a shower and readying myself for bed. It was nearly five in the morning. Much later than I liked to stay up, even on a night of partying, but just as I closed my eyes the ping of my phone alerted me that the Date Tonight app had a message for me.

  My heart raced at what it might have to say. Slowly, I used my fingerprint to unlock my phone, and I read the message as it appeared. This was how the app got people addicted to it. I had the rush of adrenaline like you would get in a casino or something like that. What would the app have to say next? Where would I have to go in search of my perfect match? It was all very exciting, and I couldn’t wait to see what the game was going to do next.

  ---Go workout at Fitness Force this morning.---

  Go workout? That was crap! I had just gotten home. At that moment, I instantly understood why Ren had not followed all the directions the app had given him. I was tired, beyond my normal level of tired, and I felt my body slipping into sleep even as I lay there looking at my phone. I didn’t want to work out. Nothing about this demand was a good idea for me. I had been up all night long, and I could hardly see because of the amount of alcohol I had consumed. I wanted to sleep.

  Slowly, I rolled my feet out of bed and put my workout clothes on, though. It was better to go show up at the gym and follow the app than it was to try and sleep and wonder if what Ren had said was going to happen to me. I would simply go to the gym, workout for a few minutes and leave.

  Of course, I’d keep my eyes peeled for a woman who I thought fit the description of Dakota, but even that description was fading in my mind since I hadn’t been able to look at her profile in days. I desperately wished the app would just show me a picture, so I knew who I was looking for. It was impossible to try and find a specific woman when I didn’t know what she looked like. I was starting to think the app expected me just to start talking to random women when I went to these locations.

  She had blonde hair; I remembered that. But how tall was she? What type of figure did she have? My memory was fuzzy, but I thought it said she was short with an athletic frame. I’d keep my eyes out for a woman like that. But maybe she had been tall with a thin frame? I had no idea at all.

  The body type of a woman was something many men I knew fixated on. They always wanted a slim woman with big tits; that was their thing. But I knew women were beautiful in so many different sizes. I had met women who I had a great time with and didn’t think at all about the size of their thighs. To me, it was much more about who t
hey were and if we laughed together. Laughing with a woman was one of my favorite things to do with her; with and without our clothes on.

  I had visited Fitness Force Gym on a few occasions. It was near the financial district and had an account with my firm, so I could use it when I wanted to. But it was farther away from my house than I liked, so I had a different gym that I used more often.

  My eyes were barely open as I flashed my work ID card and went into the gym. To my surprise, there were plenty of people working out, even at six in the morning on a weekend. I couldn’t imagine what their lives were like and how working out at that time on a weekend even made sense to them. But I climbed onto a treadmill and looked around the club as I started to jog.

  There were a couple of women in the club, but none were even blonde. It didn’t look promising for me, but I had pledged to myself that I would run for twenty minutes and then I would head back home and go to sleep. I kept my eyes peeled throughout the club and the front entrance for anyone that I thought might possibly meet the description of the woman I had matched up with. Dakota had been her name. Despite forgetting some of the details about her appearance, I remembered her name, and that was how I would tell who she was when I finally met her. Or at least, that was all I could think of as a way to be sure unless I just came out and asked the woman if she was on the Date Tonight app.

  It seemed like a childish game so far; the Date Tonight app didn’t even have me connecting with this girl. I had expected a meet up in a coffee shop or something. Maybe she would be sitting in the corner sipping her latte when I was instructed to find her. But so far the app simply had me showing up at locations with no clue as to who I was looking for. There were a lot of blonde women in New York; it wasn’t likely I was going to know this particular woman from any others, and I felt a bit of frustration when I finally left the gym.

  Chapter 10

  Dakota

  Emma and I slept through our normal morning workout and right past our lunch time as well. We were both exhausted from the night before, and I felt like I had a massive hangover too. Our Sunday workouts were how we burned off the alcohol we had consumed. It was also how I managed to keep my butt in shape when I spent most of my days in my office with vocal students.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about the guy from the club. Maybe we were meant to run into each other. Maybe this was all a sign that I didn’t need that dating app at all, and I was perfectly capable of meeting a nice guy on my own.

  With a clear mind, I went back to my purse to see if I could find his card. My fingers glided through ever piece of paper in my purse and on the table around there. Nothing. I had actually lost it.

  “What’s the matter?” Emma groggily asked as she walked into the kitchen.

  “There was a cute guy that gave me his number, but I lost it.”

  “I never saw you with a cute guy.”

  “He was a friend of that rude guy you danced with.”

  “Oh, Merrick,” Emma said with a dreamy look in her eye and a smile.

  “What was that?” I demanded.

  “What?”

  Emma looked like a teenager who had a crush on a boy in her class. I never saw her looking like that. I especially didn’t think she would be looking like that toward a guy who had been so rude to her.

  “You are smiling like you actually like this guy. What’s going on? I thought he was rude to you, and you didn’t like him. But then you were dancing with him, and now you’re smiling like you and he have a secret or something.”

  She looked demurely away, and I could tell she had a little crush on this guy. Perhaps she wouldn’t be willing to admit it, but I could see it in her eyes. And Emma never showed emotion when it came to the guys she had around her. This was a unique and fun moment for me, and I wasn’t about to let it just drop.

