“Oh my god Anna, be careful!! Please!” I yell as I see my best friend shove my other one into the nearby trashcan in an alley, which seem to disturb a couple making out there and I frown feeling sorry for them.
My grimace stays on as Carol almost falls for the eighth time in the 5 minutes we’ve been walking to Lumia, a club downtown we love and no matter if we try something new, by the end of the night we always come back.
I guess one can say the grimace has not left my face since the beginning of the evening, in fact, it was the exact motive why it started. It all starts with love -obviously- and the complications of it, more specifically why it never works for me. I’ve been seeing a girl for the last few months, we would go to social functions together and basically live in each other’s home, but using her exact words “We were just enjoying each other”, well at least is what she said to me when I walked in her sleeping with her ex.
That was Monday, and my best friends couldn’t let me sulk in my bed throughout the weekend, so they organized a night out for me to enjoy myself and not think about Iris. As you can see, that did not work out seeing as a self-entitled mom (and high tolerance) friend has me taking care of them once again. So, if already wasn’t in a bad mood, I also must keep Dumb and Dumber from killing themselves, or even each other, great.
When we arrive at our destination Carol exclaims as she sees our favorite security guy in front of the club “Heeeyyy Steveeee, I missed your bald ass head” and jumps on him to give him a hug, which Anna quickly joins. I mouth him a sorry while he tries to get the girls away from him, and as soon as he succeeds he lets us into the club, letting us cut the line obviously, but not without making my friends promise to drink a glass of water once inside and I share a look of gratitude with him.
As we walk into the into the club I instantly feel at home. We’ve been here since it opened so it’s like our baby, we’ve even became friends with the owners who insisted on unlimited drinks for us, which is definitely a pro. But I would keep coming back even if they didn’t exist, I’ve always loved the atmosphere of this place, the way the that colored lights reflect on the crowd with the help of the mirror ball in the center of the room and the mirror covered walls just hits different.
I sit on our reserved couch as the girls go to the bar get something for us to drink, and I make the mistake to open my ex’s stories, if I can even call her that, only to see that she made it official with her ex, again. I only realize I’m crying when a tear hits my phone, and no I’m not crying because I miss her or something, it’s more of frustration. Like, why not me? What do I do that guys or girls don’t seem to be interested in having something serious with me? Maybe I should just stop insisting and have ‘no feelings’ type of relationship.
“Hey Hey Hey, no crying!” Anna calls my attention as she sits beside me and picks up my phone to see what I was looking at. Pissed by it, she shows the storie to Carol who is putting our tray of drinks (and water) in the table in front of us which makes her mad about it too. And when they put a shot of vodka and Cosmopolitan in front of me and cage me on the booth I can sense an intervention coming.
“G, it’s time to forget about all of this and just live a little, don’t let her ruin one more of your nights” C says as she puts my blonde hair behind my ear. “So you’re going to take this shot, chase it with your favorite drink and we are going dancing, maybe find a gorgeous stranger to grind on, a “temporary fix” to your… situation” Annie suggests completing their plan for the night for me.
Before I can even object she says, “Hurry up, we put a song in the queue and it’s already the next one, come onnnn” and I say “Fuck it” for the first time on the night as I down the shot and get up to go to the dancefloor.
We hold hands as we search for a good place to dance and as soon as we find it the song they asked starts playing, I instantly roll my eyes at them when I hear “Crying in the Club” by Camilla Cabello playing. They laugh as I flip them off and push me by arms to get me to start dancing. I soon start to feel the music more than my own feelings, which may relate to the fact I just finished my Cosmo. I let myself dance freely and moving my hips sensually until I feel a pair of eyes burning into me, and when I open my own I start to doubt if my friends drugged me, because the beautiful tall man just seems like a hallucination.
He has gorgeous braids which only make his sharp jawline only more prominent, and his chocolate skin glows under the flashing lights of the nightclub. We continue to stare at each other as I dance, his gaze going everywhere as turn to have my back to him, and in just a few seconds later I can feel his strong chest glued to it.
