Kat immediately went to the club, it was like her safety blanket. She was comfortable there, and after feeling uncomfortable at the subject of why she didn't date, Kat needed the familiarity. He had asked her a fair enough question, she couldn't blame him for wanting to know, but she didn't know him well enough to give him the answer yet. She wasn't sure she would ever know him well enough to answer that question for him. Thomas and Dominic were the only two people besides herself who knew about what had been happening in her home from the age of three until the night she ran to get help. Sometimes, even the fact that they knew bothered her, but they had never made her feel like she was different than anyone else. Kat walked over to the bar and sat down, she listened to the sounds of that hack of a DJ playing his awful music and couldn't believe she had taken the night off. Thomas finished waiting on the people on the other end of the bar and came up to stand in front of her. "Thought you were on a date tonight? What the hell are you doing here?" He looked at her face and knew something had happened. "Okay girl, Spill it! Why aren't you still out with 'Mr. Badass Biker'?"
Kat sighed and looked at Thomas, "He asked about why I didn't date, I couldn't deal with it…and I know what you're going to say 'You shouldn't run away from your problems' but I was starting to have a panic attack, I had to get out of there. I just need a little time to think about things. Can I get a Jaeger bomb?" Thomas reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a Red Bull and poured it into a pint glass, then poured a shot of Jaeger. He slid both of them over to her. She dropped the shot of Jaeger into the Red Bull and chugged it. A guy sitting next to her tried to pick her up. "Not interested buddy, try the other girl on the other side of you." She looked at Thomas again. "What am I going to do, Thomas? He was a decent enough guy; I know he didn't realize what can of worms he was opening up. How do you bring something like that up?" She glanced up at him.
"I don't know sweetie, I just don't know. I guess that is something you'll have to decide on your own, but you can't go on anymore just shutting people out. Do you know what he said to me that convinced me to give him the address to send you the flowers? Well, okay..he offered me some money, but that wasn't the only thing he did to convince me. After he took that punch for you, he came to me and said how amazed he was at how tough you were and that maybe he should have just let you handle it instead of busting in. Now…you know that a normal guy would never have admitted that he should have backed off, right? That said to me that he respected you, or at least your ability to take care of yourself. Jesus, Why can't I find a guy like that?" Thomas smiled at her. "Come on cheer up, I'm sure that he'll show up again, and if he doesn't, well then he wasn't worth anymore of your time anyways!"
As usual, Kat felt a little better after talking to Thomas and decided to head to her loft to think about things by herself for a while. After the short drive from the club to her building, she headed up the elevator to her place. She was shocked when she headed down the hallway only to see Mark sitting on the hallway floor in front of her door. When he saw her, he stood up and held out a Styrofoam container. "I thought maybe you'd like to have your leftovers. I'm sorry if I did or said something to upset you, Kat. If you don't want to talk about it, I can respect that, just understand that I'm the last person to judge anyone else. Whatever it is, has obviously made you the woman you are right now, so I can't see any negative in that. Please just don't shut me out. Give me a chance to earn your trust. I won't disappoint you." He looked at her sincerely and waited for what seemed like years. Finally she opened her mouth.
"Ok, Mark." She said while gazing back at him.