I've been gone for two months /: what a way to build a loyal fanbase, am I right? Chapter 2 of Vince and Cecily will be out soon; I decided to move out of my mother's house after graduation, so things are hectic, to say the least. Hope y'all are doing well; comments and thoughts are always welcome!
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I see James later that week for another conference, and just like that we're all set to put action behind his vision. I find out that he's easy-going and sure of himself most of the time, but that I can easily fluster him and throw him off-balance with a joke or a smile. It's an interesting development that drives me a little wild, and I feel like a cat that just wants to knock the glass off of the table to hear the glass break. I'm glad for the boundary of work, because if I had met James in any other circumstance, I'd be nipping at his heels.
I try to put his pretty face out of my mind when I go out with Winnie to yet another bridal store after work. She tries on seven different dresses, and while considering her eighth she has me try out a simple, sleekly lined bridesmaid number in a corally orange color.
"I look great," I say to the mirror, and Winnie laughs behind me, stepping out of the dressing room.
"Yes, Melanie, a vision." I turn my head and then my whole body to see her, not swallowed up by fabric or aged by pearls and ruffles, but simply and overwhelmingly gorgeous in a mermaid skirt, bell sleeves, and delicate bodice.
She looks like she's about to launch off into space from excitement, her eyes dark and shining. "You like it?"
I will tears to come to my eyes, but I don't have my mother's hair-trigger emotions. "Baby girl, I wish Mommy was here to cry for me," I beam, my view of her narrowing to slits behind the full cheeks of my smile.
Winnie does cry, though, sparkly tears that remind me of mom, and I let the halter top of my dress drop to avoid staining the gown as she drifts into my arms to console herself a while. I place my head on top of hers and after a few moments she wriggles away, still sniffling.
"You want your dress to be different, right? Since you're maid of honor?"
I consider myself in the mirror again. "I could honestly leave it like this, everybody at the wedding knows who I am already."
Winnie huffs and rolls her glassy eyes. "Not everybody. Marv's old classmate is gonna be his best man, and you've never met him."
I grin. "Alright, Winnie, I'll put on a name tag that says "Sister of the Bride" for Marv's classmate, then."
"Smartass," she snaps, already unlacing herself on her way back to the fitting room.
We hurry home again so that Winnie can meet Marvin for another date night, and I take myself on a date to Barnes & Nobles. I have half a mind to call up Quincy, but I'm not in the mood for hot and heavy tonight.
I wander around the isolated graphic novel section on the second floor and wonder if I'm starting to feel more lonely than alone. My last serious relationship, during my sophomore and junior years of college, ended in mild heartbreak. I've been avoiding the dating scene since then, but ever since Winnie first became more than friends with Marvin, I've been reconsidering my solitary lifestyle.
I step out of the aisle I'd been moseying through and am promptly knocked back into it by a man around my height in a beat-up brown leather jacket, head in a copy of something bulky with Neil Gaiman's name on the cover. Of course it's fucking James. He whips his head up in time to see me stumble and collide with a shelf full of manga, and I watch his eyes go wide as the full set of Fruits Basket teeters directly above my head.
In an instant the length of his body is pressed against mine, a hand on my shoulder backing me safely against the hard ridges of the rows of books, and his fingertips steadying the cardboard box above us. The bob of his adam's apple is all I can see, and as my lips brush his collarbone I dimly wonder where his book has gone.
"I'm so, so sorry Mel, are you alright? I wasn't looking where I was going at all." James backs up, dragging me with him with a firm grip on my upper arms. The smooth brown plane of his forehead is split in two with a deep worry line, and his bottom lip is ever so slightly wobbling with the rush of air.
Yes, I almost got a concussion, and a surprising spark of delight is rummaging through my nervous system at his touch, but at that moment all I can focus on is his bottom lip as it trembles again, like a toddler in trouble. Laughter bubbles out of my chest, and for a moment he looks even more concerned before he joins me.
"The stalking needs to stop, James, for my own wellbeing," I end on a chuckling sigh. His eyes twinkle into mine and when he slightly squeezes my arms in his hands, my body registers his touch more prominently and responds with a thrumming kick of my heart behind my ribcage.
"With you chasing me all over town, there's bound to be casualties," he grins. I want to make him blush again; with everything in me, I want to drop my smile and press my lips against his collarbone again, on purpose this time.
