AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“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.
