by Sasha McLean
I was cringing at the stupid excuse “Yup, big meeting first thing”.
“That’s too bad, I was kinda hoping it was me :(“ Oh my, now he’s getting bold.
I was trying to think of what to say, and when I didn’t respond he kept going. “I thought u had finally noticed me and left your number, then when you were all flustered this morning I was hoping it was me that did it”.
“Flustered was I?”
“I guess not, now I feel like an idiot :( I didn’t mean to assume anything”.
“No no, you didn’t” Shit! Hit send before I thought that through.
“I didn’t? What do you mean?”
Shit shit shit… Think… what do I say… can’t wait too long. “I mean you didn’t assume”. Okay that gives me a minute.
“You’re kinda talking in circles here, I don’t want to embarrass myself, and had no intention of embarrassing you, just that you left me your number the other day and I have to admit I was excited that you noticed me.” As I read he continued typing so I waited.
“I remember you walking in that first morning the day I started working there, not in a stalker kind of way don’t worry, but in a WOW kind of way! You were wearing a dark blue blazer and matching skirt, your hair was up, you looked amazing, most attractive woman I had seen in a very long time. And then there you were, every day like clockwork, I was soon looking forward to starting every morning off with a smile from you. A few times I had tried to strike up a conversation when it wasn’t busy but you always seemed to be in a rush. I had decided a long time ago I wasn’t in your league, or not your type… or you were in a relationship or something, so when you left me your number, like I said, pretty excited… but now… thinking you’re not as excited, or you didn’t actually leave it for me? :(“
Now what… screw it “No I did, sorry I’m not very good at this, spend most of my time thinking about work.” No harm in playing this through, considering I just fucked this guy in my mind I should probably get to know him a little… plus he remembers what I was wearing the first time he saw me and thought I looked amazing… can’t be all that bad! “No relationship and I don’t think I belong in a “league” of any sort. But thanks for the compliment :)”
“Are you kidding??? How can u NOT be in a relationship???”
“Oh well I am I guess. From early morning to early evening he demands all my time, then with I’m not with him I’m researching things for him, evening when I’m on my own with friends or family he’s constantly in my head. Which is why I don’t always notice things, or people for that matter.”
“Your job?”
“”How’d u guess?”
“You don’t seem the type of lady that would let a man dictate your life like that is all.”
“Oh I see… and what type of “lady” is it you think I am?” If he could see me sitting there with no underwear and a glass of wine he might have a different idea.
“Eeeek! You’re putting me on the spot here.”
“Eeeek???”
“Eeeek… like ‘oh oh’ or something.”
“Oh I knew what you meant, but who says eeeek?” Who does say eeek, and more importantly who would think to write it? This was my thought although I was smiling at the cuteness of it. “You’re not getting out of my question though.”
“Questions… oh, classy lady? Okay well… you have real style and care about your appearance, in other words you dress classy.”
“That’s all you got Michael?”
“Sorry… you’re obviously successful but modest about it, and know the importance of subtlety. How’d I do?”
“Well” I was smiling as I read this and replied, quite the compliment from never having spoken to me. “I do take pride in how I dress at least!”
“See right there :) proving my comment on modesty. And obviously u know how to be subtle or I wouldn’t have got your number.”
“About that.”
“About what?”
“Getting my number. That wasn’t exactly me.” He started to type but I didn’t wait. “I mean I’m ok you have it, but it wasn’t me, my friend… she thought you were looking at me and wrote it down when I left.”
There was a bit of a pause before he responded this time, and I was about to tell Michael I was glad he had it worried I had offended him. “I have… for a long time.”
“You have? What?” I re-read my last note after I replied.
“Looking at you :) Every day… you’re the highlight of every day.”
“Oh my… now I’m blushing.” I was.
“Sorry, I mean if that makes you uncomfortable I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. I’m not just feeding u a line… your friend was right. I can hardly keep my eyes off u each time u walk in, I was excited to see u there out of the blue the other day and took at as a sign maybe it wasn’t just me. But maybe it was?”
“Well yes and no… I mean day to day I wasn’t checking you out while I waited for my coffee, but I had noticed you, and then the last couple days I may have noticed you too.”
“May have? :) Don’t commit to anything now Beth.”
“Sorry, I guess what I meant was I took more time to notice you, although I had noticed you I hadn’t really NOTICED you?” You’re talking in circles Beth. “Sorry if that was confusing.”