Just as soon the second chorus starts we are already dancing like nobody is watching, and I can safely say he smells as amazing as he looks. He spins me by my waist and starts really dancing with me, which I can barely keep up because his eyes are clouding everything around me, but my professional dancer brain recovers quickly and we deliver competition worthy dance moves for the rest of the songs, which can be certified by the round of applause we get. I hide my face into this strangers chest as my girls whistle loudly.
Soon I’m being led to the bar by a strong hand on my waist, and I shoot a smile back to my friends that says “I’m okay with going with this gorgeous man to drink something”. As we get to the bar, that’s way less crowded now, I can only hear him say to the bartender “Hey, two margaritas please” with a deep voice that suits him and satisfies my ears.
I turn to look at him in a bright light for the first time and he is even more handsome then he was before, if thats even possible. “How do you now I like margaritas?” I ask crossing my arms as I stand intact to the smile he shows me as he looks me up and down up close, and when he finishes checking out my chest, thats now more in display because of my position and his height advantage, he answers me with a shrug “I saw you were drinking a cosmo, which is a bit sour, so i had to shoot my shot with a marg”.
I hum in understanding and pick my glass that the bartender just set behind me and say “Well, I would say it was a great choice. Thank you, …?”.
“Santiago, but you can call me Santi” he says winking at me.
“I’m Georgia, nice to meet you Santi”
“Georgia, hmm, I like it” He says like he’s testing it on his tongue before he takes a sip from his own drink. As I look at him i keep thinking about my thoughts from earlier in the night, about trying something with no stings attached, and one may think I found the first victim of my new way of life.
As if he can sense my inner dilemma, he asks “So, may I know why such a pretty girl was crying earlier in the night?”. Oh. My. God. No way he saw that. Great, now he thinks i’m needy.
“Ughhhh, you saw that? Let’s pretend you didn’t, please?” I groan while I hide my face in his chest. I can sense his chest moving as he laughs from my attitude and picks up my face from hiding. “No way, I want to know whose face I got punch” he says trying to get a laugh out of me, and he succeeds.
“Well, I don’t know if you can punch I girl who dumped me for her ex” He hisses as I say “No but its okay, I deserve better anyways. And I decided that no more relationships for me, just casual from now on” I smile trying to play it off cool the fact that i’m a loser.
“Yeahh, I don’t punch girls, and I think your girls would already do it for me” He says while pointing at them who are now wayyyyy too drunk and grinding on each other as beat continues to grow. I laugh and think how important are them in my life. I really don’t know what I would do without them, because in the end friendships are only constant in my life. It’s them I cry to, laugh to and want to tell all my good news to. Maybe in the end I really don’t need a significant other to be happy, at least not as long as I have my friends.
As if he can sense I have gotten away in my mind, he brings my attention back to him by putting his hands to my waist and bringing me slowly forwards towards him. “And may I say, they are pretty creative. I mean, “Crying in the Club”? Awesome song choice, considering the situation.” He laughs.
I chuckle and say “Yeah, they are. They are pretty annoying sometimes, but they are the ones who told me to let loose tonight, saying I need a “temporary fix” or something.” As if something clicked on his mind, he smirks at me and lowers himself to speak on my ear. “Do you want to go upstairs?” And I nod.
I guide him out of the bar and upstairs, going straight to VIP lounge, where Danny, the security guard, just lets me in right away. I look back at Santi just to see his surprised yet interested face while we walk on the reserved space, and when I see it empty I know I’ve made the right choice coming up here. We go straight to my reserved couch, which is already full with booze and my favorite snacks. When we sit down he exams the place and looks at me with a doubting look on his face.
“Okay, either you are super rich and I’ve hit the jackpot, or you come here a lot.” He laughs.
“I’m sorry to tell you today it’s not the day you’ve met your sugar mommy, but me and my friends are super friends with the owner, we’ve come here since it opened.”
