“I can’t. I don’t have anyone to watch Kyle that day. My usual babysitter is out of town visiting relatives.”
“Don’t you remember, Kyle has a sleepover party with my sons.” Monica said joining their conversation.
“Since when?” Bridgette eyes Monica.
“Since now.” Monica looks at Beth, “She’ll be there in her best dress.”
“Great!” Beth said excitedly and left the room to grab lunch.
“You’re ex left years ago. Isn’t it time that you got out there and start dating again?”
That night…
“Listen, I know I’ve been making fun of you a lot but how is it going with mystery girl?” Sean asks while sipping a beer he had ordered from the bar they usually frequented during on occasion during a weeknight.
“It’s been going great. Very romantic. We’ve been exchanging longer letters via email. Amazing stories. I feel like we really are getting to know each other, as much as one can.”
“Kind of weird, but I’m happy for you.” Patrick says and pats Sean on the back.
“To be honest, she comes across different than how she looks.”
“How so?” Patrick asked.
“A lot of ways. Funnier, more down-to-earth. Sincere. Almost like she’s one of those people who don’t even realize how amazing they are.” Sean reminisced.
“You know what else is strange. Where ever I go, I keep thinking I see her and then it ends up not being her.”
Just then, Beth walks into the same bar and passes by Sean and Patrick’s table heading towards the bartender.
“Oh my god, it’s her. It’s B.” Sean gaped. “I better hide.”
“She doesn’t know what you look like, remember.” Patrick said, rolling his eyes.
Standing up, Sean downs all of his beer and prepares himself to approach Beth at the bar stool she was standing next to with her friend and starts pacing.
“What are you doing?” Patrick asked
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Sean starts pacing even more erratically.
“Do you want to blow your cover. I know you would, is this how you dreamt of meeting her for the first time?” Patrick pleaded.
“Yeah you’re right. Let’s get out of here.” Sean panicked and walked right into Beth and her martini splashes all over the front of his shirt.
“Oh my god, I am soooooooooo sorry. I will pay for your dry cleaning bill, buy you another shirt or another drink…”
“Don’t worry about.” Sean said staring at Beth. “Tell you what, you can buy me a drink. How about coffee tomorrow?”
“I don’t even know you.”
“But we would get to know each other, over coffee.”
“Tell you what, I’m having friends over on Saturday. Stop by if you want.” Beth says as she writes her name and her address on a cocktail napkin and hands it to Sean.
Sean looks at the napkin, “I would love to. I’m Sean. Sean Martin.” and holds out his hand.
Beth shakes his hand and says, “See you Saturday, Sean Martin.”
“I’m looking forward to it. It was nice meeting you.” Sean says and heads out the door with Patrick following.
“Well, that was a first.” Beth’s friend Allison says giggling.
Days pass quickly and it was the evening of Beth’s party. Bridgette hadn’t been out on the social scene in years and wasn’t looking forward to it but she couldn’t skip out on Beth’s gathering she was having at her house. Lease she could do is meet the few people that would be there and make some new friends. Maybe find someone to date. Not that she was interested in doing so.
When she shows up to the address Beth gave her, the music was blasting so loud you could hear the music from outside. Bridgette immediately gets nervous and uncomfortable but talks herself into going inside.
Beth sees her right away and hugs here, “Bridgette, you made it! And you brought cheesecake.”
“Sorry, I didn’t realize it was going to be a party.”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Beth asked as Allison walks up and puts a lock hanging from a strong around Bridgette’s neck.
“What is this?”
“Women get lock necklaces and the men get the keys. If you find a match tonight, then tonight is whatever you want it to be.” Beth said and winked while Bridgette groans.
“Beth always throws the best singles parties.” Allison exclaimed taking the cheesecake from Bridgette and headed towards the kitchen.
“You didn’t tell me this was going to be a single’s party.” Bridgette stated.
“Would you have come if I did?”
“Err, no.” Bridgette said. “This is a big house. How can you afford this?”
“Oh, this is my cousin’s house. He asked me to housesit while he was overseas, backpacking in Europe. Aren’t I lucky? Go mingle, Bridgette!”
Bridgette rolls her eyes and walks around taking in the social scenery and finds herself outside on the patio with a beer from the cooler as Sean shows up at the front door.
As he walks in, he hands the cheesecake he was holding in his hand to Allison. He sees Beth on the other side of the room, right away and calls out to her.
“Beth! Beth!”