“No not at all… I’m happy it’s not only me doing the noticing :) Anyway… sorry but I have to go, second job so to speak…”
“Second job?” Oh oh, debt problems probably, just my luck.
“Well it’s like a job, I’ll tell u about it someday, if u don’t mind me msging agin?”
“No that’s fine, sure, see ya I guess.”
“I hope we can chat again over the weekend if that’s ok? And yes I’ll see u Monday morning for your usual?”
“You will, and yes, I’d like to chat again.” I had a little know it my stomach thinking about talking with him more.
“Great! Bye.”
“Bye.”
Chapter 3:
It was all I could do to not text Rene the previous night, but knowing she was out I held back until morning. First thing I did when my eyes popped open was reach for my phone and got to the point.
“I talked with Michael last night!!!” … Nothing, no response. “Hello” Still nothing, what the hell. “Hello Hello Hello!” … What the hell was she doing? Does she not realize I wanted to talk? “H” … “E” … “L” … “L” … “O” Finally I could see her typing.
“What the fuck is so important? Do you realize it’s 8:30 on a Saturday morning? And that I’m in a hotel room with a sexy naked man beside me? Who I just realized has a big morning hard on pressed against my ass right now?”
“WTF Rene? I don’t need to know about Darnell’s hard dick!”
“Who says it’s Darnell??? Kidding…” She never failed to shock me. “So he msged u? Wow hun that’s great, what did u say? Did you have phone sex?”
“Of course we didn’t! We just chatted…”
“Of course u didn’t, why would u? So how did it go? What did he say? Are you going to see him?”
“Slow down, we just talked a bit. He told me he thought I was a classy lady! :)”
“HA!!! Classy? Wait til he gets to know u”
“Hey!”
“Kidding darlin’, so was that it? U chatted, he told u he thinks ur classy and what else?”
“Well nothing much really… that’s he’s noticed me since he met me, I told him I noticed him too.”
“There u go girl! That’s better… D’s movin’ his big thing in my ass crack, I gotta go babe.”
“Christ Rene I don’t want to know that!”
“Okay, I won’t tell u he’s squeezing my big titties with one hand and rubbin’ my ass with the other while he grinds into me then.”
“Stop it Rene I’m going, msg me later please.”
“K bye… he just slid it between my legs now so my hands are gonna’ be busy anyway :) chat later…”
“Fuck off” My last reply went unanswered.
I’m sure she did have her hands full. Not that I hadn’t heard this sort of stuff from Rene before, she was very open talking about her sex life with Darnell, but I always acted like I didn’t want to hear it when really I did to some extent. If I were to believe everything she said they were having enough for both of us. She’s told me more than once he’s always getting hard and they’ll sneak off and have sex anywhere they can. Usually at her doing. She’s told me about rubbing his cock under the table at restaurants even when they’re out with other people, in the movie theatre, one night at a baseball game. She said she was rubbing his cock under their blanket one chilly September evening. They noticed there was never hardly anyone sitting in the outfield stands so she convinced him to make their way there. They sat as far away from everyone as they could and got situated under their blanket again. This time she had unzipped his pants and got him hard again, stroking him until he released himself into her hand and onto the blanket.
When I spoke to Rene later that afternoon she had some sound advice for me, “Flirt! See where it goes. It’s harmless enough, plus you can have a little fun for a change. I bet he’s good at talking dirty!”
“I have fun!”
“Yeah… no you don’t, not the kind that makes your knees weak and your hips grind. Play around with him a little, see if you can get him hot enough to masturbate for you over the phone… and you do the same!”
“I don’t know if I can Rene... that’s not really me, plus I see him every morning at Starbucks, what if he says something?”
“Says something to who??? You think Cinnamon Latte’s gonna tell his manager he’s sexting some hot customer? Not fuckin’ likely… and trust me there’s nothin’ to it… try it.” I wasn’t about to start sexting with Rene but she kept insisting. “Beth it’s just me, I’m not one to brag but maybe I could give you some pointers you know :) Try something on me, what would you say that would let him know ur open to it?”
I sat silent, nothing was coming to mind. “What do you mean? Like ‘What do you do for fun?’ something like that?”
“Mmmmm, not quite…. Just don’t wait for him to msg first, and not just a ‘Hi’… Try ‘U looked great this morning’ ...that should get him thinking a little, and do it from work so he knows ur thinking about him since u saw him that morning.”
“Okay” I was smiling at the thought “I like that, anything else?”
“Just give that a try, but when u see him, smile... pay attention... don’t keep ur nose in ur cell phone... and SMILE!!!”
