Doctor Dash

Chapter 21

"You don't really have to come walk me home every night," Paulina said as she walked down the hall with the ebony haired woman at her side. A week already passed since their first encounter, and each day, Paulina was surprised to find Desiree suddenly appear at her work. She hardly considered herself some damsel in need of rescuing, but she liked having someone to talk with when she was on her way home from the fashion design studio where she worked after her photo shoots as a model. Since she often spent time out of town, traveling to various locations for shoots, she never really saw a reason to own a car. Her apartment wasn't a very long walk from the fashion design studio, and normally she never had any trouble from studio to apartment building. Until Tyler decided to rear his stupid face again. Her hand clenched tightly around her key as she unlocked the door to her apartment.

"And let that jerk have another chance to attack you?" Desiree questioned with a frown marring her pretty face. She followed Paulina into the apartment, which became the usual since that day, though Paulina didn't mind it since she enjoyed talking with the other woman. "If he even thinks about showing his face again," she held up a fist, knuckles turning white, "he'll regret it."

Paulina frowned thoughtfully as she closed the door. After hanging up her jacket, she walked over to curl up on the couch in the main area of her small apartment. "Did you have boyfriends like that in your past?" It wasn't a topic they strayed into much over the week. It almost seemed like one of those taboo subjects that they had to carefully step around to avoid a social faux pas. She pulled out her sketch book which she kept all her designs in and flipped to a clean page.

"I suppose you could say that," Desiree mumbled as she examined some of the pictures on the wall. "The men in my life haven't exactly been," she turned her head to glance over her shoulder at Paulina as she frowned, "very kind to me."

The pencil stopped in the middle of her sketch of a human figure as Paulina stared at the woman. It made sense, the anger Desiree showed when she saw a man hurting another woman, after hearing that statement. If she walked by and caught sight of a man abusing a woman, Paulina didn't think she could stand for it after being hurt by a man. She had a mean right hook, according to Dash, but she no longer liked having to resort to violence if she could avoid it.

"I'm sorry." Paulina lowered her gaze, hoping she hadn't ruined their friendship by stepping into the taboo subject. "I guess good men are hard to find."

"Or maybe we're just looking in all the wrong places." Desiree returned to the couch and sat down next to Paulina. Leaning over, she glanced at what the Hispanic woman was working on, though it was still a very sketchy outline of a woman's body before she got into the details of the dress idea that was forming in her mind. "Though sometimes a guy can really surprise you."

Paulina blinked emerald eyes as a delicate brow lifted in curiosity. "Any guy in particular there?" Her gaze dropped back to her sketch book, and she began drawing the lines of the dress, imaging flowing white material for it.

"Hm," Desiree leaned back, drawing her legs up to fold under her as she watched Paulina work, "there was one." She grinned, and one look into those brown eyes told Paulina that the woman was remembering her time with the mystery man. "It's probably hard to imagine, but Dan and I were once an item."

"What?" Paulina gasped, slapping the sketch book down against her legs as she openly gawked at the woman, who had amusement playing across her face. She couldn't even process the idea of the two of them being a couple. Desiree and Dan got along quite well when they hung out with Paulina after that encounter with Tyler, but Paulina thought they were only good friends, like the way she was with Dash and Kwan.

Desiree laughed at the reaction. "I know it seems a bit strange." She reached up and pushed a lock of her long ebony hair behind an ear as a fond smile spread over her face. "But that was probably the best relationship I've had so far. Dan was," she frowned, searching for words, "not always a very good man. I was very hesitant to even be around him at first with his reputation. But we were both hanging out at Danny's house at the same time, and we sort of hit things off and started hanging out together. After all the," she huffed out a breath, "bad experiences I've had with men, I didn't even want to think about being intimate with someone. And you've met Dan. He kind of has that-" her mouth pursed in thought.