Beth walks up to him confused and unaware of who he was until he reminded her, “Hey it’s Sean. Sean Martin.”
When it finally dawns on her, who he was she exclaims, “Right! The guy who wore my drink!”
“Yeah, exactly. I brought a cheesecake, but your friend took it from me.”
“Wow, that’s like the second cheesecake of the night. But who doesn’t like cheesecake?”
“Yeah! Exactly! So, this is less intimate than I expected.”
“It’s a singles party. You know, the more the merrier.” Beth says as she puts a key necklace around his neck.
“Oh, I get it.”
“Well, catch you later! Go mingle!” Beth urges and walks away quickly before Sean could say anymore.
“Okay…uh, yep.” Sean says to himself as he finds himself all alone at the party of the girl of his dreams who he just wants to be alone with. Assuming he’ll catch up with her later, he walks around checking out the place until he finds himself out on the back patio. He bends down and pulls out a beer bottle out of the cooler near the patio sliding door and takes a swig as he walks down the back steps.
He notices a standing in front of the pool by herself, staring off into the sky.
“Have you ever been to a party like this?” he says to her.
She smiles and says, “Nope. Can’t exactly say that I have. You?”
“I went to a college party once, where we had to dress up in costume as your favorite food but that doesn’t really count does it?”
Bridgette, shakes her head ‘no’ and smiles.
“I’m Sean and I’ve looked sillier plenty of times, like right now.”
“I’m Bridgette. If anyone looks sill right now, it’s me. I brought cheesecake with me.”
“I brought cheesecake! Seriously! I’m not kidding!” Sean said amazed.
“Really?”
“Yes! And you don’t look silly at all. As a matter of fact, you look very…nice.”
“Thank you, but you must be drunk.”
“No, if I was drunk, I’d probably be singing silly songs that no one would recognize.”
“Those are the best.” Bridgette smiles endearingly.
“That’s crazy. Are you friends with Beth?”
“Yeah. We work together. You?”
“To be honest, I thought this was going to be our first date.”
“I think the point of tonight, is it’s everyone’s first date.”
“No, I meant an actual date. You know with a beginning and an end.” Sean explained.
“Well, it’s still early. If you’re lucky, you might still get an end.”
Beth walks up at that moment and pats both of them on the back. “What’s going on?”
“We were just talking about parties.”
Bridgette explains.
“Are you having fun?” Sean asks Beth.
“Oh, I have fun wherever I go. Although, no one has opened up my lock so far. Would you like to try?”
Sean takes his key necklace and tries to open Beth’s lock but it doesn’t work.
“Aww, nice try though. Did you guys try?” Beth asked them.
“No we haven’t, actually.” Bridgette answers.
“How about you guys try. Come on, don’t be shy.” Beth urgest.
They try to open Bridgette’s lock with Sean’s key and it works. Bridgette’s lock opens.
“It fits! Yeah!!!! Everyone, we have our first party couple!” Beth shouts to everyone in the room.
“Picture time!” Allison shouts and pushes Sean and Bridgette closer together. “Don’t forget to give me your email before you leave so I can send you the picture.
“Okay everyone. Let’s see who else is a match.” Beth shouts to the party patrons as she heads back inside the house.
“Okay, so what now.” Bridgette asks Sean.
“Cheesecake? We can have a slice. Why can have a slice, right? No one is going to eat it.”
Suddenly getting uncomfortable, Bridgette takes off the lock necklace and gives it to Sean, “You know what, and I’m actually going to take off. Go get to know Beth.”
“Well, in that case it was nice to meet you Bridgette.”
“You seem like a good guy Sean, keep it that way.” Bridgette says and goes inside leaving Sean confused on the patio all by himself.
Chapter 4
Next morning.
“Hey you. Did you have fun.”
“You bet! We played video games all night and had so much pizza.” Kyle said excitedly as he came into the house when Monica dropped him off.
“Wow. Sounds like you had fun.” Bridgette said to Kyle as Monica walked to her front door.
“Thank you for helping out, Monica.”
“Anything to get your love life out of the dumpster. How was your little party?” Monica asked.
“Not so little. It was a singles party with 300 of Beth’s closest friends. Basically it was torture. There was a lock and key theme. I guess it was an okay ice breaker.”
“Did anyone break your ice?”
“No, not really.”
“Bridgette…”
“Well, there was this one guy, Sean. But he was crazy about Beth.” Bridgette sighed.
“At least you met one decent guy there. That should restore your faith in mankind. If not, there’s always your internet guy.”
