Path To Realization (Fighter's Den, #4)

Chapter 16 - Aria

PRESENT

I double-check my appearance in the bathroom mirror for the millionth time, groaning at my obviously miserable reflection. I don't want to go out there and make small talk or pretend like I wouldn't rather be at home watching crime documentaries and scarfing down a bag of chips. I pull my phone out of my clutch and text Lenny again, despite all of my messages going unanswered.

Me: Stop ignoring me bitch! PLEASE get me out of this or I'll leave myself.

Finally, freaking finally, she replies like I knew she would. I should have threatened her from the start.

Lenny: You're so dramatic. It'll be an hour, tops. Just have some fun, thottie! I set this up months ago for YOU.

Me: Exactly. MONTHS AGO. Things have changed and I don't want to do this anymore.

Lenny: You've never wanted to do this and that's exactly why I meddled. It's just. One. Hour. GO.

Lenny: I'm turning my phone off. Love you. Bye!

Me: LENNY, PLEASE. Don't make me.

Me: ???

Me: I'm going to kill you.

I growl and put my phone back in my purse when I stop getting responses again. Someone knocks on the door and I cringe, realizing I've been hiding for the better part of ten minutes now.

"It's just one hour." I tell my reflection, smoothing out the non-existent wrinkles in my white blouse. I flatten down my hair gently, making sure not to disrupt how I've straightened it, and blow out a breath. "Just get it over with."

I nod one final time in self-encouragement and open the door, pausing when I catch the woman waiting for her turn eyeing me curiously. Her eyes flick behind me and it occurs to me she probably heard me talking to myself. Oh, whatever.

I offer her a tight smile and breeze out of the hallway, entering the main floor of the bar again. I stop in place and look around the mass of people, searching for my date.

That's right. I'm on a fucking date.

A blind date that Lenny set up for me as soon as we moved to Boston because she decided I needed to "get out there" and deemed Asher and I impossible. I bet she didn't count on us practically fucking with our clothes on two months after we got here. How's that for progress?

But Lenny insisted that I meet up with a dude she met at a get-together for tattoo artists in Boston and said he seemed like my type. She felt bad about cancelling on him when he seemed really excited to meet me and told me to go for the hell of it and maybe even walk out of this with a new friend. Besides, she'd forgotten about the date altogether and by the time this friend of hers texted her to confirm if it was still on, it was apparently too late to back out. So now I'm here and I'm trying not to look out of my element because I haven't been on a date in...well...for-fucking-ever and I'm really hoping it won't be obvious.

I take a look on my phone at the picture Lenny sent of my date tonight, Dylan. There's so many people here that it's hard to differentiate the face I'm looking for. It isn't until a tattooed arm pops up above the crowd and starts waving that I crane my head in that direction and find the face I'm looking for. I wave back and signal a finger to let him know I'll walk towards him. I take deep even breaths as I walk across the bar, the heels of my knee-high boots clacking behind me.

Relax. This isn't even a date. You'll let him know right away that you're not interested in anything besides friendship. How hard can it be?