“Damn, but I still would say it’s my lucky day, and yours too.”
I smile and ask him why, expecting a super cheesy pickup line, but when he puts one of his arms behind me and the other on my exposed thigh my laughing comes to a halt and I look in his deep brown eyes.
“Well,” he looks down at me smirking and leans in closer to say it my ear “I’ve met the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever seen in my life, which also happens to be an awesome dancer”
“You are not too bad yourself… But remind me again why today is my lucky day?” I smirk at him as I see him chuckle deeply at my sentence, as if he is about to prove me wrong.
He uses his hand that was behind me to brush my brunette curls to the side as he leans down closer to my neck, which feels the breeze of his breathe against it and erupts goosebumps all over my body. His lips brush against my ear as he says “Well, Amor” The nickname flows his tongue with an accent that lulls my eyes closed. “For tonight, I can be your temporary fix for, you know, your love problem”
Honestly, I’m shocked he remembers that, but I can’t help but think he read my mind while I was thinking about him being my first dip into the casual world of dating. But my thoughts can even be developed any further due to the little pecks he is leaving all over my exposed shoulder.
“What do you think? Wanna enjoy eachothers company for some time? I promise I’ll try to be your good night.” He murmurs against my skin as his thumb makes circles in my inner thigh. My head is moving in a nod before I can realize what I’m moving.
“Yeah?” He says as his hand moves my face in his direction, his lips barely brushing mine, and hum in agreement. “This won’t do, I’m gonna need some words, G” And don’t know the last time that asking for consent was attractive.
“Yes, please” I say it so lowly and breathly that one would think that he didn’t even heard it, but I’m soon corrected when he lips meet mine in a heated kiss.
My hands find their home in his neck and play with the ends of his brands, an his own ones find my waist and squeeze it softly. He groans against my mouth as the kiss gets deeper, and soon I pull away fearing we might get carried away, because with magnetic pull happening between us I don’t know if we would be able to stop ourselves.
As we stop he rests his head against my shoulder, breathes me in and leaves a kiss against my neck before looking at me. “You know, the night is still young, do you want to get out of here and go get something to eat?”
Before I can tell myself not to and overthink the whole situation, I’m nodding. Theres no problem with grabbing a snack with someone you just made out, right? Casually, of course.
We go down and he surprises me by introducing himself to my friends who love him instantly, I can tell by the looks they give my while he kisses their hand and says he’ll take good care of me. Soon we are exiting Lumia and Steve looks Santi up and down before offering me questioning look, and I brush him off with a smile and a “Good Night, Steveeeee.”.
The cold air makes me shiver and almost instantly his jacket is covering my shoulder, which is offered with warning to not deny it. Santi’s hand finds mine as we walk through the, now almost empty, streets of downtown Miami, and he starts talking my ear off about music and dancing, which is apparently something we both really love.
As much as I’m trying to remind myself this a “one night only” kind of thing and might never see eachother again, the way he smiles telling me about how his grandma taught him how to dance, how his dad was a cocky musician who irritated the hell out of his mom while he throws his head back in a laugh, how focused he is as he stimulates me to tell him about my career as a professional dancer and proceeds to drown me in compliments as soon as I show a video of me dancing, has me wishing that this fix would not be as temporary as it was planned.
But sometimes this is all it was planned to be all along, a meet cute with no after, an experience that always was meant to be short but still amazing. And maybe that’s not so bad. I think the expectations I put on people might be part of the problem.
I’m constantly disappointing myself by putting responsibilities on people without them even knowing they were there in the first place, so I frustrate myself when they don’t do what I planned in my head. I’ll do the exact opposite this time: I’ll expect nothing, I’ll play nothing. If you expect disappointment, you can never really get disappointed.
Well, we might never know what will happen, the one thing I’m certain of in this moment of drunkenness is: I will never listen to “Temporary Fix” by One Direction the same way again, not after tonight, not without thinking of a certain dark skinned man with braids and a spanish accent.
