by J. S. Cooper
I smiled at Blake as my insides fluttered. He was just so handsome. He looked a little worn out, though, and had stubble on his face. I wanted to caress it and see if it were soft to the touch. It looked soft. But I held back. Both he and Stephen would likely look at me in even more shock if I were to do that.
“Guys, please stop fighting. I’m not worth it.”
“Huh?” Blake looked at me, confused.
“You see, Blake? She is mental. How was I to know she would stoop to some illegal methods?” Stephen’s arms went flaying as he tried to prove his point.
“I think you both better sit down.” Blake motioned to the two seats in front of his heavy cherry-wood desk. There were files all over it and a couple of photos. I tried to see who was in the frames, but couldn’t quite see.
“Maggie.” Blake’s voice commanded me to look at him. “I need your full attention, please.”
“Yes, sir,” I barked back at him, annoyed. Who was he? My dad? Not that my dad was half as good looking as Blake.
“Maggie, Stephen here brought me this piece of paper to review.”
“Okay.” And? I was thinking to myself.
“He is being sued for illegal trespassing and theft.”
“What?” Whoa, I knew he was shady!
“He is saying that you were the one who told him to do it.”
“What?” I screeched. “I what?” I looked at Stephen, who was looking at me with hatred in his eyes.
“He says you told him that was the information you needed to make sure the investigation went well, and that you told him you had checked the law, and because it was for a TV show, it didn’t count as theft.” Blake said matter-of-factly.
“What didn’t count as theft? I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” I hoped Blake didn’t really believe I could do something so shady.
“The notes you got from an inside source, relating to McDonald’s? That you were using for the exposé …”
“You mean the notes Stephen got from his source, the janitor?” I glared at Stephen.
“It turns out Stephen hired his friend to pretend to be a janitor to steal the notes, and he says you told him to do it.”
“That’s not true.” I looked at Blake with wide eyes.
“Yes, it is.” Stephen looked at me. “It’s my word against yours, sugar.”
“Blake, did you hear that? You know me.”
Blake sighed. “I know exactly what is going on. Stephen, you listen, and you listen closely. I will take care of this, and the charges will be dropped. But I want you to make sure that I never see your face again and you never contact Maggie again. If I ever hear that you have said anything about Maggie again, you will be finished in this town. Do you hear me?”
Stephen smiled. “Loud and clear.” And then he looked at me; “Sorry, Mags, guess you won’t be making it big in TV anytime soon, but I suppose that is good news for you. You have more time to work on getting that fat ass down.”
My mouth dropped open.
“I’ll leave you and your buddy-boy here to do your thing. I got what I needed. And don’t worry about hearing anything about me here; I’m moving to Canada, better tax laws there anyway.” And with that, he sauntered out.
I sat back in the chair, flabbergasted. What had just happened? I wasn’t going to be a star, no TV, no movies. Stephen had tried to set me up to take the fall for some illegal business, and he didn’t even want to bed me. What was going on?
“Are you okay, Maggie-Moo?” Blake got up and came round to my chair. He put his arm around my shoulder and looked at me in concern.
“He said I had a fat ass,” I gasped.
Blake bit his lip and I could tell he was trying to stop himself from laughing.
“I’ve been working on my ass for six months. I can’t believe he said it was fat.”
Blake let out the biggest laugh I had ever heard from him.
I looked at him with anger. “What’s so funny?”
“Your boss tries to set you up to take the fall for his theft, you were potentially facing close to 10 years in jail, and you are most concerned about your ass.”
“Ten years? What?” I looked at him in shock. And this time my heart isn’t pounding because I can smell his cologne.
“The penalty for the trespassing and theft would have been 10 years.”
“Are you sure you can take care of this, Blake?” I look at him, scared.
“Yes, don’t worry.” He paused for a second. “Let’s go get some lunch.”
“I don’t know if I can eat. I think I need to look for a job.” I sighed.
“I have a proposition for you.”
