Page 29 of To Feel Like This Again
“Deal.”
“Pinky swear?” I smile and hold out my pinky finger.
“Pinky swear.” We lock our pinky fingers together, formalizing our agreement.
“My best friend, Isabella, and I are launching a dating app next year. That’s the only thing remotely close to your fifty shades 2.0,” Emily says, laughing.
“Wow. No. That’s bigger than my fifty shades 2.0,” I let out a loud laugh. “Continue. You can’t just stop there. How is it different from the other dating apps?”
“How is it different from the other dating apps?” She repeats my question, closing her eyes and tilting her head backwards as if in deep thought.
“Um, it only works when you’re at the same event. So, for example, let’s say I’m throwing my thirty-third birthday party at my apartment. In the app, I would be the host and set up the event with parameters. Single people, or at least I hope they’re single, can open the app, search and click on the link forEmily’s 33rdBirthday Party,once they’re within fifty metres of the pinned location. In this case, my apartment. And um, the host can obviously adjust the distance as they see fit etc. There will be a start and an end time, say, 9:00pm to 1:00am. And that’s important, because you can only message someone while they are at the event, during the specified time. Once they leave the fifty-metre radii, or the time expires, you can’t contact them again… which means you’d have to exchange numbers while there. It’s a lot to explain, but you kind of get the point.”
“Wow, that’s game-changing, I’d love to hear —"
“Right here everyone!” Emily’s seven-footer friend commands as he slams a tray with shot glasses filled to the brim on a table on the other side of the pool. The liquid spills due to the impact of the slam and so the glasses aren’t quite as full anymore. I assume we are doing tequila shots, since lemon wedges that had been neatly piled up in a bowl are now scattered all over the place. Following the orders of the buccaneer, we scramble to the table at once and grab a glass — one that is at least half full — and a wedge from somewhere. I pick up one from the floor, the five-second rule in full effect.
Emily raises her hand, “To a great, fucking night” and like a cult in a dark basement with lanterns, we all raise our glasses and repeat, “To a great, fucking night” and drink it in one go.
Emily throws her lemon on the ground, comes over to me, so close she is practically touching me (this also feels nice), and makes her best attempt at “Wha a gwaan?” which sounds like “Wow a gone?”
“What. ah. gwaan” I repeat in my natural tongue, sounding almost unnatural as I say the phrase slowly. Weird.
“Did I say it right?” she asks, reverting to her New York accent.
“Yea, it was pretty good actually.” I lie so as not to make her feel bad. Nothing to read into here.Right?
“I love your Jamaican accent. I could listen to you all day.” She is now holding my hand.
“It’s time to roll out!” some guy shouts, saving me from losing it.Thanks, Bredda.
“One more shot for the road!” Emily yells, releasing my hand and running to the bar for another round.
???
Welcome to New York.Hot gyaleverywhere in the club. The R&B singers and rappers, especially the ones with the hits in the early 2000s, were right all along.
As we enter, my male instincts get the better of me and I hold Emily’s hand as we move through the crowd, her friends marching behind us, until we find a spot for the group. One of her girls, clearly not Isabella, feelingnicefrom the shots at the apartment and whatever else she had before, cuffs her hands over my ears and shouts, “Emily really really really likes you!”
“No way. You think so?”, raising my eyebrows as I feign surprise.
“Yea, she keeps saying she loves your accent and shit, and that you’re intelligent and shit. You should definitely ask her out. She’s single,” she informs me without shouting directly into my ear. She then runs off to dance with some random guy who had flirted with her in the line outside.
“Sorry about Kate — one drink and she loses it … Did she say anything embarrassing?” Emily asks, as if she hadn’t heard everything. Kate is her name, got it.
“I really couldn’t hear much of what she was saying,” I shout and touch my earlobe to stress how loud the music is.
She smiled, I smiled.
With the pleasantries out of the way, I turn her around and pull her into me and she raises her hands in the air and shouts, “That’s my jam!”
“Yes!” “Whoa!” are some of the words her friends and random chicks scream in the background.
With my left hand on her hip, my right-hand swaying in the air with my cup, I chug the drink and throw the empty cup on the ground. This frees up my hand so that I can firmly hold her hips between my hands to handle business on the dance floor. Ninety-six percent of women believe they can tell if a man is good in bed by the way he dances. I read that online somewhereand take it very seriously just in case its credible, like some of the information I swear by on Wikipedia.
As the songs change, my hands move around her body, and I canfeelshe is loving it from the way she leans into me. Without skipping a beat, she tilts her head backwards so that her cheek is resting against mine.
Slowly, my hands drift to her thighs and clasping my hands she moves them inward… where she wants them.This gets mehard.
