by M. C. Cerny
Never Been Kissed
M.C. Cerny
Contents
Author’s Note
Never Been Kissed
1. Laurel
2. Van
3. Laurel
4. Van
5. Laurel
6. Van
7. Laurel
8. Van
9. Laurel
10. Van
11. Laurel
12. Van
13. Van
14. Laurel
15. Van
16. Van
17. Laurel
Excerpt from Love Under Construction
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Author’s Note
March 13th 2020…
It was the first day I started working from home when this started. I thought about how surreal, scary, and crazy this has been. It was the worst adaptation of a dystopian reality I could think of, and that’s how Laurel and Donovan came to be…two soft voices who wanted to tell a different sort of story.
May you find humor in this short romance. It’s not meant to make light of the current World situation, but rather bring a needed smile. I’m also donating a portion of the profits to my favorite NYC animal rescue. Help where you can. I hope you will see a light at the end of the tunnel, a happy ending for all of us. Keep the humor and funny memes coming.
XO - MC
Never Been Kissed
I’m an anxious nerdy girl living in a turbulent world.
We’re in the midst of a pandemic. I live with my family in our cramped apartment where privacy comes at a premium. May is going to be one heck of a meltdown. To top it off, I’ve been crushing on my boss and used a dating app to get over him. I was supposed to meet my online date for the first time when the city put a shelter in place order, and now…we have a Skype date to meet for the very first time. I’m pretty sure I’m going to die a virgin before this thing ends.
It’s the end of my world as I know it, and I still haven’t figured out if I feel fine.
1
Laurel
Most people hate Mondays. Unequivocally hate them. They send memes of cats punching air and dogs drooling. It’s the kind of dislike that borders on unfair, but remains completely understandable to the rest of the human population, so much so that it’s repeated every Monday like clockwork. My best friend Tess has a whole slip file dedicated to her dislike of Mondays.
Since I live with my mother, sister, and niece in a cramped Brooklyn apartment, I love them.
Immensely.
For me, Monday is a fresh start. It’s always sunny. A new day to escape my closet sized bedroom and head into my busy office where I work long days for a boss that will never notice. Mostly because I’m at the bottom of the office totem pole, and I’ve done everything possible to remain unnoticeable and yet gainfully employed.
There’s a method to my madness because me taking note of my boss means I’m distracted. Distracted means I’ll mess up one of my projects and then get called into his office on wobbly knees and stutter through my apology while trying to not stare at his lovely perfectly formed face. What can I say? He’s unfairly attractive if they were divvying up good looks. And I’m…well, I’m just me.
The things I do know about Donovan Ward include him statistically dating the majority of tall, lithe blonde goddesses with the IQ of a peanut between the ages of twenty-five and thirty. I realize I’m not being fair to that subset of the female population, but jealousy is a green-eyed Hulk monster named Laurel Murphy when I’ve indulged in way too many wine coolers on a lonely Friday night.
I accept this because I know it’s temporary. Someday, I’ll have my own design studio, my own apartment, and a cat. Maybe a doting boyfriend? Considering my dating life has been harshly hampered by my living situation that will also have to wait. This is why I love Mondays, it’s fresh with opportunity and hope for something better.
For the moment, I hum my favorite Rhianna song. It’s blasting through my ear buds and I’m hip checking to the beat. Examining my phone, I have an unopened email correspondence from a guy I’ve been connecting with recently through a dating app. We’re supposed to meet later this week and I’m buzzing with excitement and nerves. Mostly nerves, but still, it will keep my mind off Donovan Ward and my focus on work. It’s my version of church and state separation, and so far, it’s been working out fine.
The sidewalk bustles with my tribe of coffee drinking, briefcase totting, paper reading commuters whom I join riding the subway. Wind whistles past shiny silver skyscrapers and I look up at the sun reminding myself I’m one day closer to my goals. Blinded for a second, I walk into a businessman chatting on his phone who yells an obscenity at me to get out of his way. Ah, New York City, I love everything about its pulse. Even the slightly sour smell that stings my nose and urges me to hurry along brings a certain peace walking up the steps to my office in downtown Manhattan.
“Laurel! Wait up!”
Turning, I spot my co-worker and best friend Tess who hurries carrying two coffees. I pop out my ear buds to grab the cup she thrusts at me. It’s luck that keeps the lid on tight from popping off to splash me with hot coffee.
“Here, take one. It might be the last time we drink Starbucks.” She pants back.
I take a fortifying sip. “Why would we ever be denied this life affirming nectar of the gods?” Raising my hand up to the sky, I can’t imagine changing my ritual of standing in line a few times a week since Tess and I switch on and off who buys coffee. It’s blasphemy for her to think differently.
Tess huffs, “Haven’t you been following the news at all?”
I swallow the hot drink and use my key card to open the door for us as we enter the lobby, pass through security and wait for the elevator.
