Priorities
The party was buzzing, people bouncing to the rhythm of an unrecognisable beat. You were laughing by the poolside with your friends who dragged you here, complaining about the crowd occasionally, being around these many people after lockdown was a little anxiety inducing.
The crowd was getting thinner by the pool as the sun began to set, people heading to the terrace to grab food and enjoy the sunset. You were quite content to keep your feet dipped in the pool. You sat alone as your friends one by one disappeared to mingle with others. The music was still blaring and you could feel your heartbeat sink with the beat. You closed your eyes and enjoyed being alone for a moment.
Your peace was interrupted a few minutes later, you looked up annoyed but broke into a smile when you notice it was the cute brown eyed boy you’d been checking out occasionally at the party. He winked at you once when ordered a beer next to him at the pool side bar, you smirked back at him and told him you’d see him around. You couldn’t help but turn around to catch a glimpse, he was smiling a wide smile at you checking you out as you walked back to your friends.
“Busy?” He asked you as he hands you a beer. You accept and mumble thanks. “Join me” you say with a smile. As he sits down next to you and lowers his feet into the pool, you can’t help but notice the tattoos on his thighs, he’s wearing a pair of tan shorts with what you can only decide to call an obnoxiously loud shirt, the first few buttons which are undone showing a tan chiseled chest. “See something you like?” he says noticing your eyes on him, “sorry, you’re seriously attractive, I mean wow, do you exclusively train only your thighs and neck” you say with a drunken giggle. “The thighs are a bonus but the neck yah, I face a lot of strain at my line of work on my neck” he comments and smiles at your amusement glad that he’s bumped into someone lighthearted at this party.
“You are too” He says, “ I am what?” You ask,
“Seriously attractive”
“Well I’m glad you think so, it’s been a while since I’ve been out, and having a hunky Australian hit on me is just what the doctor prescribed” you say flirting whilst placing your hands on his taunt biceps.
“Yah baby? What else did the doctor prescribe? Maybe I can help you out” the man said leaning in.“This” you said getting your face close to his. His eyes were closed in anticipation of a kiss, his hands were reaching out to you. Noting his awkward positioning, angled towards you and his feet dipped in the water to his knees, you took your chance and gave a gentle shove to his shoulders pushing him into the water.
You let out a loud laugh and as the man’s face resurfaced he was smiling the brightest smile “the doctor also said I should laugh a lot more it’s good for the heart.” He was fixing his curly hair getting it out of his eyes and still smiling baring all of his teeth, you noticed he smiled with his whole face, smile lines that ran from his his eyes to his cheeks and fuck he had dimples. He really was seriously attractive.
The man hoisted himself up still smiling at this girl who’s name he still hadn’t asked. You are beaming at him and he feels himself very drawn to her smile. He moves towards you with a glint in his eyes, hoisting you up as you scream “don’t you dare” and he jumps into the water with you on his shoulders.
You can hear cheers from the terrace that over looks the pool when the two of you find your footing standup in the pool. You look up to see your friends hooting at you. When you turn to the man he strides towards you and pulls you onto him. You go willingly and place your hand over his shoulder interlocking your fingers behind his neck your legs across his hips. He’s practically carrying you but the pool makes you weightless.
“I think introductions are in order” he says with his nose touching yours, “I’m Daniel” he says. You barely have your name out when he captures your lips with a kiss. You can hear louder cheering from your spectators and a couple of howls from the people near by.
The kiss is wet, tasting like the chlorine off the pool and alcohol but underneath all of that there’s something you can’t put your finger on, you decide it’s Daniel and your lips and tongue can’t get enough. You pull away from each other slightly breathless and mumble against him with a giggles.
“Hi Daniel”
“Hi y/n”
“Do you want to play hooky from this party? Duck out and grab something to eat change clothes maybe?” Daniel says to you as you both climb out of the pool, Daniel passing a towel to you.
You nod yes, as he dries himself he takes his shirt off and you can see the rest of his tattoos. You fight internally, to keep your hands off him, an urge within you to trace out the outlines.
You walk hand in hand upstairs to meet your friends telling them that you’re taking off. He wanders off to his friends so you get the chance to head into a washroom. You clean yourself off a little more, combing your hands through your hair reapplying some makeup from your bag.
You feel a buzz from your phone and see a notification from Ethan. You groan internally realising that you can’t stay out too late cause he’s expecting you home in two hours. You curse out loud and tell yourself that you aren’t a bad person for enjoying your life. Sighing to yourself, you accept the fact that no matter how much you want to see where this night ends up with this Daniel fellow you have to let it go, you have someone who you’ve committed your life to, waiting for you to come home.
You put on your cheery disposition and head out. Daniel is waiting for you at the exit. He smiles when he spots you and all the hate for yourself melts away. He leads you to the parking lot where you get into his blue Mclaren, you don’t know cars that well but it feels powerful and far more expensive than your shitty rental. But this is Monte Carlo you weren’t too shocked by the idea of Daniel being rich, most people here spent more in a month than you could dream to earn.
Daniel is chatty whilst he drives, he talks mostly about his life in Australia, about how he loves this city but misses his family and his farm.
“ I miss the sunshine and warmth, something about the sun just makes me a happier person” you say to him. He looks at you as if you’ve stolen the words out of his mouth. He smiles at you but you can see behind his wide grin he’s trying to figure you out.