“You do?”
“Yup.”
“What is it?” I asked eagerly.
“We will discuss it over lunch. C’mon, let’s go.”
And with that, he grabbed my hand and we walked to his car, the joy back in my step. When we got to his car, he pulled me into his arms and gave me a long deep kiss. “I’ve been wanting to do that all day.” He said as he pulled away and lightly tapped my ass. “Oh Maggie, what am I going to do with you?” He said and all I could think in my head was, make love to me and make me yours. Of course, I didn’t say that out-loud.
3
Dear Diary,
I’m leaving on a jet plane, never to come back again. Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I am coming back, but that’s not the important part. I’m going to London and Paris. WOOT. Blake felt so guilty for introducing me to Stephen that he offered me a job. While I had wished for a declaration of love to be the reason why I was going, guilt works just as well. I have just 2 weeks to lose weight to fit in with all the skinny Europeans.
“You do have a passport, right, Mags?”
“Yes, Blake, duh.” I made a mental note to look for my passport when I got home. I knew I had one, but wasn’t sure if it had expired already or not.
“Okay, good. I’m going to purchase the tickets next week. I have to see if I can get a continuance in one my cases first.”
“Huh. A what?” I looked at him blankly.
“Never mind.” He grinned. “So we’ll be gone for about a month. Make sure to take care of all your bills, and see if Gayle can look after Lucy.”
Oops, I had completely forgotten about Lucy. What a bad owner/mother I was.
“Yes, I’ll ask Gayle tonight. She and Ben love her, so it shouldn’t be a problem.” And they kinda owed me. Ben had been my kinda crush for a while, and Gayle and he had fallen in love and left me in the dust. Well not literally in the dust, but you know. They were a couple, and I was still single.
“Great. I can come over tonight and we can create a packing list.”
“Okay, that sounds good. And Blake…” I looked at him, biting my lip.
“Yes, Maggie?” he smiled.
“Well, you know I’m kinda broke right now. Do you think…”
“You want me to bring a pizza over tonight.”
I grinned at him. “Yes please. Extra cheese, and some brownies, too.”
“I’ll bring some wine, too, and we can make a night of it.” Blake grinned back at me, and I felt a shiver run through me. He was soo perfect. I didn’t know what I was going to do or how I was going to make it happen, but I was going to make Blake mine any way I could. He was going to be in my bed tonight, one way or the other.
“Make a man fall in love with you,” I spoke aloud as I typed into Google on my laptop. I saw millions of webpages pop up in the search, and I started to feel excited. One of these things had to work. I mean, there couldn’t be this many pages and no solution. I was going to make Blake fall in love with me. Now that I knew he was single, it was all engines on. He might think of me as a goofy little sister, but I was a woman, and I wanted him to see me as that. As a sexy supermodel. I decided to create a list of different options that I could use to make him fall in love with me.
Secret List to Make Blake Connor Love Me
Love Spell (may need some
of his hair or saliva)
Make him jealous (this works best if I get engaged to someone else)
Become a dominatrix (will need to invest in handcuffs and other toys)
Become a supermodel (need to lose 1000 lbs. and become younger)
Become a millionaire (though a billionaire would be preferable)
I wasn’t feeling very confident that I could make any of these things happen in the three hours before he came over. I needed to come up with a plan. I could call it ‘Operation Blake.’ I could rent a bunch of movies and start watching ‘The History Channel’ for some ideas. It seemed to me I needed a timeline. I figured a realistic date to start the operation would be when we went to London and the deadline would be our flight back to Los Angeles. I had exactly one month to make Blake fall in love with me and propose. Okay, I’d settle for fall in love with me for the month. That was going to be hard enough as it was.
The doorbell rang, and I quickly stuffed my notes under a couch cushion. There was no way I could let Blake see what I was doing. “Coming,” I sang out and was immediately happy when I saw Blake had brought a large pizza from Dino’s Pizzeria; it was my favorite in all of LA.