I lower my eyes out of self-preservation and see his book between us: The Sandman. I bend, his fingers slipping off of my shoulders, and bring it back up to him.
"First or fiftieth time reading it?" I ask, wanting to step back but caught up in his warmth. I can be friendly.
"Seventh," he says, inspecting the book for injury. "Figure I should just get it?"
"I don't know, are you a commitment kinda guy?" Subtle.
"I guess," he says, and I look at his face obliviously studying the cover of his book.
I sigh. Time to stop flirting with the client. "Alright, James, while you make the decision of a lifetime, I'm gonna go run into some other dudes, okay?"
He laughs and taps the book against the palm of his hand, standing quietly with his eyes on mine. I wish fiercely that I could get even a hint of what he's thinking. My chest aches a little at the thought that it might be me running through his mind. "I'll catch you later, Melanie."
He sure will.
...
"I'm taking him on rounds?"
Yaz blinks sleepily at her desk as I crane my head above the low wall separating us. Trish has gotta come home soon; Yasmin hates being on her own. She can't even sleep alone in that big old house.
She yawns and stretches. "Yeah, Yuqing was gonna get her assistant to do it but their daughter's graduating this week, or something something."
"I see."
She opens weary eyes to look at me. "Is that gonna be a problem?"
"NO, nah, I was just wondering why I was assigned for it, it was unexpected." Sitting in one of our little company cars and spending the majority of the day riding to check out James' new acquisition sounds like sweet torture. This man has shown no interest in me, but I've envisioned cornering him and showing just how interested I am dozens of times.
"If you're sure, Ni, or else let me know and I can work out something different. I figured it'd be a good match since you're familiar with each other."
Yaz looks like she's about to fall asleep at her desk. I'm not going to ask her for a single thing. "Want me to get you a coffee, Yazzy? I think Tom made some watered-down dark roast not too long ago."
Tom, in the cubicle across from Yasmin, shuffles in his seat and coughs loudly. "Nobody asks you to drink it, Melanie," he announces, fuzzy gray eyebrows scrunching low. He never takes his eyes off of his screen, and continues typing at what must be around 90 wpm.
"Come on, Tom, you my favorite old man but I've seen you waste a whole eight cups of water on two beans."
Yaz snorts and Tom glances conspiratorially up at me seconds before launching his empty plastic water bottle in a perfect arc at my head. I giggle and duck, reappearing back at the wall separating me and Yasmin.
She chuckles and stares unseeing at her screen. "I'm not about to be an excuse for you to get some, so no."
"I've been off caffeine for three weeks!" I protest. I honest-to-goodness wasn't even thinking about it. I probably would've gotten a small cup, but it wouldn't have been premeditated.
"Right. Ni, you know you really gotta start taking care of yourself," Yaz says, yawning again. I sulk, my chin hooked over the wooden divider.
"Says the one half-asleep at her computer."
"There's a difference between the two, and you know it," she drawls.
I huff and plop down into my chair, my momentum causing my seat to spin a bit, and I let it.
"Yasmin, I'm driving you home today," I call over the high wall. "And we can pick up your car tomorrow, alright?"
"Okay, Ma," she says. She's fallen asleep at the wheel before during her sleepless spells, but I don't think she's told Trish that. I think she'd stop the trips altogether if she knew.
"You kids have too much going on," Tom sighs, and the sound of him cracking his knuckles breaks the silence briefly before I hear the creak of his chair. He shuffles off to the break room, and a few minutes later, he's back with a cup of coffee for Yasmin.
"None for me, Tom?" I whine.
"None for you, trainwreck," he grumbles. But he pats my shoulder as he passes back to his cubicle.
...
Two days later I'm waiting in our little carpeted lobby for James to arrive, gratefully wearing comfortable sneakers for the long day ahead. Kitten heels are lovely but I refuse to drive all over the county in them.
James bursts through the door, five minutes late and breathing a little hard.
"Traffic?" I suggest, determined to be appropriately friendly this ENTIRE time. There's a light sheen of sweat at his temples, and I try not to be too fascinated by the way it catches the light above and frizzes the baby hairs in his widow's peak into curlicues. I mentally shake myself.
"Traffic," he huffs, flapping his briefcase in his hand and adjusting the waistband of his pants at his hip. "287 chewed me up and spit me back out this morning."
"Well I'm glad you made it out alive, we'll be having a lovely day on the company's dime," I joke, jingling the keychain in the palm of my hand.