“I’ve watched some, but I’ve been a little busy.” Busy figuring out how I’m going to pay off my student loan and get my own place before my family drives me bananas.
The elevator dings and we move inside jammed in the corner with a dozen other employees. Our office is on the sixteenth floor where the open floorplan gives us amazing views that are supposed to inspire us. Personally, I think it’s so the higher ups can keep an eye on us. I’m one of the newer graphic designers given the freedom to work from home, but I actually thrive in the office not including the eye candy that is my boss. The computer here is nicer and I don’t have my mother or our dog Marley underfoot.
“Right. That online dating.” Tess waves her hand in the air dismissing my twenty-first century romance and continues with her panicked explanation.
“So, there’s like this flu thing going around, but not the bird one. This one is worse and it made like half the world sick and now that we have some cases here in the city everyone is in a panic. It’s really bad. I know you’ve been working on that project but how have you missed this?”
She keeps talking but I’m focused on Donovan Ward walking past us into the office at a brisk pace with his head down in his phone. I didn’t have time to date between finishing school and getting this job. Seeing as how my boss is this beautiful god like man, I needed a distraction. Something real to focus on instead of my creative imaging of washboard abs and messy dark hair. Thank god Tess can’t hear my internal ramblings and carries our conversation all on her own.
“Right, a pandemic as you said. Am I going to have to go grocery shopping after work?” I tap my lips with my pen. What I’m really thinking about is having to cancel my date and make sure our bathroom closet is stocked.
“Don’t do that.” Tess smacks my pen from hand and I pick up another one from my drafting table where my designing tablet is set up. I raise m
y eyebrows and Tess huffs clearly irritated with me. My pen, my face even though I know she’s right.
“Read this.” She taps out on her phone and shoves a reputable news source in my face. My jaw drops as does the pen from my hand as I scroll downward reading the news.
“City-wide shutdown? Mandatory curfews and staying at home?” My stomach drops hoping this isn’t true, but it’s clear as day. I’m supposed to finally meet my online date, but not if they shut down every bar in the city.
There goes the last three months of carefully crafted emails and text messages since I was too chicken to talk to him on the phone. The guy suggested last week we try a meet up at a cute well-lit bar in a fairly safe section of Manhattan and I finally agreed. Now this whole online date experiment of mine is going down the drain fast. I was cautious and picky, but now I’d never get to meet him at this point.
“Yeah. Talk about a way to ruin my weekend of bar hopping and brunching.” Tess paces the space next to me as more of our co-workers file in. I don’t know how to process the news. I’d been so busy going about my daily routine that I hadn’t given much credence to what was going on around me. My brain hops into planning mode. Did we have enough Tylenol? Enough food and paper products? What would happen to my niece Hannah who was in second grade? Did my sister pick up her asthma medication?
“Alright everyone, the big boss is coming down for a staff meeting. Look busy and sharp!” Teddy our floor manager barks from the stairs while we all stand whispering worries. Donovan Ward walks down from his office flanked by Shelly in HR and his VP Howard Hughes. The guy looks slicker than an oil spill, Howard that is with his hipster suit and overly gelled hair like he crawled out from a dirty garage managing a grunge band. I didn’t have much faith in a guy with two last names that reminded me of a movie with a duck I wasn’t old enough to have seen when it released.
“I hope this isn’t one big pink slip, my credit card is due next week.” Tess fidgets fixing her hair and straightening her top tucked into her skirt as her heels muffle in the carpeted flooring.
Glancing down I fix my crisp white t-shirt I matched with pin stripe slim pants and ankle boots, because it’s still winter in NYC.
“Shh.” I pat Tess on the shoulder, but I’d be lying if I wasn’t thinking the same thing too. All those happy thoughts I had about my date and independent living vanish with the impending doom.
2
Van
I stand on the balcony overlooking my team of fifty or so in-house employees. Shelly to my right swipes through notes she made on her tablet while Howie is doing what he does best and worst. Cost analysis. He’s good at what he does, but it doesn’t mean I particularity like him.
I stretch and groan thinking that this was not how I envisioned today going. I finally had a date with Text girl and I couldn’t wait to get to know her under the guise of real names and faces in an actual location outside the office. I was over the keyboard warrior games to win her affections when she literally worked in my bull pen.
That’s the crazy thing about issuing company phones to associates who need them. I have full access which I shamelessly take advantage of when it comes to her. I know she lives at home and has a dog. She takes a strange amount of pictures of a fat black squirrel that I’m curious to know more about. And flowers. Her camera roll has all these close up shots of flowers in the park. Pink ones I don’t know the name for, violets and dogwood. The only thing I don’t see are enough selfies which makes me wonder because I feel like I know her, and yet I don’t, not really. Over the past few months we’ve exchanged at least three emails a week and a daily text session that leaves me wanting more. I had my IT guy turn off her tracking because I’m not a creep, but I definitely worry about her taking the subway home at night when it’s dark and cold.