“Just in time.” I ushered him in, trying not to dribble. I was excited to see both him and the pizza.
“In time for what?” Blake looked at me quizzically and raised an eyebrow at me.
“In time for me not to die of starvation, duh.” I silently thanked him for not making a comment about how I could survive off of my fat for a good while. Gayle had already given me a talk like that once, and let’s just say that it did not go down too well.
“Oh, my God, this is soo delicious.” I stuffed a slice of pizza in my mouth and gobbled it down. Pepperoni, onions, and peppers, with extra cheese. Blake knew me well.
“I aim to please, Maggie.” Blake was watching me as I grabbed another slice of pizza. If this were a date, there was no way I would eat like a pig in front of the guy. But this was Blake. I didn’t mind if he saw me stuffing my face. I knew he wouldn’t make any comments about how hard it must be to lose weight loving junk food like I did. That was just one of the great things about Blake.
“You know, Blake, you are quite possibly my best friend.” I laughed up at him, happy in my pizza high.
“Really? What about Gayle?”
“Oh, you know I love Gayle. But you just really get me. I’m so glad you’re back in my life,” I smiled. “Even if you do call me Maggie Moo-moo.” I hit him on the arm and felt a jolt run through me. Blake ran a hand through his dark brown hair and swallowed. Oh shit, he feels uncomfortable. I’d only had one glass of wine so far, so I didn’t think I’d said anything I shouldn’t have.
“You know, Maggie, you are really special to me, as well.” Blake spoke softly, which was unusual for him.
“Thanks, Blakey,” I sang to him, not wanting to make the situation any more uncomfortable. I’d never seen Blake look so nervous.
“So, I wanted to talk about our trip,” he started.
“I am so excited to be going to France and England. Can you believe it? Me in Europe.”
“I’m glad. I am so sorry about Stephen, Maggie. I hope you aren’t heartbroken.”
I looked at him in astonishment and laughed. “Heartbroken? Over that idiot? No way.”
“Oh, I’m glad,” he smiled at me. “So, I wanted to talk about the trip.”
“I have my passport, Blake, don’t worry.” I made a mental note to clean the apartment the next day so I could find it.
“Good, good.” He was distracted. “I wanted to talk about why I invited you on the trip.”
“It’s okay. I know. You felt bad ‘cause Stephen was an ass, and now I can act as your secretary. Ooh, I promise to practice my shorthand and typing skills. I type 80 words per minute right now, though, so don’t worry.” I stopped and made a mental note to work on my typing skills, I could really only type 30 WPM and there were usually a lot of typos in that, as well.
“That’s not why I asked you, Maggie.” He took my hand in his, and I looked up in shock. Oh shit, he was going to propose to me. Somehow, my list had worked already and he was in love with me and now he was going to propose. I wished I had worn my sexy underwear. There was no way I was going to fall into bed with him in the underwear I had on now. No way. Oh well, I could save it for the wedding night. Or tomorrow night instead. I could go to the spa and get a wax. Argh, scratch that. I didn’t know how painful a wax was going to be down there.
“So?” Blake looked at me in anticipation, and I realized I had missed what he said.
“Um, yes.” I smiled at him willingly and put my hand out. He looked at me puzzled.
“Sorry, yes what, Maggie?”
“Uh, yes. I have my passport.” Argh.
“Uh, okay. I just asked you if you would come on this trip as my girlfriend.”
“What?!?!” I was in shock. Happy shock. So it wasn’t a marriage proposal, but this was perhaps even better, because it was real life.
“Will you be my girlfriend, Maggie?” Blake was grinning down at me, and for once in my life, I had nothing to say in response.
“Maggie, since I saw you at the gym a few months ago and you have been in my life, I have realized just how much you mean to me, and how you make me laugh, and I’d like for us to date.”
I pinched myself to make sure that this was real. Then I pinched him.
“Ow.” Blake looked at me in confusion.
