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“And what is it you have?” he asks.
My response is delayed by our waitress bringing our meals. Our drinks are almost empty so after asking if I want a refill, Cash orders another round for both of us. After she leaves, and I’ve taken my first bite because it smells far too good to wait, I explain, albeit a bit embarrassed. “I don’t want for anything.”
He dips a fry in ranch and pops it in his mouth. After he swallows, he adds, “Materially, you mean.”
I pause, the triangle of quesadilla suspended in the air. I set it back down and blink. “Pardon?”
“You don’t want for anything that money can buy. But there are plenty of more important things in life that money has no part of.”
“Right.” He’s absolutely right. Clothes, cars, homes, vacations… I’ve never been denied anything. Anything but the right to make my own choices, that is. Prep school, college at University of Chicago because that’s where my parents graduated from. Where Trotter’s parents graduated from. And where all our grandparents graduated from. Trotter says we’reU of Chicago royaltybecause he’s a pompous ass and thinks he’s better than everyone. My status at the school is why I was able to leave school for a long weekend and miss classes. Ridiculous. And normally I wouldn’t abuse the system but it was either that or check myself in to a mental facility. I couldn’t take another second of Trotter or my family and needed a break.
“Probably makes it a little worse,” he murmurs.
“True,” I concede. He doesn’t know that I’m engaged to a man who gave me the engagement ring with less enthusiasm than one has after being told they have to have a root canal. It was more like ‘hey, we’re supposed to get married, I guess, so…’ and I stared at him blankly as he yanked my hand closer, shoved a five-carat diamond ring on my finger, and then proceeded to get raging drunk. It was so romantic. And that was sarcasm if you weren’t aware.
I don’t know why I said yes. Maybe it was because for as long as I can remember, the plan was always for me to one day marry Trotter. We were friends, best friends for a while, and it never really bothered me. Until we started dating, as per our parents’ timing. Until I saw what my future held and felt my identity blowing away in the wind. Then the ring was on my finger. And I started to have panic attacks regularly, cried myself to sleep at night, and had no one who would listen to me when I explained that I wasn’t in love with Trotter and didn’t want to marry him. My friends aren’t really friends. They’re people that are part of “our circle” and are perfectly happy as long as they have a closet full of new designer clothes, have their next vacation to some tropical island scheduled via private jet, and their car is the latest model.
When I finally gained the courage to tell my mom, she simply scoffed and said that love wasn’t part of marriage in the real world. That was for people who lived a quiet life. That I would grow to love Trotter and if I didn’t, I could take aside pieceand keep him quiet.
She said those exact words to me, telling me that’s what she and my father did and it made life so much easier. Oh, and she reminded me that I would have to use condoms with theothersso that my babies would be Trotter’s. That was a fun conversation. Not that I was surprised to hear that my parents weren’t faithful to each other. It was obvious they weren’t in love, but hearing her talk so openly about it made me wonder if there really is such thing as love or if it’s just something in books and movies.
Maybe I’m naïve to believe in love, but I don’t care.
We continue to eat and drink and fortunately he drops the subject of me growing up in one of the wealthiest families in Chicago. Not that he knows anything other than I’m a rich kid, but he seems to get the gist of it, anyway. Rather, we talk about nothing and everything. He tells me stories from his college life that have me cracking up, stories of growing up in Tennessee in a small town where everyone knows your name and your business. To most people from the city, it sounds boring and dull. To me? It would be a dream come true.
While he’s talking, I’m sure I have a glazed-over look to my eyes. Listening to the way his life was and is has me fantasizing about what could be for me. If I stood up to my family and walked away from everything I’ve ever known.
“What’s your name?” he asks out of nowhere.
“Didn’t I…”
With a wink and a quick shoulder shrug he says, “Go with it.”
I press my lips together and look away, thinking for a second, then saying the first name that comes to my mind. “Sandra.”
He grins. “That’s what you came up with?”
I shrug and maintain eye contact with theunbelievablyhandsome Cash. My word, I’m not sure what they do to the boys in Tennessee, but raising them gorgeous is definitely something they excel at. The termgood ol’ boyscomes to mind. The guys who are great friends, strong, country, and down home. Cash seems this way. The way he listens to the few details I’ve given him about myself and still seems to understand.
“Does that make me Danny?”
I laugh to cover the flutter that him knowing the cast ofGreasegives me. “Obviously.”
He grins. It’s one that has the power to suck me in and never let go.Dannyis so good looking it almost makes me uncomfortable. Not uncomfortable in a way that I feel unsafe in his presence. No. This is a type of uncomfortable that makes me want to shimmy in my seat to relieve the ache just being around him brings me.
“Don’t expect me to sing like Danny.”
“But you’ll dance?”
“I’m a southern boy, my mama taught all us boys to dance.”
Mama. Southern boy. All us boys.His slight twang is so sexy. Maybe it’s the wine making me all warm inside. Somehow, though, I doubt it. It’s absolutely the sexy man sitting across from me looking at me likeI’mthe meal he wanted to order.
“Tell me about yourself.”
“Hmm, really? What do you want to know?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “Whatever you want to tell me.”