"My favorite kind of change," James smiles. I avert my eyes and point to the dark gray sedan right outside before setting off. I'm not getting caught up.
The drive to the warehouse is possibly the most fun I've ever had on a road trip. James cracks jokes all the way down, and I have to warn him to give me a break so I can see the road through tears of laughter. I learn that he originally trained to be a carpenter like his father, then decided to be a professional sommelier, and dropped out when he became interested in whiskey over wine.
He asks about me, and I tell him I happened upon this job after throwing a dart at a bunch of college majors and landing on Communications, graduating, and spending a month frantically applying for any job in the city that paid over 30K a year. The usual. We talk for a while about that.
All too soon, we make a few turns and the new warehouse looms up above us. I crawl across the parking lot and we unfold ourselves from the car.
The outside of the warehouse is unyielding brick, and the inside is absolutely devoid of life, light, and sound. I know that's going to change with the opening of the factory, and I find myself actually looking forward to this project. Especially at James' side.
I watch him inspect and smooth a hand over the walls, and I get back to the job.
"Is repainting on the list of things to do?" I ask, standing at attention and bringing my notepad out of my blazer pocket.
"I don't think so, the old owner had the paint tested, and it's not in bad shape. I was thinking in the next ten years or so."
"Nice. How about we go around and see what needs to be done?"
For the next hour and a half we tour the factory, deciding to have an electrician out for the wiring within the next two weeks, a specialist for the older brewing machinery, and someone to completely tear down and reconstruct the office area. We leave the factory dusty, but satisfied.
Until I run over something in the road and get a flat.
"Well. It'd've been a shame if we got back to the office completely unscathed, right?" I smile brightly, directing the car to hobble woefully to the side of the road.
"Just tell me you've got the stuff to replace it?" James asks. I nod, and sigh, and step out into the heat. Tom's actually the one who petitioned to have a whole emergency roadside kit in all five of our company cars, and I'm grateful for it now.
I hand James the jack, and see that he's stripped his jacket off and rolled his sleeves up.
And honestly, I almost just stand there and watch the man work. His forehead is glistening by the time he pumps the jack up, and I see a trail of wet against his white shirt as he begins unscrewing the lug nuts.
I heave the spare over to him and shoo him off as I haul the shredded one into the trunk. And fifteen minutes later, we're back in the air conditioner, well on our way to the office and to a space where his heavy, hot scent isn't clouding my senses.
"Thank you, James," I say, shifting into drive.
"You're welcome. What would you do without me, huh?"
I spare him a look. "I'd change the tire."
He scrunches his top lip up. "I thought city people didn't know how?"
I laugh. "City people get stuck on the highway with flats after getting off work at CVS at 3AM."
I spend the rest of the ride telling him how I learned how to change a tire that very night, with Wikihow dimly lit on my dying phone, halfway to tears by the time I dropped the jack back into the trunk. Using the tools that my mother made me carry, but that my father could never get me to learn how to use. Good old days.
We part at the front door of the office, and I hand James his blazer from the backseat. "I'll be seeing you, Ben. I'll send you the notes and details for all the contractors by tomorrow."
He salutes. "I'll be expecting it, Don."
That could've gone worse, I guess, as I watch him walk away. I could've wrestled him into the backseat and stripped off his sweat-streaked shirt.
"Why are you eyeing that man up?"
I spin around. "Heyyyy, Tom. One of those vehicle kits came in handy today."
"I see. Are you going to ask Mr. Wright for his number when the contract's over?" Tom shuffles over innocently and shoves his hands into his pockets, gruff and amused.
"No, I'm not. I'm going to be on your case about how you're secretly a twenty year old man, though."
"Pardon?"
"No senior citizen I know can type above 30 words per minute, Tom. And you don't type "Google" into the Google search bar, either. I'm onto you."
He turns back toward the lobby. "Keep going, Mel, and I'll tell Yasmin about your little crush."
I gasp, following him inside. "You wouldn't dare!"
He snorts, holding the door open for me, and disappears back into his cubicle.
...
"Is this too fancy?"
"Winnie, it's a dress rehearsal, nobody's going to care."
"Perla and her conniving-ass sister are going to be dragging me behind my back if I'm too dressy or too casual." Her mother-in-law, full of good intent, really does treat Winnie like one of her own children. Unfortunately.
I revise my statement. "Two people are going to care."
