Page 7 of Let Me Win You

“We should go!” I yelled over the music in response to his questioning gaze.

“If you wish,” he agreed, then maneuvered me off the dance floor to get my coat, then out of the club.

The cool autumn air chilled my flushed cheeks. The busy street appeared silent in comparison to the deafening music back on the dance floor.

“Are you hungry?” Invi asked, hiking up his collar against the wind and zipping up his jacket. “I’d love to take you for dinner.”

“Thank you, but it’s way too late for dinner for me. I’d be up the rest of the night if I eat this late, and I have a big day tomorrow. But if you want to eat something…”

“No. I don’t get hungry. I’m just looking for an excuse to spend more time with you.”

“Well…” Flustered by his honesty, I wondered if I should confess that I didn’t feel like parting from him yet, either. “My hotel is just a few blocks that way. If you want, we can walk together instead of me getting a ride. We can talk while we walk, which would be easier on the street than back in that noisy club.”

“A walk sounds lovely.” He offered me his arm, and I threaded my hand through it with a smile.

“You have excellent manners, Invi. Your mom raised you well.”

“My mother?” He exhaled a laugh. “She had very little to do with the upbringing of either of us. Me and my siblings developed and matured largely on our own.”

That was the first time he mentioned his childhood, and now I wanted to know more.

“I’m sorry to hear that. But what about your dad? Was he around?”

He shook his head, hiding his chin from the wind behind his collar. “A father wasn’t necessary for our creation.”

What was that supposed to mean?

“Um… You don’t have a dad?”

“No.”

Was he conceived through a sperm donation? Or maybe the trauma of his father leaving early in his life made him deny his existence now?

“My father died two years ago,” I blurted out. “Heart attack.”

The loss was still too fresh and the pain too raw to speak about my dad’s death with the man I hardly knew. I wasn’t sure why I shared it with Invi. But his speaking candidly about his childhood with an absentee father and a neglectful mother prompted me to open up too.

He gave me an inquisitive look. “Do you miss him?”

“I do. Very much,” I sighed, bracing against the familiar sting of longing in my heart that came every time I thought about my dad.

“Were you close with your father? Did he love you?”

The questions weren’t what people usually asked when learning about my father, but the sincerity in Invi’s voice implied it wasn’t just small talk on his part.

“He was my best friend,” I said. “After my parents’ divorce, I stayed with my dad, and he practically raised me. He was my favorite person, as I was his.”

“Then you’ll see him again,” he promised with such certainty as if he personally was in charge of making that happen.

“Oh, I hope so.” As it had been a norm when talking about my dad, I expected sadness to bring tears to my eyes, but it didn’t happen this time.

“You’ll see him again.”

Invi’s words weren’t anything I hadn’t heard from well-wishing people before. But the way he said them was different. It sounded like a promise, and I believed him. The confidence in his voice gave me hope stronger than I’d ever felt before.

Instead of tears springing to my eyes, a smile stretched my lips.

“Dad used to say that he’d send a dragonfly to check on me even from beyond the grave. I live in our old farmhouse, surrounded by trees with no water nearby. But I saw a big green dragonfly on my porch last summer. I’d like to believe it was from him.”

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