Page 44 of South Beach Bodyguards

Yet another woman slid alongside of me to get to the bar and I fought the growing impatience. I just wanted a damn beer and yet the parade of half-naked women could score a cocktail off the bartender in two seconds while I had been standing there for ten minutes.

“Excuse me,” I said to the woman who elbowed me the gut. She was about four foot eleven and ninety-five pounds yet she had the nerve to glare up at me and swear in Spanish.

I swore myself and stepped back to give her room. I couldn’t be a dick. It wasn’t her fault I was in a sour mood. Alejandro was out on the dance floor grinding up on some beautiful and enthusiastic girl and I knew without a doubt he would manage to finagle her out of the club and back to his place, maybe with her friend in tow. Me being there was pointless.

After the feisty girl who had shoved me got her very large cocktail in a plastic tube, she turned and instead of maneuvering past me gave me a flirtatious smile. “Are you proportionate?” she asked. “Because you’re huge.”

Subtle. I had to give her props for being willing to hit on the giant frowning beast in front of her. But I wasn’t going there. “State secret.”

She tilted her head and smirked. “That means you have a pencil dick.”

“Think what you want. I’m not here to prove anything.” Well, that was a bullshit lie. I was there to prove I didn’t care about Isabel. That was working out really well. Not. She was all I could think about and every woman in the club paled in comparison to her.

Almost every guy there would call me nuts because Isabel’s beauty really was understated. She wasn’t tanned and plumped and covered in mascara and wearing hair extensions and false eyelashes. She didn’t have glitter on her tits and a belly button ring peeking out from the cutouts of a very small and very tight spandex dress. She wasn’t South Beach. She was real. And she was fucking beautiful.

Fuck. I couldn’t prove a goddamn thing other than that I was totally head over ass for Isabel. This was bullshit. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t do Isabel, but I couldn’t do this at the club either.

“Tough guy. I like that in a man.”

“I would break you,” I said, to dissuade her.

She just tossed her hair back over her shoulder and gave me a feminine growl. “Yum.”

I sighed. I actually sighed. “Look, I’m not interested. I’m… involved with someone.”

“Oh, God, please don’t tell me it’s complicated or you’re on a break or whatever. Or you just hook up but you don’t want to be with anyone else right now and all the other crap that goes on now with dating.” She blew air out of her mouth, making her bangs lift off her forehead before settling back down. “Why can’t everything just be straight forward? Like, if you just want to fuck me, say you just want to fuck me. Or you want to date me. There is no anything in between and I’m sick to fucking death of it.”

“It’s not always that simple,” I protested, feeling oddly defensive. Just fucking was what I had always done, but did she have to make it sound so rude?

“So which one are you doing?” she asked, rolling her eyes. “Refusing to define your relationship or telling her there shouldn’t be restrictions on what, or who, you can do?”

“I just told you I wasn’t interested. I’m not into dating multiple people at the same time.”

“Then why is it complicated?”

“Who said it was complicated?” God, she was annoying. It was like she was my conscience in the form of a tiny Latina with a bright blue dress.

“You did. You said involved. Not dating. Not girlfriend. No fuck buddy or friends with benefits. You said involved.”

“What do you care?” I asked, turning back to the bar. I was going to pull a gun on that bartender if he didn’t bring me a beer in the next twenty seconds. At least being tall I had the advantage of being easily seen. I waved my hand and yelled, “Hey! I’m sick of waiting here.”

“Rawr,” my new friend said. She was like a porcupine. Every direction I turned there were quills poking me. “I don’t care. It’s just a general observation on the bullshit of dating in your twenties now. Fuck Tinder. Everyone wants some kind of perfection, hedging their bets.”

I didn’t want to be rude, but I was done. I wasn’t up for debating the issues with modern dating and the influence of social media on dating culture. Hell, no. Isabel would be able to discuss that shit all night long, but I didn’t really care. I didn’t date. Boom. End of story.

“Look. You seem nice.” Bitter, mostly, though I did admire her tenacity. “But I’ve had a long day and it’s loud in here and I don’t like yelling over the music.”

She stared at me for a long second. “So take me home with you.”

I didn’t actually see that one coming at this point. I could feel my eyebrows shot up. “I’m twice your size and I have a gun under my shirt. You shouldn’t offer for strange men to take you home.”

She made a face. “See, you just passed the creeper test. Come on, come outside for a minute while I smoke a cigarette.”

I didn’t want to. But I didn’t want to stay either. The music felt like a mallet was behind my eyes beating to get out.

On the sidewalk I took a deep breath and stuck my hand in my pocket. While the girl lit up a cigarette I pulled my phone out and checked to see if Isabel was wondering where I was or when I would be back. I kept picturing her alone in that big bed and wishing I had the guts to return to her. To hold her and make love to her the way she deserved to be held.

“Did she text you?” the girl asked.

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