“Just checking.” I pinched myself again and hard. “Ouch. Okay, this is real.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing.” I wanted to ask Blake to leave so I could call Gayle and talk to her about it and scream and shout with happiness. I wanted to call Stephen just so I could to tell him to F-off, and I wanted to call Perky Tina from the gym to say that you don’t need to be a size zero to get a Prince Charming.
“So?” Blake was looking at me worried, and I realized I hadn’t yet responded to his statement.
“Of course I want to date you, Blake. You dork.” I leaned over and gave him a kiss – on the lips, I might add – and I sunk into him, and his firm lips kissed me back. I felt his arm snaking around my back, but I backed away, thinking, ‘I can’t have sex tonight. My legs are all hairy.’
Blake played with my hair and smiled at me. “I hope I’m doing the right thing here.”
“What do you mean?” I said indignantly.
“I don’t want to ruin our friendship, Maggie. And well, you have a history of creating and leaving drama anywhere you go.”
I pouted. “No I don’t.” Well, maybe. But he shouldn’t be thinking about that.
“Yes, you do. But I guess that’s part of the package.” He laughed.
“I’m so excited, Blake. We’re going to go to London and Paris as a couple. Oh, my God, Gayle is going to be so jealous.” Lucy ran up to me and started barking as I squealed. I got up and danced around the room with her. “This is going to be amazing.”
“Maggie, you do know that I have to work, right?” Blake looked concerned. “I can’t go gallivanting around with you.”
“I know.” I bit my lip. “Are you still going to be in need of my secretarial services?” Please say no.
“Well…”
Argh.
“No, Maggie. This trip is to help you write and sort your mind out.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I paused. “Wait, so why did you ask me to come as your girlfriend?” I looked at Blake. “Do you just want me to be your kept woman?” I stared at Blake with my eyes narrowed.
He burst out laughing. “Uh no, Moo-moo. That isn’t the case.”
I felt a little disappointed at his words. I wouldn’t mind being a kept woman. Especially with Blake. Hell, I’d prefer it. No job and Blake would be like living in heaven.
“Shall we watch a movie, Mags?” Blake leaned back on the couch, and I sighed. I really wanted to talk about us some more. When did he realize he liked me? Where did he see the relationship going? Di
d he love me? But something inside held me back. I was a little worried to hear what the answers would be. I didn’t stop to question myself, but I was concerned he wouldn’t say he loved me. I pushed my concerns out of my mind and grabbed the remote.
“Okay, chick flick, or chick flick?” I laughed as he grabbed the remote away from me. He chose a comedy, and I snuggled into his chest, deliriously happy at the situation I found myself in. It seemed to me that sometimes we all got a happy ending.
4
Dear Diary,
Dating Blake is wonderful. Only he’s not as romantic as I would like him to be, and he hasn’t told me he loves me yet. He is also starting to act like my dad again, which is really annoying. He keeps asking me about my book and my writing, and he bought me an iPad for the trip so I can write on the plane. I tried to tell him I don’t do well under pressure, but he ignored me. I’m starting to think this trip isn’t going to be the bed of roses I thought it was going to be.
Our flight left in six hours, we had to be at the airport in three, and I still hadn’t packed. I didn’t know what to take with me. It had been two weeks since Blake and I had started dating, and we had yet to sleep with each other. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I knew that had to change in Europe. How could I go on a romantic vacation with my boyfriend if we weren’t even sleeping together? I rummaged through my underwear drawer and couldn’t find any sexy underwear.
“Gayle,” I cried into the phone. “What am I going to do?”
“Get some in London, Maggie,” she sighed. She was already fed up with hearing me talk about Blake.
“But what if the stores are closed?” I sighed. “I want tonight to be perfect.”
“Maggie, I’m sure Blake will be happy to have you in any underwear.”
“I can’t wear Hanes on our first passionate night together, Gayle.” I looked around my apartment at all the clothes strewn on the floor. “Oh, my gosh, my apartment looks like a mess.”
