Loving Grant

Meeting At Last

I sit down and turn the tv on, hoping to distract myself. I only get a few minutes into an episode of Law and Order when I hear a loud knock on my door. I pick up the thin, dull butter knife that was sitting on my plate and walk to the door. I've been more cautious since the nightmares about Grant started.

"Who's there?" I yell through the door.

"Vanessa, open up!"

I let out a sigh of relief. "I'm sorry, I've been so paranoid lately."

"Paranoid, why?"

"Since Grant left, I've had nightmares." I rub my arm and motion her in. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

She walks in, eyeing. "I'm sorry to hear that. I came here because I wanted to introduce Grayson to Safiya."

"I'll be alright. You just missed him; he went to meet up with Grant for drinks." I say, bummed that I couldn't watch the two meet. "Wait, is she here right now?"

Vanessa smiles and nods. "Yeah, she insisted on staying in the car until I made sure he was ready for me to introduce her. She was afraid he wasn't going to want to see her. I told her he was going to be thrilled but she didn't believe me."

"Awe poor girl is stressing, huh? I can text Grayson and see when he'll be back." I offer.

She shakes her head negatively. "I say we go to the bar and find him ourselves."

My eyes get wide. "No, I think he..." I pause, remembering Grant will be there. I still have a little bit of time to convince him to tell me what's going on with him. Plus, there isn't much time to introduce Grayson and Safiya. The wedding was approaching quickly. "Nevermind, I'm in." I say decidedly.

She claps her hands happily. "This is going to be fun!"

"Yeah, I'm so excited to meet her!" I grab my purse off the counter and follow Vanessa out the door. I started picturing the girl and what she'd be like as I made my way behind Vanessa. I loved meeting new people and learning their stories.

Before we get to the car, Vanessa turns and whispers to me. "Just a heads up, she's very nervous. All I told her is I found her a good-looking date. She doesn't even know what his name is or what he looks like."

I almost ask why then I realize who I'm talking to. Vanessa likes everything to be movie level dramatic. She is hoping for a love at first sight moment and honestly so am I. I have trouble believing Grayson will give us that though. He's so against being in love and isn't very emotional. I didn't even know him that long and I knew that about him because it was so obvious.

As we approach the car, I see a girl open the passenger side door. She stands up and walks over to me. Vanessa was right, this girl looks really cool. Her electric blue highlights are insane, her black, blue jean jacket and red stained lips add to her intimidating aura. She looks nothing like what I pictured and V even described her to me.

"Hi!" She grins and reaches out a hand. I can feel the cold metal of the shiny silver rings, covering every one of her thin fingers.

I shake her hand, returning her smile. "Hi! It's nice to meet you! I'm Vanessa's friend, Zephyrine."

"That's an awesome name! I'm Safiya."

I feel honored to receive a compliment from someone as cool as Safiya. "Thanks! I love your hair!"

"What, this?" She flips her hair over her shoulder, smirking. "Thanks! My parents wanted to cry when I got it done. I've never really been one to follow the rules. You should've seen their reactions when I got my first tattoo."

I chuckle. "You have tattoos?" I'm not surprised at all, but I am interested to see what her tattoos look like.

"A few." She pulls her jacket up and flips her wrist over, exposing a tiny pink and blue turtle. "I'm from Hawaii, so I got this one as a reminder of where I came from."

I stare in awe. "That's so cute!"

"Thanks!" She turns her head and shows me the back of her ear. "I got this little bear after surviving a bear attack."

My mouth drops. "You survived a bear attack?" I notice Vanessa is standing behind me, staring at the tattoos over my shoulder.

"Yeah, when I was 15 years old, I got attacked while my family was out camping. Luckily the only injury that anyone sustained was a scratch down my back, want to see?"

Vanessa and I nod enthusiastically.

She smiles and takes her jacket off and turns around, lifting her shirt up. I gasp when I see the long scar running down her back. "That's incredible!"

"Yeah." Vanessa says, breathless.

Safiya puts her jacket back on, "I'm just grateful to be alive honestly."

Vanessa grabs Safiya's wrist. "We're going to go to the bar so you can meet your mystery date."

Safiya looks at her feet, surprising me that someone as brave as her could be afraid of anything. "Right now?"

"Yes, right now! I can't take the anticipation any longer." Vanessa pulls her towards the car.

Safiya laughs. "Okay, okay I'm coming."

I go to open the door to the back seat of the car before Safiya stops me. "You should sit passenger."

I shake my head. "No, you should."

"I insist that you sit up front." Safiya counters.

I grin. "Fine, we'll both sit back here."

"Deal." She smiles back and climbs into the backseat beside me. As she gets into the car, I notice a small footprint on her ankle.

I look up at her. "What's the tattoo on your ankle represent?"

She smiles sadly and looks out the window. "The best mistake I've ever made."

I want to ask more, but I can tell that it upsets her to talk about it.

"Do you know what bar the boys are at?" Vanessa asks, cutting the tension.

I shrug. "Grayson didn't say, but I know which bar is their favorite, Thunderbolt."

"Oooh, that's a good one!" She glances in her rearview mirror. "You're going to love it Saf!"

Safiya smiles. "Can't wait." She plays with her hands anxiously. "It's been so long since I've been on a date."

Vanessa jumps in immediately with questions. "How come?"

"The last time got pretty complicated."

"How so?" Vanessa asks, unable to stop herself.

I look at Safiya apologetically, but she just shrugs me off. "That's a conversation for another day."

We make small talk until Vanessa pulls into the bar parking lot. "We're here!" She nearly screams.

"Time to rip the bandage off." Safiya takes a deep breath. "What's the worse that could happen right?"

Vanessa is out the door and headed towards the bar.

"She's very excited." I smile at Safiya.

She laughs. "Yeah, I guess we better go before she explodes."

When we walk into the bar, Vanessa has already found Grant and Grayson and is standing beside them as I suspected. What I didn't expect is what happened next.