  “He’s handsome and nice,” she replied.

  “And very rich.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Oh, come on; his suit looks like it was made by hand with a hundred tailors painstakingly working on it. He’s rich. Do you know what he does for work?”

  “I didn’t ask him.”

  “Do you know what his name is?”

  “Merrick,” she replied. “Of course I got his name.”

  I cringed a little at her response. I should have gotten the name of the guy I had talked to. It normally was the first thing I asked, but I had been swept up in the moment and forgot. But there was a little hope for me after all. If Emma liked this guy Merrick, then she could go out with him, and I could find out what my guy’s name was. It all felt very high school, but I was okay with that.

  “What’s that face about?” she teased me when she saw my response.

  “I talked to his friend for a little bit.”

  “Oh, the cute one?”

  “Did he have an ugly friend?” I laughed.

  “What was his name?”

  “I don’t know; I lost his card. Do you have Merrick’s number? Are you going to go out with him?”

  “Nope.”

  “What the hell. You like him; I can clearly see this. Why don’t you want to go out with him?”

  “I do?”

  Sometimes Emma drove me insane. She was playing word games with me, and I didn’t like it. If she liked the guy, why wouldn’t she go out with him? Why wouldn’t she call him? Damn this girl frustrated the hell out of me sometimes.

  “Explain,” I demanded.

  “He left without asking me for my number.”

  “What? He wanted to dance with you so bad. You two clearly had chemistry. What the hell?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m sure we will run into him again. I’m not worried about it.”

  The truth was that Emma was never worried about anything. It was just her normal personality to be laid back and casual and my normal personality to worry about everything. We actually balanced each other out very well but also drove each other nuts too.

  “I dreamt about my guy last night. Well, not my guy, but you know what I mean; the guy I talked to. It was seriously the hottest dream I’ve had in a very long time.”

  “And you didn’t even get his name; that’s a crying shame.” She laughed with no sympathy for me at all.

  There was a dinging noise coming from my phone, so I hurried and opened it just to see the locked screen from the Date Tonight app. I hadn’t even thought about that app in days, so it caught me a bit off-guard.

  ---Green Power Coffee tomorrow at 7:42 a.m.---

  “What is it?” Emma asked.

  “It’s a coffee shop, and I think I’m supposed to go there or something.”

  “Oh, this is so exciting. It must be to meet up with your match. I bet he’s going to be your absolute perfect guy. Can I come with you?”

  “That would be a little awkward don’t you think?”

  “I’ll sit somewhere else. I just want to see him. I’ll take a picture of the two of you meeting for the first time. Wouldn’t that be so romantic?”

  I had to admit the idea did sound very romantic. The app was going to place us both in the same restaurant at the same time and give us the opportunity to meet up. It seemed fun, but how would I know which guy was him? I only had a very general description of the guy and no pictures at all.

  “Yes, you can come. But you have to sit far enough away that you’re not distracting me.”

  Emma started to dance around my kitchen and spin and twirl as she laughed.

  “Distracting? Who me? I’m never distracting,” she said with a laugh.

  The idea of meeting up with this stranger from the app was starting to scare me. I didn’t know him at all. I had no idea who he was or what sort of man he would be. How was I supposed just to sit and talk to this guy without knowing him more? What if I didn’t like him? What if there was no chemistry between us.

  I had just met a really nice and very good looking man at the club. Maybe he was a good fit for me? I certainly felt the sexual chemistry between t
he two of us. If there was that much of a physical connection, I was convinced the guy from the club couldn’t be bad for me. But I might never get to actually see him again, and I didn’t want to waste the opportunity to meet up with this guy who I matched with so perfectly from the dating app. It would haunt me for a very long time if I thought I had missed the connection with my one true love.

  For the first time in years, I felt torn between two men. Neither of them was a clear winner in my situation because I hadn’t actually gotten to know them enough. For me, it would just have to come back to a feeling I got when I was with them. So I had to agree to meet the guy from online and just test it out to see how we might feel about each other when we met in person.

  Maybe all my bad love luck was about to change. I might even be on my way to finding a guy that was such a good match for me that there would be no doubt at all in my mind if he were the right one for me or not.

  The problem I was currently having was that I had such an insane dream about the guy from the club, and it only made me want him more. In my dream, he had come home with me. There was no talking, probably because we really hadn’t talked all that much. But there was so much more than talking ever could be.

  We walked into my apartment, and he pressed me up against the wall as his hand moved into my panties and started to play with me. He was forceful and playful all at the same time, and I loved it. I was dripping wet for him, and as my dream lurched forward, we were suddenly in bed, his body thrusting on top of mine.

  If I closed my eyes at that moment, I could still imagine what his naked body would look like on top of me as I spread my legs around him and let him thrust deep inside of me. I wanted this guy. I didn’t know a damn thing about him, but I wanted him so desperately that I was literally dreaming about him before I even knew his name.

  When Monday finally rolled around, I woke up early, did my hair and makeup and made my way to Green Power Coffee. I arrived around 7:30 a.m. and ordered my drink and found a spot in the corner of the café. It was a delightful little café that had small tables and even smaller chairs, but made for the perfect meeting spot near work and home. I wanted the best possible view as I waited for this mystery man to arrive.