DANIEL'S GIRL: ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN by Katherine Cachitorie, Mallory Monroe

had to say
something.   So I said something.   And I’d say it again if I had to.”
    Val smiled.   That was why she, above any friend he’d ever
had, was his best friend.   “Good for
you,” he said.   “Keep giving them hell,
Nikki.   But be prepared,” he added,
pointing his drink at her.   “You give
them hell, they’re going to give you hell right back.   Especially Daniel when he finds out.   But he’s not gonna just give you hell.   That man is gonna beat your ass.”
    Nikki laughed.   “That is so not true!   He’ll understand.”   Then her smile weakened.   “Sort of.”
    “Yeah, right.”
    “He will!   It’ll be after he beats my ass, but he’ll
understand.”
    Val laughed too.   “That’s why we love you, Nikki.   You always keep it real.”
    The waiter returned to take their
lunch orders.   After Val settled on a
salad and Nikki on a burger, the waiter left.
    Val looked at his friend.   “So how’s all of that going these days?”
    Nikki didn’t immediately respond.   Then she exhaled.   “It’s going . . . okay.   I think we’re in a pretty good place right
now.”
    “His friends still not feeling you?”
    “And they never will,” Nikki
admitted.   “After being with him for four
years now, I’m resigned to that fact.   It’s like they figure a stately man like Daniel, a former criminal court
judge as they love to remind me, should have an equally stately female with an
equally august career.”
    “In other words,” Val said, never one
to mix words, “they figure he should have him an old, rich, white woman.”
    Nikki smiled, and then laughed.   “I don’t think it’s like that at all.”
    “It’s exactly like that,” Val
corrected her.   “But even I can see the
way that man looks at you.   I don’t know
why they can’t see it.   He wants you , not some rich, old anything, and
they may as well accept that.   And if
they don’t accept it then fuck’em, shit.   They probably want that fine specimen of a macho man for themselves
anyway.”
    They high-fived.   “That’s what I’m saying,” Nikki said.
    When their gaiety died back down,
however, Val looked at her.   He worried
about Nikki.   She loved Daniel so much
that if it didn’t work out for her, he didn’t think she could survive it.   “So,” he said with an exhale in his
voice.   “Still no ring, hun?”
    Nikki sipped from her glass of
Coke.   “No,” she admitted.   Then she frowned.   “But who says I want a ring?   I knew the deal going in.   Daniel made it crystal clear that there was
not going to be any marriage at the end of our rainbow.   No matter how much he cared about me, he
said, he wasn’t ever going to marry me or anybody else.   He made that clear from the outset.”
    “Yeah, but the outset was four years
ago.   I guarantee you when that man made
all of those pronouncements he never dreamed he’d be with you for four long
years.   And he fell in love with you
too?   And I mean for real love?   Because I
think he loves you above anybody else on the face of this earth, Nikki.   I’m not a betting man, but I’d lay a bet on
that.   But why he won’t snatch you up and
make you completely his is a mystery to me.”
    “I am completely his,” Nikki said in a
voice she knew sounded too defensive.   “He made that clear too.   We’re in
a committed relationship.”
    “Yeah, but still.   Being girlfriend and being wife are two
different things.   Sorry girl, but it
is.   He should take you off the market,
that’s all I’m saying.”
    “And I hear what you’re saying.   I wonder about it too, I’m not gonna
lie.   But I don’t know, Val.   I think he feels I’m not ready for marriage.”
    “And why would he feel that way?   There’s an age gap, so what?   There always was an age gap.   There always will be an age gap.   I don’t know why that would disqualify you.”
    “I don’t think it’s my age.   I think it’s