Bridgette spent the rest of the day and evening reminiscing about her love life and last night’s party. She sat at her computer but since there was no new email from her secret admirer, she decided to flip through their history of email exchanges and saw that Beth’s friend Allison emailed her a pic of last night’s party. It was a picture of her and Sean. She smiled to herself.
Just then she gets an email notification from her secret admirer and the email banter begins:
Sean
So what did you do last night?
Bridgette
Big party.
Sean
Well, did you meet anyone interesting?
Bridgette
I’ll never tell.
Sean
I’ll take that as a yes.
Bridgette
Whatever, you know men. They never call, just email.
Sean
Maybe you’ll be surprised…
Monday morning…
Beth’s phone starts to ring and Bridgette kindly answers it on her behalf. Beth’s desk phone rings and Bridgette picks it up
“Beth’s desk, how can I help you?”
“Beth?” the caller asks.
“No this is Bridgette. Beth’s in a meeting.”
“Bridgette? As in, I brought a cheesecake – Bridgette?”
“Sean?” Bridgette asked.
“I didn’t know that you were Beth’s assistant?”
“I’m not, I’m just helping while she’s away. So what did I miss after I left the party the other night?”
“Just more of my potential witty banter.” Sean teased.
“Any drunken singing?” Bridgette teased back.
“Nope, just stuck with soda the rest of the night.”
“I would have thought you would have taken requests.”
“Oh….is that why you left.” Sean teased.
“Well, I’ll tell her you called. Does she have your number?” Bridgette said changing the subject.
“I’ll give it to you right now. (555) 555-1240. I’ll talk to you soon, Bridgette.”
“Yeah, yeah. They say they’ll call but they never do.” Bridgette teased.
“Take care, Bridgette.” Sean said before hanging up.
Monica walks up to Bridgette with a sad look on her face.
“Bridgette can we talk.” Monica asked and asked Bridgette to join her in her office for more privacy.
“What’s wrong?” Bridgette asked worryingly.
“Bridgette, sit down.” Monica said as she shut the office door.
“Is something wrong?”
“I’ve been offered a job in Chicago.”
“Chicago? What kind of job?”
“VP of Marketing for Maddison Hotels.” Monica explained.
“Wow, what did you say?”
“I told them yes. I’m leaving in a month.”
“Congrats, I’m happy for you.” Bridgette’s eyes started to tear up and her voice caught in her throat.
“Awww, Bridge don’t cry.” Monica hugged her.
“Sorry, it’s just…who am I going to cook my infamous Chicken Alfredo for and you know how much Kyle loves your boys.” Bridgette wept.
“If I had anything to say about this is you’re not losing a friend, you’re gaining a promotion. I’m going to talk to Vince about you this afternoon.”
“He still thinks I’m an assistant.”
“He thinks every woman is an assistant.” Monica giggled. “But you know more than anyone out there including Vince. I’m going to do my best sales job.”
“Monica, you’re amazing but what are the chances of that really happening.” Bridgette blew her nose.
“What is meant to be, will be.” Monica said and hugged Bridgette again.
At the end of the work day, Bridgette ran into Beth in the elevator.
“Hey guess what. I have seats to tonight’s game. Want to come with? I have two tickets.”
“Sorry I can’t. I have plans with Kyle.”
“Darn. Everyone I asked is busy. I was looking for a fun night out.”
“Why don’t you ask Sean?”
“Sean. Sean…oh I forgot to call him back.”
“You can make amends with basketball tickets.”
Couple of hours later…
Ben enters into the building and follow’s Bridgette’s directions to find her cubicle but all he sees is a little kid sitting nearby. Above the kid’s head is a sign that reads: Kyle’s Desk.
Hesitantly he asks, “Kyle? Do you work here?”
“I’m 10.” Kyle rolls his eyes.
“That’s all?”
“Uh huh.” Kyle confirms.
“That’s probably not enough to work here. Would you happen to know where Beth Johnson is?”
Kyle spins in the desk chair and says, “Everyone’s in the conference room.”
“I see.” Sean notices the kid drawing a shark. “Whoa, that’s pretty cool.”
“It’s Water Zone. Have you ever been there?”
“No. I’ve never gone.”
“I was supposed to go last year but I got really sick.” Kyle said.
“Oh, that’s too bad. You missed out on the pools and the huge water slides.”
“No way!”
Jack (Secret Revenge #1) Page 11
