Page 20 of Best Year Ever
I whip out my phone, and before I can think too hard, I text her:
LANDON: Will you get dinner with me tonight?
There’s a sixty second pause after I hit ‘send.’ It feels like sixty hours.
Finally, her response comes in:
RORI: Yes.
I stand, paralyzed for a few beats, having not been confident that she would even answer. But then I realize I better get a plan in motion.
After putting a heart emoji on her response, I text back: “8PM?”
Immediately, I start to debate how to handle this logistically. We are here for a campaign shoot together, so if some photos or video at a restaurant emerge, we can play it off as colleagues having dinner after a long day on set.
And I fully expect that within hours, if not minutes, people would be sharing videos of Rori and me out together on social media.
Not necessarily a bad thing if we can provide a business-based explanation because of the photo shoot, but I want Rori to walk into that potential media storm with eyes wide open.
I send Rori a message: “Do you want to keep this private? We could say we are colleagues grabbing a bite after a photo shoot to stop any gossip that may kickstart with photos at a restaurant.”
“Private, please,” comes the response from Rori quickly.
I message Grace next: “I need you.”
Four hours later, I’m ready for our night. I’ve showered, shaved, and gotten dressed, wearing light gray cotton pants and a white short-sleeve button-down that is made of thin material, perfect for the warm weather.
Ready for anything. If the feeling of my blood pumping extra hard is any indication, a night with Rori has my adrenaline going in high gear.
Hey, we’ve had a one-night stand, we know what each otherlooks like naked, hanging out shouldn’t be a big deal,I try to tell myself. Except my body doesn’t believe that.
With twenty minutes to spare, I walk out of my hotel room to a private car that’s waiting to take me a few blocks to our meeting spot. Grace has somehow gotten us a private dining space on the top of Rori’s hotel—ocean views and all.
Once there, a hotel assistant manager whisks me through a private elevator to the rooftop space. No one appears to notice me or take a picture during the entire trip.
“Thank you, Grace,” I say inside my head, relieved that I can honor Rori’s request for privacy.
Looking around, the setup for the dinner is incredible. The open night sky is dotted by a few twinkling stars, as well as city lights popping through from the buildings, boats, and streets. As I look over the balcony at the ground level, my eyes skirt past the marina to the Atlantic Ocean, a few of the islands off Miami also in view. The smell in the air is a mix of the water and flowers, and the sounds are a combination of faraway ocean waves and light city noise.
For our dinner, there’s only one small dining table in the entire space, with two formal plate settings, divided by a short flower centerpiece.
The whole vibe is intimate and romantic, which makes me have two thoughts.
One, I hope Rori doesn’t freak out about all of this, because while I’ve been hopeful something may happen again tonight, this setup feels very “relationship-ish.”
Two, I’ve never done something like this with a woman before in my life.
I look down at my phone to avoid any deeper consideration of these two thoughts, and the time reads 7:57 PM. I decide to text Rori so she knows I’m here, and she gives my text a thumbs up.
“Mr. Battle, I’m your server for the evening, Ashley. Can I get you anything to drink to start?”
I turn around to follow the sound of the voice, and a blond server looks at me expectantly.
“Thank you, Ashley. Yes, I’ll take an IPA.” She nods and moves towards a staff door.
Soon I’ll stop drinking any alcohol as my more serious training starts for the new season. My personal regimen will kick up a notch in about six weeks, and then I’ll stick to healthy foods and beverages for months.
“Here you go, Mr. Battle,” the server says as she returns and hands me the beer.
