by Jenn Marlow
“Good morning, beautiful,” he whispered, smiling back at me. “That light is the worst thing possibly to ever happen to me.”
I smirked. “Worse than cancer?”
“Touché.” He squinted. “But the terribleness of the sun is made so much better by this….” And then I felt his arm around me once again. He pulled me tighter against his heated flesh with an embrace more powerful than I was expecting. I gasped, losing my breath for a moment, but I didn’t mind. Far from it.
I loved being so close. I loved feeling the warmth of his body against mine. I loved the feeling of his strong arms holding me close.
I loved it all…
But more than anything, I loved waking up to him.
“By what?” I asked, my brows raising in a questioning expression.
“Waking up to a woman as gorgeous as you,” he replied. “Especially on a Friday that I’m not at work.”
“Oh shit!” I screamed, raising up in the bed, holding the white sheet close to my body. It was Friday! “It’s Friday!”
I realized that my outburst probably ruined the mood of his sweetness, but I couldn’t believe I had forgotten.
“Yeah, but you’re with the boss. You don’t have to go to work.” He smirked once again. I was becoming so accustomed to the smirk. It was cute, cocky, and it was getting sexier the more he did it. And it was a lot…
But no matter how much I wanted to relish in his adorable smirk, I had bigger fish to fry.
“Not that!” I yelled, frustrated, as I hurriedly made my way out of the bed and to my feet. I knew I wasn’t making sense, but I couldn’t formulate the words that I needed to. I couldn’t really think properly. I was only angry at myself for forgetting.
“Then what?”
But all I could say was “It’s Friday!” again, even though I realized that it did nothing to help my case, or help him understand why I was so upset.
“Honey…” he sighed, throwing what little blanket covered his naked body off of him. He groaned lazily as he made his way to his feet, as well. “Your Southern accent is coming out; what is so important about Friday?”
“Mountains!” I bellowed, throwing my arms in the air.
He looked at me, eyes wide, still not understanding what I was saying. Hell, I didn’t even understand what I was saying. I didn’t even realize that I had known the name. It didn’t register that it was something that I knew; something that I had ever retained.
Funny how brains worked sometimes.
“What the hell?” he asked. “What about mountains? You’re not making sense!”
“The play!” I was scurrying, searching frantically on his floor for my clothes.
“What play!?” I could tell he was getting frustrated, as he watched me dart busily from one end of the room to the other.
“Polly’s play!” I yelled, stepping into my underwear. “I didn’t go to her audition because of you; I can’t miss her play because of you! She just forgave me!”
“Calm down!” He walked towards me and wrapped his arms around me, firmly embracing me just enough to ease off some of my tension. “What time is the play?”
“Seven tonight,” I replied, shuddering and feeling a rush of relaxation as he held me close.
“It’s not even noon,” he breathed with amusement, breaking the embrace just enough to look at me. His whispers soothed me, and he was right; it was not quite noon.
I had plenty of time.
I nodded, my sanity rushing back in. “I’m sorry…” I breathed in relief.
“Don’t apologize. You had a small freak out. It happens.” He pulled me in and quickly attached our lips together in a deep, loving kiss.
“I thought you hated morning breath,” I breathed, pulling back.
“I do,” he said simply. “But I think I could get used to yours.” His beautiful smirk played lightly in the corner of his lips, as he smiled back at me just before giving me another peck on the lips.
Chapter 6
After getting a little bit of work done and arranging for flowers to be delivered to Polly, the day had come and nearly gone—mostly all while we were sleeping. It was four and I still couldn’t believe I had slept in until almost noon on a week day. Nor could I believe that I had completely forgotten that Polly’s play opened that night. I hated myself for forgetting. I felt like the world’s worst friend. However, being with Derek, it made everything—all my thoughts, all my priorities—change. And I wasn’t sure if that was for the better, or for the complete worst.
Maybe it was a mix of both.
Hell, we had both completely skipped out on work for the day. That, in itself, was completely unlike me.
The ride to my apartment was silent for the most part, but not an anguishing one. It wasn’t awkward; it wasn’t uncomfortable; and it certainly wasn’t strained. It was reflective, calm even. It was just he and I in the backseat of his black town car, with Fredrick driving us around.
Smooth jazz played softly from the cabin of the car, and I smiled, thoroughly enjoying the fact that I could hear it through the dividing black-out window between the backseat and front. Fredrick always rolled it up…although neither of us would have minded him leaving it down.
I loved Fredrick. I loved his cleverness. I loved his kindness. I loved his wisdom.
He was everything someone could want in an older companion. And because of that, I had no issue at all with him butting his way into each and every conversation Derek and I had.
When we reached my apartment, Fredrick dropped us off at the front of the building and we went in and hit the elevator. I smiled brightly. “I love this elevator…” I breathed, reveling in the fact that it was finally fixed.
“Why?” Derek asked, scrunching his nose in disgust. “It’s filthy and rickety.”
I laughed. If he only knew how horrible it was to actually climb up seven flights of stairs, he would be kissing the thing and ready to lick up each and every disgusting mark off the wall.
Indeed, he would have a new appreciation.
