Daddy's Little Girl

The Pursuit of Mr. Jones

Victoria pulled down her vanity mirror to check herself for the fourth time, she was feeling self-conscious wearing such little make-up. She found herself just sitting in front of Dante's shop for over twenty minutes trying to gain the courage to go inside. Victoria just couldn't bring herself to face Dante knowing that she hurt him. Yaharah's words echoed in her mind, it was time for her to pull on her big girl panties on.

"Well I might as well get this over with." She said pushing herself out of her car. She walked towards the garage entrance and could hear Dante laughing.
I really missed that laugh.

When she stepped into the entrance way she saw that Dante wasn't alone. He was talking to a pretty mocha skinned woman who was obviously throwing herself at him. If the woman stepped any closer towards Dante her obviously fake breast would be sitting in the palm of his hands. Victoria rolled her eyes as she began to count backwards from fifty as she walked towards them. When Dante finally noticed her, his smile dropped. Victoria's heart lurched as she offered up a weak smile.

"You're all set Maxine," Dante said handing the woman her car keys. Maxine looked at Victoria then back at Dante and knew that it was time for her to leave.

"Thanks Dante, if you change your mind you know where to find me." She says with a wink before getting into her car and drove away.
What the heck does that mean? Victoria thought as she bit her tongue trying to put a damper on the temptation to ask what this Maxine meant.

You broke up with him remember technically it is okay for him to see other people.  She thought trying to reason with herself to keep calm and not drop Dante right where he stood.

Over my cold dead body!

Dante folded his arms across his chest as he stared at Victoria.

"Hi," Victoria said with a slight wave.

"Hi," he said as he fiddled with the rag in his hands.

"I heard you went to Atlanta, how was your trip?" she asked trying to make small talk unused to the awkward aurora surrounding them.

"It was nice, I took Mama D to see her sister."

"I didn't know Mama D had a sister, that's nice..." she trailed off as she rocked on the back of her heels while picking at her thumbnail.

"Is there something-"

"-can we talk?"

"You've been back two weeks and now you want to talk?"

"I know I should have come to you earlier but you could have come to me or at least answered my calls." She said with a pout hoping to soften the mood.

"You broke up with me remember?" He said bitterly and Victoria frowned.

"I...I didn't...I "Victoria stammered loss for words to explain her actions but nothing she could offer up would be a good enough reason to hurt him the way that she did. Victoria could see the hurt in his eyes and felt even worse than before.

The shop entrance bell rang signaling a customer breaking their attention off of one another.

"I have to go, thanks for finally stopping by."

Victoria watched helplessly as Dante walked away. She knew that it wouldn't be easy getting back on Dante's good side. She had hurt him after everything he had done for her. There wasn't a day that went by where she did not think about him. She knew that she needed him in her life and now she would have to be the one doing the chasing.

****

Dante woke up to his Want Ad ringtone playing on his phone. He picked up his phone and saw that he had a text message from Victoria.