“What, I smile.”
“Yeah when ur thinking about a deposition!”
“This is true.” It was unfortunately, but I was smiling thinking about Michael. The rest of the weekend went by pretty slow. I had tons of work to do, but my mind kept wandering back to him, and still had tons to do Sunday night because of it. I was hoping to hear from him again but didn’t, and couldn’t get up the nerve to message him first. Of course that made me worry he would start thinking I wasn’t interested after all, but I also wanted to try Rene’s line. It was cute, classy and flirty, I figured I couldn’t go wrong with it.
Chapter 4:
So there I was, standing out of sight of the window on the sidewalk next to Starbucks Monday morning. I had rehearsed twenty different scenarios in my head while I was getting ready and driving in, all of which I was positive wouldn’t happen anyway. Especially the one where he comes out from behind the counter to lift me up into his strong arms, kissing me passionately before carrying me out the door... yeah that one was a little much.
I had spent extra time getting ready, and found something that I hoped reminded Michael of the first outfit he saw me in. I wasn’t sure the dark blue outfit was still in my rotation, but had a skirt I hoped would do the trick. It was shorter than anything I would typically wear to work, but I was feeling brave after the comments Michael had made. It wasn’t a mini skirt by far, but did show a hint of my thigh underneath. I wore some sexy stockings and underwear too, knowing he wouldn’t see it all but knowing how it made me feel would give me some confidence, or at least that’s what I told myself.
I didn’t wear the matching jacket as he remembered either. Instead I wore an almost shear dark blue flowered-lace pattern top, with a black bra under it. I did bring a black jacket to wear in the office and hide what I had on, but planned to carry it into Starbucks. I typed “U looked great this morning” into my phone but didn’t hit send. I wanted to be sure I was the first one to say something, as per Rene’s advice. Took a deep breath to calm myself a little and walked around to the door…. Shit! The line was already back to the door itself, with about twenty people ahead of me… just my luck. Oh well, I never missed my morning coffee and didn’t have any pending meetings or calls first thing so I opened the door and stood there, with not quite enough room to step fully inside.
The strong aroma of fresh brewed coffee filled my nostrils as I craned my head around those in front of me trying to see him. After a few minutes I felt a sense of panic as I couldn’t see him anywhere behind the counter, or out picking up from the tables. Crazy thoughts started running through my head that he decided I was from Crazytown and called in sick today or something, but then I saw him. He had just appeared!
As he ducked down again I realized I hadn’t seen him as he seemed to be stocking shelves under the counter or something. At one point he carried a couple large racks of coffee mugs from the back, and I realized just how thick and strong his arms were, straining against the weight. Although I wasn’t as close as I would have liked I could still see the corded muscle of his forearm below the rolled up sleeve, and the bulge of his bicep under the shirt. “Yummm” I thought just as he caught my eye for a second but then continued working away as if he didn’t even see me. My heart sank.
What seemed like minutes but was probably not a few seconds went by, and he stopped dead in his tracks and whipped his head around to find me staring, frowning at him. His eyes lit up, turning my frown into a giddy smile as he mouthed “Wow!” and very obviously looked up and down at my unexpected appearance.
This made me blush and I lowered my head, still smiling like a fool. I realized this wasn’t part of my plan at all unfortunately and I found my thoughts frantically searching how to handle it. I had it in my head I would casually let on I didn’t see him noticing me if he did, play hard to get sort of thing, but that went straight out the window. Instead I stood there red faced like some girl in junior high, smiling away as I watched him work, stealing glances at me every time he had a chance.
It was about five minutes in the line, and I had come up with nothing to do or say when his voice called out the familiar “Cinnamon Latte!” but this time he added just to me looking deep into my eyes as he passed me the cup “extra spice”. I felt my stomach anxiously lurch with a million fluttering butterflies as I silently gave him my cash and took my change. Still saying nothing I turned and as casually as I could, slowly walked out of the store.
The fresh air hit me like a slap, waking me out of the daydream of what had just occurred. I hadn’t even thought of my iPhone in my hand with the pre-typed message ready to send until it went off. “Wow! In case you hadn’t caught my reaction, you look amazing!!!”
Shit again! Missed my opportunity… I took a second to delete the message and then took an unaccustomed leap and replied “I was thinking about you getting ready this morning, hope you liked it.”
“Liked it? You made my entire week!”
“That’s good… and I appreciate the extra spice, it’s making my lips all tingly” This was not me, I felt as though Rene was suddenly playing the part of Beth.
