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“Hey, Firefly.” His words cord their way into my soul, branding me with his nickname sending millions of little shockwaves spiraling throughout my body.
“Nolan,” I whisper.
My heart is beating a thousand miles per minute as I gather up the courage to say what I have to say. I never knew what it felt like to be at a loss for words. Not until now, where I’m actually struggling to come up with anything tangible to say. My heart is in shambles; my mind is a mess of thoughts ranging from disappointment and despondence to infatuation and safety. All while in the presence of one man. This man.
Our eyes finally lock, I can tell he’d been searching for them since he got to the bar. But it hurt too much to look at him. But when I do look at him, I see pools of midnight staring at me like I am the sun orbiting his world.
When I go to open my mouth to finally start the conversation, Nolan reaches out for my hand.
“Wait,” he says, letting his thumb brush over the sensitive skin of my wrist before he ties our fingers together and pulls me into him just a little more.
“Can I say something first?” he asks. “Can I haveone thing?”
I hate and love at the same time that he’s using this little game we created to speak his truth. Part of me is glad that he is deciding to talk first because I didn’t know what was going to come out of my mouth. And maybe, he’ll explain this whole thing to me so that I can come to the conclusion that it was all one big misunderstanding.
“Listen, I know that things may seem a little confusing right now.” Boy, did he get that right. “And I understand that you may feel rejected and that’s partly my fault. I wasn’t sure of what I wanted, not at first. But I do now.” Nolan takes my other hand and brings both of my arms to his neck, letting go of our bond together and placing his hands on my waist.
He pulls me in closer, closing up as much space as he can with my permission. The way my body melts into him betrays my state of confusion, clearing up any negative feelings I may have had these past few days. I look up at him as he continues to clear the air.
“I know you said you didn’t mean it; I know you said it was the heat of the moment. And it’s okay to feel too much at one time, Dakota, it really is. But I don’t want you to hide that from me. You felt that way for a reason, and, yeah, it might have scared me for a moment. You definitely threw me off balance, sure.” he pauses for a second, swallowing down his breath while his Adam’s apple bobs.
But as I watch this movement, I recall what he’d just said to me, and I realize that we’re not talking about the same thing. He’s talking about my emotional slip up the other night, the same night he went to dinner with his ex. The same night she came to my house afterward where we talked for hours about boy problems. Boy problems that included my emotional slip up, but in other words because I couldn’t muster up the courage to actually talk to her about that. And I’m glad I kept quiet because I’d later find out that I was talking to Jessica, not Barbie.
“I know we both have a fear attached to the idea of a new relationship. I know that we’ve been patient with each other, and I know that we have been enjoying each other’s company. I know that I don’t want to lose that with you. I know that I don’t want to let what we have go. Especially over something that you think was wrong in the moment, something that you think that I don’t want. When really, I do want that. I want all of that with you.”
Nolan looks at me, a twinkle in his eye when he admits that falling in love with me wouldn’t be so bad. And my heart hammers in my chest cavity. The excitement of knowing that moving too fast doesn’t have to exist with him. We can move however we want, as long as we both agree and respect each other. Pursuing this relationship doesn’t need to be scary due to the wreckage of people we’d involved ourselves with.
But there’s still one thing standing between us, his wreckage of a person… his ex-wife and the mother of his child, Jessica, who isn’t actually that much of a wreck to me.
If he truly doesn’t know that I know who she is, then maybe he doesn’t know that I’m aware of their date. I mean, Jessica didn’t really go into details other than the fact that she wants things to work with him, and he paid for her.
I know he’s a gentleman, but I don’t know many ex-husbands who pay for their broken ball and chain’s meals. Especially after vocalizing their dislike for said ball and chain.
But I can’t accept anything Nolan is saying without confirming what his intentions with Jessica are. And having to get it out of the way with her, that the guy I’d been telling her about is the same guy she shares a kid with and still loves.
I pull out of his embrace slightly, dripping my hands from around his neck and lay them at my side. The wind around us starts to blow around, the trees whistle in the air, and I know that the speed of the wind picking up means that it’ll be raining again in no time.
“Nolan, you don’t know, do you?” I ask, letting my eyes fall down his chest and to his hands still wrapped around my waist.
“Know what, Firefly?” He squeezes his fingertips into my side just a little bit, sending waves of shivers throughout my body.
“Nolan, I’m not avoiding you because I felt like you rejected me when I slipped up during sex and expressed some potentially very real feelings to you. Yeah, I felt embarrassed about it, and I thought that maybe you’d push back a little. And sure, I might have had some actual feeling behind the words and thought to take it back due to the heartbreak I’ve experienced. But also looking at you look at me like I was speaking a different language seemed to be a clear message ofdo not fall in love with me. But that’s not what’s been bothering me.” I look him in the eye, I can feel the nerves swarming in my chest as I try to express exactly how I feel without seeming too overwhelmed, when really, my cool, calm, and collected is rattled right now, missing every immaculate beat of vociferous banter I’m used to engaging in and trading it in for a diffident persona and a fervid demeanor that I can’t quite combat because these types of emotions are not something I’m used to battling.
Which also makes a good argument for, I guess I never truly knew what it felt like to be in love.
Asher was my first love, admittingly, or so I thought. Maybe I was wrong, and it doesn’t mean I didn’t care for him all those years. But maybe my idea of needing to live life in every moment to the fullest of my dreams led me to believe that falling for someone who seemed right in the moment and planning a life with him was the right thing to do.
Maybe following the notion of tomorrow is never promised, as proven by my father’s sudden death, created this idea in my head that I needed to do all the things in life that people are meant to do such as date a cute guys, fall in love with said cute guy, go to school and spend lots of money on a dream job, which I ended up forcing myself to think that I’d love because literally nothing sounded fun to me, get engaged to said cute guy, maybe move in and talk about starting a family, which now has no meaning in my life since finding out that I can’t actually start a family.
Everything was backwards in my head because I led myself to believe that my perfect life wouldn’t just land in my path. I told myself I had to create that path.
But now, now I see things a bit differently. But despite my realization, there’s something in the way and I need to face it like a big girl and talk it out. Because I also don’t want to lose Nolan.
“Tell me what it is, DJ. I promise whatever it is, we can figure it out.” Nolan takes his hands and moves them to my forearms, sliding them down till he reaches my hands and again, laces his fingers with mine. But I feel the need to shake him off for a moment, all while rain drops start to gradually fall from the night sky.
“Nolan, the other day, the last time we saw each other, the night you went out with Jessica.”
“Yes?” He pulls his brows in at me, looking down at me through his obviously confound stare.