Amazing how irony and technology worked like that because if I didn’t get to have my date with her this week which was looking less and less like a reality, I was going to lose my shit in a tantrum undignified for a man of my age.
My grip on the railing tightens as I scan the room for her. The lovely Laurel Murphy. Cute glasses perch on her nose as she winds her hair up in a messy bun. Her casual business attire is neat and simple. She wears smart ankle boots and chews on her pen thoughtfully until Tess smacks it out of her hand making me chuckle under my breath. She typically hangs out with Tess who I surmise is a good friend of hers the way they trade coffee like clothes. I like knowing she has someone. Initially, I worried hiring her right out of school with little experience but she’s proven herself over and over again on projects. She’ll make a great graphic designer in advertising and I hope she’ll stay with the company once she learns who I am. I check my phone quick opening my texts. I contemplate sending her one right now and coming clean. I could demand she comes up to my office and tell her everything, but I don’t. What I do know about Laurel is that she’ll see this as a betrayal and I don’t want to lose her. I’ll continue to hold out as long as I can.
I doubt anyone coming to work today expects to be sent home. While I’d been spending the past two weeks watching intently what was happening on the other side of the world, my home office staff prepared to layoff half my company behind my back. Despite Howie’s numbers that is never happening. I can’t stomach the idea of them not being about to buy food or pay rent. I veto the idea before Howie and Shelly can say anything else and give the staff the rest of the day off with shocked faces promising a video call tomorrow at 9am. Heading back into my office I close the door gathering my thoughts. At least I know payroll already cut checks and Laurel will be paid this week.
My phone rings and I pick up without looking to see who it is. The Imperial March comes through and I know it’s my brother Grant.
“Van have you spoken to mom?” My brother is a get down to business type and doesn’t mince words. Sometimes I have to wonder if we came from the same parents even though we have a striking resemblance that indicates there is no escaping our ties.
“I spoke to her yesterday. She got the delivery order.” In a panic I set my mother up for automatic deliveries and express shipped a month’s worth of paper products, cleaning supplies, pet food, and frozen steaks. There’s a strange helplessness to this situation and the only thing I can do is throw money at the problem even though that doesn’t make it go away. I keep thinking about Laurel who is never far from my mind.
“Good. Listen. I’m thinking that maybe you should close up the home office and head up here. Stay with mom or even crash at my place.” They live within five miles of each other in Kingston, NY. My mother lives in the beautiful Victorian home we grew up in while my brother has a loft studio in one of the converted warehouse buildings he flipped as a real estate guru. Grant’s agitation seeps through the phone, but we both know it’s better we’re not around each other too long.
“That’s not going to work for me. Besides I can’t leave the city with the stay at home order in place.”
Grant huffs, but he knows I won’t change my mind despite his urging. “Drive that fancy car of yours and get up here. It’s not like the National Guard is checking people at the bridge.”
“No thank goodness, but just because I can leave the city doesn’t mean I should leave the city.” I think about Laurel. I couldn’t leave her here. Sure, she lives across town, but if the proximity of boroughs was all I was going to get, I would take it, social distancing and all.
“What about mom?”
Grant makes this sound like there’s more going on and I hate his cryptic remarks.
“Mom is fine. Have you talked to dad?” Our father lives in San Francisco. We grew up, went off to school, and they amicably divorced deciding to live on opposite sides of the country. I guess like my brother and I, they weren’t suited to being in close proximately once we left the nest.
“I haven’t had a chance to call him yet. I know he had business oversea.”
“Yeah, he was on the last flight out of Hong Kong last night. He’s good, b
ut now he’s self-quarantined to be sure. We face timed.”
“I’m glad he’s okay and he got out before they stopped flights.” Everyone close to me is okay right now, I guess that’s all I can ask for.
“Yes, I’ve shipped him the same order you sent mom.”
“Thanks.” If anything, they couldn’t say we weren’t good, thoughtful sons. “So how is it up there?”
“I’m annoyed if you can’t tell.” Grant grumbles.
“You? Nah.” I joke. I can’t think of a time when my brother isn’t in a rush or irritated by something. Mom says he was born cantankerous.
“I was supposed to have jury duty. I tried getting out of it, but no luck. It’s postponed for a month if we get out of this sooner rather than later.”
“That’s too bad. I can see how being at the beck and call of someone else cramps your style.” I tease. Grant must be crawling out of his skin unable to find a way around or out of this.
“I can’t convince you to come home? Hunker down in your old bedroom across the hall from mine?”
“Nope.” I say smiling through the phone.
“Alright. Stay safe and give me a call later this week.”
“Will do.” I hang up the phone and check off my anxiety toward my family. Mom, Dad, and Grant are fine, safe, and healthy which is a lot to be grateful for. No, my worries focus on a brunette associate who will be texting me sometime today.