He asks him if you are okay heading to his apartment, that way you can order food and and change out of the damp clothes. You know you need to head home so ordering in would mean you get to spend more time with him in close quarters before you have to leave this stranger and get back to your life. You ask him where he lives, and you calculate how long it’ll take you to head home, realising that his place is quite far from yours you tell him that you know a place near yours. You explain how you need to head home cause you have a meeting, you don’t feel good about lying but the truth would be to hard to explain. Daniel looks a little disappointed, you think that’s he unhappy about the fact that he won’t get lucky tonight with what seemed like a sure thing but he’s actually just disappointed he won’t get to spend more time with you. He wasn’t crazy something about your vibe and his just clicked. He dusted of his disappointment and said “ sure, work first I get it, just tell me the way”
The conversation resumes, as you discuss your favourite spots in the small city, argue about wine preferences, you favour a dry white whilst he disses your juvenile tastes claiming that reds are far superior. You are glad that he’s still enthusiastic about talking to you and that the conversation was free flowing even when this mini date wouldn’t end with you in his bed as both of you had hoped.
You grab food and choose to eat in the outdoor dining area. The restaurant is known for their sandwiches that you dip in a jus, you made Daniel order it promising that he’d love it, you ordered a grilled chicken and salad dish as well because Daniel wanted to eat healthy, promising to switch if he didn’t like it. He took his first bite and let out a moan that was simultaneously sexy and not, it was too visceral to be sexual.
“Fuck me that’s good, how did you find this place?” Daniel said as he proceeded to wolf it down, you started eating your slightly bland and healthier dinner knowing full well that a man so pleased with his food wouldn’t even consider switching for some chicken.
“I ate here a couple of years ago I was addicted since the first bite, for three months after that I ate one almost every day.” You smile as you think back to a slightly simpler time in you life.
“I’d give up all the schnitzel in the world for a bit of this” Daniel says and continues to devour his food already moving on to the second half of the sandwich before you’ve had your third bite. Daniel tells you about all the food he’s tried talking about discovering carbonara for the first time since leaving Australia, eating durian and almost throwing up and everything in between. You realise he’s clearly well travelled, you could listen to him talking about food for hours.
You finish a little after him but neither of you ask for the bill, you sit content to just talk to one another for an hour, the waiters don’t disturb you, they know you’re a regular.
Daniel eventually heads up to the washroom and you pay the bill before he comes back, after all you brought him here so this would be your treat. Daniel returns to finds your table empty and looks around worried until he spots you standing outside the door.
“ I was kind scared you’d left” he says as he stands in front of you.
“Why would I leave?” You say looking at him questioningly as his face still shows signs of him being upset.
“I don’t know, some part of me thinks I’ve been hallucinating all of this. Life has been not all good this year, maybe I’ve finally lost it and dreamt up the perfect woman for me” he says sounding shy for the first time since you met him.
“I’m hardly perfect Daniel, if anyone is having a fever dream it’s me.” You give him a chaste kiss and pull away to say, “I don’t meet hunky curly haired Australian men at parties, not ones who let me dunk them in the pool and have a body that make me drool and a smile that can outshine the sun.” You say feeling just as vulnerable as he was.
“This isn’t normal for me” he says continuing with the moment of honesty, “ in my line of work, I meet plenty of people, I’ve met hundreds if not thousands of girls, who want me, and I’ve wanted them but it’s never been this easy, it’s never clicked this well.”
You kiss him again, you don’t have words to say, he’s said it all, you try to make him feel it instead, how much you reciprocated his sentiment.
You break it off cause you know you have to leave, it’s time already. You whisper to him, “whatever this is we’ll figure it out.” The words not comforting to either of you as it’s a lie, you know you’ll probably go home and never allow yourself to think about him again, Daniel thinks about his career and how having a girlfriend has never worked for him before and this wouldn’t work especially cause she has no idea who he is and no one in their right one would sign up for the circus now especially with the year he’s had at Mclaren.
‘How weird it is to have a party hookup turn into this much emotion?’ They both think to themselves chalking it up to the hard times they’ve been having in life. Maybe they just wanted to find happiness in something external and were transferring all that emotion to a stranger they just met.
Daniel leaves you off outside apartment complex, he offers to walk you upstairs, but you quickly shut him down. You give him one last kiss instead, it’s a passionate and open mouthed kiss, that’s filled with an unsaid goodbye and longing for the night to not end.
You wave him out and head upstairs, unlocking your door you meet eyes with Ethan. You give him a kiss in the cheek and head into your shower without saying a word. When you come out you feel like you’ve washed the day away, washed all memory of Daniel’s touch away, the thought breaks your heart a little.
You step outside and are immediately pulled into a hug, you let you an oof with surprise, the hug doesn’t quite reach your arms it’s only up to your knees, so you bend down and scoop the raven haired boy into your arms. “I’ve missed you baby” you say you kiss your beautiful boys face all over. He’s the light of your life and even when you feel the most shitty and life has drained everything away from you one look into his brown eyes and you remember who you are doing all of this for. “Did Uncle Ethan take good care of you?” You ask still kissing his face face. “Yuck momma! You’re getting spit on me, Unka E says that’s how you get germs” he says trying to get out of your arms. He runs away to his room. You laugh and walk out to the living room.
“Thanks for babysitting him Ethan, as usual I owe you” you tell Ethan as he hands you a glass of white wine. “No problem, I have to head out though, I’ve got a hot date, text me about the party later, I want all the deets” Ethan says packing up all of his things to leave. “Bye doll” he says to you giving you a hug. “BYE LUKE” he shouts. Luke comes running in to give his uncle a hug.
You scoop your little man back into your arms as he babbles about his day. You cuddle on the sofa, holding your two year old boy close, having him near you, you think will wipe away all memories of the stranger you met hours before but Luke drifts off into a slumber. As you tuck him into his bed you can’t help but think about the Aussie with the dimples who made your day.
Wrote a second part if you are interested, it’s less fun more serious but if you want to read it click below
Your week progresses as normal, you work a little glad you’re still allowed to work remotely so you can spend as much time as you want with
