“What, what are you thinking?”
His eyes flicked towards my face, then back to the road. “Sassy horse disco.”
I burst out laughing, impressed and delighted. At 120 beats per minute, with syncopated wood blocks, a saxophone synth, and a funky bassline...I nodded in agreement. Sassy horse disco.
He was filled with similar revelations about the other songs, too. Here’s what I wrote down for the six songs that we got through:
Sassy horse disco
Deep space bossa nova
Morning climbing gym music, or music to drink coffee and read the news to
Bird seduction / forest orgy
Music to snap your fingers and do the grapevine to while trying to pick up the ladies
Evening climbing music, walking around at night when you can’t sleep
He seemed to be a sucker for songs with electronic pianos and dreamy synths, in large part because of his gym. Like one of Pavlov’s dogs, hearing those sounds made him excited and ready to climb.
Despite the silly images that he painted, the dynamic direction of his thoughts helped me view each song in a new light, and I found myself trying new combinations and hunting for old samples. By the end of the drive, I knew what the theme was going to be: Second Impressions. I silently thanked Ian for the help.
Though I was excited about our progress on the playlist, by the time we arrived at the hotel, I was wrung out from the long day of traveling and ready for bed. I blearily checked in beside him, and was somehow unsurprised to find out that our rooms were right next to each other. We took the elevator up and walked down the hallway together until we paused in front of our respective doors. “Here,” I said, unzipping his hoodie and handing it back to him. The air-conditioned hallway was cold, but I knew that a warm shower and a bed were just steps away. I yawned, then added, “Thanks again for the hoodie and the ride. Goodnight.”
I opened the door and stepped inside as I heard his echoed, “Goodnight.”
After shutting the door with a small click, I leaned against it and sleepily reflected on our interactions that evening. We’d gotten off on the wrong foot, but after correcting course, he’d been attentive, curious, and playful. Our conversation had an easy flow, and I actually kind of enjoyed talking to him. And though I’d swear to my death that I wasn’t attracted to him, I couldn’t deny that he was quite the masculine presence, which was definitely not something I was used to noticing.
He had potential. As a friend.
Chapter 4
-Ian-
Once inside my room, I raised the hoodie to my face, inhaling her scent and warming my nose with her residual heat. Soft and floral, with hints of something herbal. Maybe rosemary?
I tossed the hoodie onto the bed and chuckled, reflecting on the evening’s events. She’d make the world’s worst poker player, what with the way her eyes lit up whenever she talked about music, or the death rays she’d shot at me during our heated exchange. She’d been so lively, her feeling so infectious, and it had been a long time since I’d felt so much easy chemistry with someone.
I looked forward to getting to know each other better that weekend. Maybe I’d ask her out when we got back to New York. It’d been a few months since I’d last gone on a date, and I was looking forward to getting back into the game, especially if it was with someone like her.
She seemed...different.
All the women I’d dated before shared three qualities: they were sweet, pretty, and highly educated. They’d also all been really into me. But there was always some other adjective that I didn’t find out about until later: possessive, awkward, manipulative, bland, etc. So while my parents wanted me to get married relatively soon, and I wasn’t opposed to the idea, I just seemed to have terrible luck. It’d been a rough couple of years, and I’d gotten tired of trying.
But Anna intrigued me more than any other woman had in a long time. Once she’d let her guard down, we’d had a great time talking to each other. She was definitely smart and pretty, beautiful even, although I wasn’t so sure about sweet. Even so, I was drawn to her passion and her fiery spirit, things that I’d never really thought to look for in a partner before.
The only problem was that she seemed to take her “No Asian Guys” rule seriously. It was pretty off-putting that she was so closed-minded about it, but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she’d had terrible experiences with other Asian guys in the past. But I knew that she wouldn’t have a terrible experience with me. I just had to figure out how to get her to give me a chance.
I drifted off to sleep that night to pleasant fantasies of how I would do just that.
◆◆◆
The morning passed by quickly. I woke up early, went to the gym for an hour, showered, and went downstairs to the hotel cafe to grab a light breakfast. Hoping to get some work done, I’d brought my laptop down with me. Anna was there, too, hiding in a corner with her earphones in, carefully avoiding eye contact with everyone. She briefly looked up and waved at me as I passed, though.
After picking up a croissant and a cup of black coffee, I sat down at a high-top table by a window. I cracked my neck and fingers, opened up my laptop, and began chipping away at my huge backlog of work.
30 minutes later, as I was deep in some python, someone tapped on my shoulder.
“Hey. Mind if I sit and work with you?” Anna had come over with her laptop and a half-empty mug of