With a ding, we reached the seventh floor and walked just out and to the left to my unit. I breathed in deeply as I stared at the door. I was scared to go in. I knew how Polly was on performance days…but I knew I had to. I had to get ready; I had to make up for being absent at the audition. I had to support her, just as she supported me when I journeyed to obtain my career.
I sighed and turned the doorknob slowly at first, and then all at once, bursting the door open. Like ripping off a Band-Aid. But only, the normal didn’t occur. There was no outburst from Polly as soon as I opened the door. I blinked, looking into my empty-looking apartment.
On any other performance day, she would have been face to face with me as soon as the door blasted open. Normally, she would have wasted absolutely no time in bombarding me with information, concerns, and bouts of nervousness…
But this time, when I walked in, it was eerily quiet. I knew she was home though. I knew that she had to be. And beyond all, I knew that she would normally be frantically moving from room to room trying to prepare for the walk of doom she felt that she was embarking on.
She was quite the confident actress when she didn’t have a part. But when she did, she was in total meltdown mode.
But not this time.
This time I walked in to our small, yet uncharacteristically clean apartment and could have sworn that I saw a tumbleweed fly through the living room and Western whistles sound. There was no one in sight. By the looks of things, it appeared that our apartment had been abandoned.
My brows furrowed in confusion, and I immediately stepped back a few steps until I crossed over the threshold once again to properly read our room number.
I realized I was being dramatic. I knew it was our stuff, but I also knew that Polly was definitely not the type to break from tradition…and tradition would have her completely losing her marbles about now.
“I don’t think this hair will ever stay down!!” Polly shrieked from her bedroo
m, and before I knew it, she appeared from around the corner with multi-colored curlers in half of her hair.
And there it was, the outburst. It was just a bit delayed. I smirked. I think I needed her outburst; I think with everything going on—our rocky friendship over the weeks, my new relationship with Derek, his illness—I needed some normalcy.
“Well, might help if you take out the curlers….” I laughed, giving a sideways glance to Derek, who looked amused and probably a bit taken aback.
“I meant the other side, smart-ass!”
“Why does it need to stay down if you’re just going to curl it all?” I really was amused. I couldn’t deny that. I felt Derek’s body shift from behind me, as he leaned against the back of the couch and crossed his arms to watch the scene about to unfold.
Polly looked at me, her eyes blinking, staring at me like I was an imbecile.
“I needed to test which style I wanted… straight or curly,” she said, as if it was the most rational choice in the world.
I thought for a moment, really contemplating it all.
“Honey,” I sighed. “Aren’t you supposed to be in hair and makeup at the play? Aren’t they supposed to tell you how to do your hair?”
She stood there, once again, blinking at me as if what I had just said was more absurd than the last thing.
“I am a mountain climber, and they said I could do what I wanted with my hair. I have to look like an average girl, with average hair.”
“If you’re a climber, won’t you have a helmet or something on?” I crossed my arms over my chest and looked on, and I knew that by the change in expression on her face, I was correct…but I had to push the envelope. It was just too much fun not to. “That’s probably why they didn’t care about your hair.”
“I’m such an idiot!” she snapped. “Now I’ve wasted time on my hair!”
I chuckled and then all of a sudden, without warning, a small, bouncy, young Golden retriever came running into the living room with a ball in his mouth.
I gasped. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten about the dog we rescued weeks ago!
I felt like crap. How could I have forgotten about the little guy? Especially a dog as large as a Golden retriever.
He wasn’t fully grown; and I was willing to bet he was even quite small for his age, malnourished likely to a degree, but we had apparently had the guy for a couple of months now.
Well, Polly had had him for a couple of months now.
She must have taken a liking to him. I fell, immediately to my knees, as the little bundle of joy pounded towards me.
“You remember this little guy?” she asked, amusement in her voice.
“Has he been here the whole time?!” I gushed, patting my lap, encouraging him to come up to me.
“Well, yes and no. I can’t call you completely oblivious. He has been staying with my brother for most of the time.”
That did make me feel a little better.
“Derek, isn’t he a cutie?!”
But when I turned to Derek, I could tell that he didn’t think so.
He was stiff, eyes wide, and he moved away from me as soon as the little guy rushed to jump onto my lap. I hunkered down even more to pet him, but my brows couldn’t help but furrow in confusion at Derek. He looked scared.
“Why are you tensing up?” I asked, just before bending my nose down to the dog. “He’s so cute, and we saved him.”
“You saved him,” he corrected. And then it came rushing back. Derek didn’t want me to rescue the little guy. He wanted me to leave him in the street. And all of a sudden, I felt the anger all over again.
“What’s going on?” I asked, ignoring my anger. It had been far too long for me to remain angry about it; and besides, Derek had changed somewhat since then. I knew better than to harp on it.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he gruffed before turning on his heel and exiting through the front door.
Polly stood in the door way between the living room and the hall leading to our rooms and blinked at me. “What’s his deal?”
“I have no idea,” I answered. It was true. I didn’t have any idea what that was about; and what Derek Sholts had against dogs, but it worried me.