She sighs in frustration and throws the pantsuit to the bed, grabbing up another combination of a frilled blouse and slacks that looks considerably... older than she usually dresses.
"Winnie, please don't go old-lady just because Perla has no filter, it's establishing a toxic power dynamic. Entertaining the terrorist."
Winnie chuckles dryly, considering her options. My phone buzzes in my back pocket and I leave Winnie to decide the fate of her attire. "Yaz?"
"Hey Ni, I got a question."
I lean up against the kitchen countertop and contemplate the spots on the bananas. "Yeah?"
"Can you sleepover tonight?"
"Ooo, sugarbear, I thought you'd never ask."
She giggles before replying, "Yeah, momma, I need your ass over here tonight. Trish got delayed on her way back and I can't do this again, I need sleep."
"Okay, Yaz, I'll be over in about a half hour. Want me to bring anything?"
"I'll cook, you bring the usual."
"Gotcha."
I hang up and let Winnie know I'm going, then I pack my bag: pajamas, my bonnet; the deluxe Scrabble board, which I'll just have to carry. I hear a knock when I'm searching through my dusty DVDs for my classic Barbie movies. I drop The Princess and the Pauper into my bag. Marv is at the door, shooting an easy grin when he sees me. "Hey Melanie, how you doing?"
I peck his cheek and hear Winnie's frustrated grunt from the other room. "I'm good, but I think your fiancée needs some support against the oncoming war."
He grimaces. "I asked my mother to chill next week, but I don't know if the message got through to her."
I'm fairly certain it didn't, and I shrug. "Well, I'm gonna let you guys have the place for the night, I'm going out."
He arches an eyebrow in mock incredulousness. "Another hot date, big sis?"
I shove my keys in my pocket and swing my bag over my shoulder. "Absolutely, hot little body and she can beat me at Scrabble."
He laughs. "Tell Yasmin I said hi."
I grin. As an afterthought, I grab three plums from the kitchen counter and throw them in my bag.
"Bye Marv," I say on my way towards the door, and a little louder: "Bye, Winnie baby!"
Yasmin's place is fifteen minutes away and I slow-roll my way there, stopping to get two pints of Ben & Jerry's from the store. Yasmin only ever has coffee flavors at her place, and I really am trying to kick the habit.
I park in the driveway in front of the sprawling front yard, the grass looking green and luscious enough to sink down into for a sun-bathed nap. But instead I burst into the house through the side door I know was left open for me, finding Yasmin seated at the counter with a spoon and Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch.
"Girl, don't I know you?" I smile, rustling around in my plastic shopping bag to hold up Cheesecake Core.
"Too well, Nini, put down your stuff and eat with me," Yasmin says, the weariness all in her voice. I consider her drooping face.
"Actually Yaz, gimme," I say, snatching her ice cream from under her hands, prompting a little shriek of protest from her before she simply folds her arms and drops her head onto them. "You're trying to sleep tonight. I'll finish cooking the shrimp scampi you forgot on the stove," I say, looking towards the bubbling pot.
"Shit, yeah," Yaz yawns, watching me as I wash my hands and put all the ice cream in the freezer. "You gonna cuddle with me tonight?"
"Nope, last time I woke up the little spoon," I say. "Messed the relationship dynamic all up."
Yaz giggles. Soon after, we eat, I bathe, and we make it halfway through a Scrabble game that Yaz would've won, if she hadn't fallen asleep during my turn.
I clean up the board while she gets ready for bed, and when I finally finish up my turn in the bathroom, she's wide awake again, watching the beginning of my favorite movie without me.
"Traitor," I hiss, sliding in next to her.
"Yep," she yawns. "Sure you don't wanna cuddle?"
"Come here," I motion, putting my arm out and letting her rest her head on my breast.
That's how we fall asleep, and that's how Trish finds us some hours later, with the DVD menu casting a pink glow in the room.
I wave sleepily and slide Yazzy off of my dead arm. "How was the drive?"
"Same old. Thought she'd be up," Trish says, stripping down purposefully and gathering a fresh towel and washcloth from the closet in the corner. She turns sideways to watch me watching her, her hard, bulky body glowing deliciously in the light of the TV, and smirks.
I turn over and fall back asleep, waking up to a citrus scent wafting over me. Trish is kissing Yazzy awake, but not having much luck. Yazzy groans and cracks her eyes.r"