Chapter 18 #3
I put on an unbothered face the rest of the meal and talk to Kendra and one of Danika’s few nice friends. It’s hard to maintain when I’m this pissed off.
“I’m going to the bathroom and going home.” Kendra pulls out her phone and shoots off a text. “I’m not old, but I’m too old for this shit.”
I snort and pull her in for a hug. “Thank you for coming. I would have lost it on Danika if you hadn’t stomped on my foot.”
“Hey, I gently stepped on it.” She squeezes me tight. “And make sure you keep a lid on it the rest of the night. Good luck.”
“Thanks. I’ll need it.”
The guys leave before I can catch up to Ash, so I’m forced to walk with the other women. Danika’s one nice friend walks with me and chatters about her multitude of small businesses.
Danika and her friends form a circle around her as soon as we get into the club, blocking me out.
Lovely. I really missed this high-school bullshit. I head to the bathroom and check my makeup to kill time, then head back out. The group migrated somewhere and I have to track them down. But I find Ash first.
“Why are you separated from the group?” he asks, frowning.
“I just had to go to the bathroom. To escape for a moment.” I roll my eyes. The crowd moves around us, pressing us together, and Ash rests his hands on my waist to pull me out of the way. “It’s loud in here.”
“It’s not my favorite place,” he says. The music changes and he gently nods his head to the beat. “Music’s not bad, though.”
“You like to dance?” I ask. I’ve seen videos of him playing on stage, vibing with the music, but never dancing.
“It’s been a while since I have. I don’t mind it if the music is right.” His hands squeeze my waist as he moves me out of the way again. The DJ changes the song to something I’ve only heard clips of in a TikTok. “And now the music’s wrong again.”
The DJ can’t decide on what vibe to go with, which is almost worse than playing bad music. Even if the crowd is vibing to the song, he changes it, then changes it again.
“You want out?” Ash says, his breath hot in my ear. “This is the most indecisive DJ ever and I’m tired of it.”
“Please,” I say. “It’s not like my cousin will miss me. I think she just wanted me to come to flex her power or something.”
“Come on.” He takes my hand and easily pushes through the crowd.
We were there for what, fifteen or twenty minutes? It feels like stepping into another world after a month of being in a party. I let out a breath, my shoulders sagging. Ash pulls us past the crowd waiting to get into the club to a quieter spot on the block.
“It’s still pretty early and the crowds aren’t too bad,” Ash says. If these crowds aren’t too bad, what’s a bad crowd look like to him? “What do you want to do?”
I nearly blurt out that I want to go back to the hotel and sleep, but I stop myself. When was the last time I was out in the city with nothing to do? I don’t want to waste the evening doing something I could do back in Jepsen.
“I don’t know, but I don’t want to go back yet,” I say. “And I’m sure you don’t want to end the night with whatever the hell y’all were talking about over there.”
“Stock markets. It was fucking boring as hell. I’m not an investor or anything, but I get the feeling those dudes will be losing all their money in the next six months based on their plans.
” He loops my hand in his and gently tugs me out of the way of a cluster of people who aren’t watching where they’re going.
“I think they probably already have,” I say. “Thanks for putting up with them. I know this isn’t where you want to be.”
“It’s fine, Jada. It’s not a big deal.” He glances around. “If you had to choose something to do—something big and out of character—what would you do?”
“Skydive.”
“In the middle of downtown Nashville?” He grins, his greenish brown eyes sparkling.
“You didn’t say now.” I smile back.
“Fair. But if you had to choose something to do tonight, what would you choose?”
“I’ve always wanted a tattoo,” I admit. “Nothing big, just a small one somewhere to say I did it.” I shrug.
“Why haven’t you?”
“The tattoo artist said the ink wouldn’t show on dark skin.” She was nice about it and all, but it still stung. How can she do her job if darker skin is impossible to work with? How is she still in business? “Or at least that she couldn’t tattoo dark skin well.”
“That’s complete bullshit, ” Ash says. “Sounds like she sucks ass at her job. I’ll take you to my tattoo artist. She’s Black and has full sleeves.”
“Wait, what? When?”
He leans over to pull his phone out of his pocket. “She loves me, so maybe in an hour if she happens to be free. I doubt she is since she’s been getting popular, but it’s worth a shot.”
“Wait, a tattoo tonight?” I haven’t thought much about a tattoo since that night. To be honest, I didn’t even want it enough to look up an artist who could tattoo my skin. I assumed it was one of my many fleeting ideas and left it.
“Why not? Sometimes you need to plan tattoos, but other times it’s fun to get one just because.” He taps around on his phone and puts it back in his pocket. “As long as you have someone mostly sober to talk you out of anything too stupid.”