How could anyone not like dogs? Especially one as sweet and kind as that one.
“What did you name him?” I asked, changing the subject and refusing to chase after the man I had grown to somehow love.
“Beckom!” she squealed, clearly excited for the name. “Oh, and did you invite Jim and Abigail?” Polly asked, changing the subject quickly. Clearly the dog didn’t provide as much of a distraction as I thought he might.
I picked myself up off the floor, as Polly threw on a black hoodie, clearly deciding on wearing all sweats to the show. I mean, why not though? I would probably have worn sweats, too. Just like her hair, her clothes were already picked out. There was no point in dressing nicely to go get into another set of clothes.
Beckom continued to scour the floor, nose to the ground, venturing across the entire apartment.
“Oh!” I gasped. I didn’t even think about it. And I wasn’t sure if Polly had mentioned it previously or not. If she had, I absolutely didn’t pay any attention to it, which made me feel even more horrible about myself.
She didn’t know Jim nor Abigail, though. I only talked about them on occasion, but in truth, Jim—apart from Polly and Derek—was one of the only people I actually knew in the city.
“My doorman?” Derek asked from the other side of the door.
My head snapped back, and I noticed that instead of closing the door behind himself, he had merely left it cracked open. I knew that it was likely to hear our conversation, but still, it almost made the situation even more annoying — and embarrassing. What kind of man was scared of dogs?”
Chapter 7
Luckily, I was able to get Jim and Abigail to come on such short notice.
“Sure!” Jim had said over the phone. “We never get to do anything!”
And that was all that he said. He seemed incredibly appreciative. Heck, by the way he acted, I wondered if he was ever invited to anything, especially by someone close in age to him. I wondered if he had friends, but then I realized, that he probably didn’t. He had two jobs and a daughter to care for. I could barely juggle Derek and Polly at the same time… let alone add in a child to the mix and another job.
But regardless, I was glad to have him.
It was nice to have him as a buffer between the dog-hating Derek and the annoyance he caused me. It was also nice to have someone else there when the car ceased to move amongst a herd of traffic-stopped cars.
We were in the car, heading towards the opening performance of Mountains. Fredrick was driving once again. I was impressed by the fact that although we hadn’t anticipated the fact of having Jim and Abigail attending, there was still plenty of room. And it was a good thing, because we were stalled in the busy streets of the city.
I was getting antsy, annoyed even.
I hated the city sometimes.
I would have never had any issues like this if I had stayed put in my small farming town.
“You all look really nice,” Fredrick said, likely trying to smooth over the fact that I was nervous about missing the opening curtain of Polly’s play. He was right. I was proud of the fact that everyone had gussied up. For Derek, it wasn’t a big deal; for Fredrick, he usually wore a suit as part of his uniform; but for me, it was a big deal. I mean, sure, I wore business-appropriate attire every day, but that was nice and conservative workplace clothing. It wasn’t anywhere near to the bombshell of a dress that I had on for Polly’s play.
It was black and seemed to graze my hips with excellence, as it form-fit to my body. That very dress and my work-skirt were probably the only two article of clothing that I owned to which I deemed to be incredibly well-fitting. It had a high neck, a low back, and hit perfectly at mid-thigh.
It was gorgeous, and I felt gorgeous in it.
So yeah
, it was a big deal that I dressed up. And I bet the same could have been said of Jim and his beautiful little girl, Abigail. I bet they rarely dressed as impressively as they had that evening.
Jim, with his white button down and blue bow tie accompanied by his grey vest and slacks, looked incredibly dapper. And Abigail…my goodness. She was more beautiful than I ever would have imagined in that moment. She was small, and beautiful, with loose curly hair, a lighter complexion than Jim’s and wore a blue dress, likely to match her father’s tie.
I smiled, seeing the two interact.
A tear welled up in my eyes, and I realized how much I missed my own father, and how much I wished that I had had a relationship as wonderful as that with him.
“We’re going to be late!” I growled, nervously looking out the tinted windows at the traffic.
“Doubt it… the stagehands and actors will be late too…” He was amused by it, and I was unamused by the fact that he was amused. “Don’t worry…” he laughed. “Seriously, there are hundreds of plays going on tonight in this city, and everyone knows New York traffic sucks.”
I growled at him.
“Maybe I should have been scared of you instead of the dog…” He was smirking and I could tell that he was trying to ease my spirits. All the while, I was treating him like an asshole.
I sighed. “Maybe you should have been.”
I meant for it to sound like a joke of equal light-heartedness, but it came out sounding more like bitterness.
I cringed, especially when I noticed how tense the air around us got, and noticed that everyone else was quiet.
“We should be there soon, Ms. Zoe,” Fredrick said sweetly from the front seat. I smiled. The man’s voice was the epitome of kindness. It was like talking to Santa Clause. He was jolly, kindhearted, and above all, he was compassionate.
I really envied Derek for having such a kind man in his life, but I was also glad for it. He needed that. Especially during such a difficult point in his life.
And he was right.
They were all right.
I had no reason to be uptight. Everyone had somewhere to go. Even if I missed curtain, I would still see her perform.
