Since you asked so nicely, Amie, here is another exerpt. The story’s changing so much from what it first was that the scene I gave a few days ago will probably end up being later in the book, rather than at the start like I originally thought. So…yeah, the two scenes have nothing to do with each other. lol
The next morning, Rose got herself out of the house and to her office early in the morning. She wanted to get work done before the rest of the office came to life. It was still only seven thirty by the time she’d finished with her email and turned to do some planning for one of her projects. She was so engrossed that she didn’t notice that the office was slowly becoming filled with her coworkers. The smell of coffee drifted in when someone decided it was time to fire up the pot. Phones began ringing and there was the quiet buzz of conversation drifting through the office.
It all became background noise for Rose as she focused on the work in front of her. She was concentrating so deeply that she jumped out of her seat in fright when her phone began ringing in a transfer from the receptionist’s desk. She glared at the interruption before reaching to pick it up.
“This is Rose speaking. How can I help you?”
“Good morning, Ma’am. I received a message yesterday about a computer that needed repairs? I’m just returning the phone call.” The deep voice on the line seemed familiar, but she couldn’t think of why. She shrugged.
“Yes, my phone company suggested I call someone who could do the necessary repairs on my computer. They said everything was operational on their end.”
“Ok, well how about we set up a time for me to come out to look at your computer and get it fixed up?” She was shocked by her body’s response to this man’s voice. The deep rumble, the way she could tell he was smiling on the other end, it all made her melt listening to him. She pulled herself together and focused on the conversation again.
“Sure, that’d be great. How soon can you come out?”
“I won’t be able to do anything until Thursday. Is that ok?”
“I guess. I can do most everything from work, if I have to. And I suppose I have a dialup connection if something is urgent.”
“Those dial up connections are killer, aren’t they? I don’t know how we ever thought of them as fast!”
She chuckled and said, “Yes, it is kind of crazy isn’t it, how much faster we move nowadays?” She wondered how she could keep him on the phone longer. She was fascinated by the sound of his voice.
“Indeed,” he said. “Thursday, around 1 p.m. ok with you?”
“Yes, that’s fine. I’ll just take a late lunch that day.”
“Ok, do you know where our shop is located?”
She told him she wasn’t sure of the precise location so she listened intently as he recited them to her. She actually knew just where the shop was at, but it was as good an excuse as any to keep him on the phone a little longer so she could listen to him speak. She figured there was no way on earth his looks would match the beauty of his voice, so she had to get as much from the phone experience as she could before she was faced with the reality!
For now, though, this man was her fantasy. He was a man whose voice could bring her to the brink of a climax just by speaking to her. She imagined him making love to her with his voice, and her eyes drifted shut on that fantasy. Her mind transformed his dry words of direction into sultry sex words which described everything she most wanted a man to do to her body.
Her eyes stayed shut until she heard him asking her a question and she realized that she’d tuned out all of the words his voice was producing and was just listening to the tone. She sat up straight in her chair and her eyes flew open.
“I’m sorry, I was distracted for a moment. Can you repeat what you just said?” She fiddled with a pencil and felt a blush rise up her cheeks as she realized what she’d just been doing.
She looked up suddenly and saw Delia standing in the doorway to her office and she could feel the blush burning even harder in her cheeks. Delia raised an eyebrow at her.
Rose wrapped up the conversation as quickly as she could, at that point. All she needed was for the man on the line or for Delia, her best friend, to realize what thoughts she’d been having just then. Of course, judging by Delia’s wicked grin, she knew exactly what had been on Rose’s mind!
As soon as Rose had dropped the phone into its cradle, Delia sauntered the rest of the way into the room, closing the door behind her.
“Have a sexy voice, did he?” She grinned widely at Rose. “You always were a sucker for a guy with a beautiful voice. I remember a few years ago when you dated that radio d.j. What was his name?”
Rose laughed out loud, “Jason Midnight! His voice was something, especially when he used his “radio” voice. I always had to have the lights off though when we were in bed, otherwise I couldn’t concentrate on his voice!” The two women laughed together.
“Yeah, but he was a jerk anyhow, Rosie. Beautiful voice or no.” Rose sobered and nodded.
“That’s the truth. Why are all the men I meet so wrong, Delia? Do I have a “Dud Magnet” or a “Screw With My Head Magnet” attached somewhere I can’t find it?” Rose frowned at her friend.
“Nah, Rosie girl. You don’t have any magnets on you that I’ve seen. I think it’s just that there aren’t all that many good guys around. That guy I mentioned to you a few days ago is a good guy, though. Have you decided if you’ll let me fix the two of you up for dinner soon? I talked with him about it and he’s game.”
“I don’t know. My brother is trying to set me up with someone too, you know? He asked me about it this weekend.”
“Oh, you went over to your mom’s this weekend? I was wondering where you’d gotten to when you didn’t answer any of my phone calls. You’ve been worrying me lately, you know. You don’t answer the phone, don’t return messages, and you haven’t been answering your door when I stop by. I’m surprised I was able to corner you here at work, but I guess that’s because your line was already busy so Toni just let me on through.”
Rose eyed the pencil in her hand guiltily as Delia told her all of this. If she was even hearing about it from Delia she knew her solitary behavior was really getting bad. Delia was normally a “live and let live” type of girl. She didn’t demand Rose’s undivided attention every day, but when they did get together, it was as if they’d never had any time apart. Usually, there were not any words of scolding for not being in touch because they each just figured the other would be in touch before too long and their friendship would proceed from there.
Things had changed three months ago though. That was when her life had started unraveling at the seams. At work that day, she’d had one client who had thrown a tantrum because Rose wasn’t able to provide the design she wanted in the price range she wanted. Then another client nit picked every single detail of the design Rose had proposed that day. That client hadn’t really wanted anything changed when it came down to it, she’d just wanted to complain about everything before agreeing to it. By the time lunch rolled around, Rose was ready to call it a day and go home.
Then, her boss had called her into the conference room for a “little chat.” Rose had half an hour to drive herself mad with worry about what the little chat would be about. Finally, walking into the room to join her boss, she was convinced that she was going to be given her walking papers.
It wasn’t as bad as that, but the gist of it was that her boss had heard the problems the clients had been causing and thought it’d be a good idea for Rose to work behind the scenes more. She thought Rose should let one of the more senior designers do the presenting of ideas for a few months.
Essentially, although she phrased it that she wanted Rose to have the chance to grow into her ideas more and become more confident in selling them, in Rose’s mind it came down to her boss not wanting her interacting with the clients any time soon. It was thoroughly depressing to Rose, since a lot of what she loved was the time spent communicating with each client about how they wanted a room or a house to look at the end of a remodeling project.
She had spent the remainder of the work day trying to focus on project after project and having no luck. She finally called it a day after she could take no more of the creative block. She left the office half an hour before five, and was hoping the ride home on the bus would go easily since she was heading out early.
That thought was quickly laid to rest when she was stepping up the steps of the bus and snapped the heel of her left shoe off. The force of the heel divorcing itself from the shoe was enough to thrust her against the side of the bus, causing a bruise down the whole side of her body.
Sighing, she had paid her fare and hobbled to an empty seat in the middle of the bus. She’d sat there examining her shoe, holding the stub of the broken heel in her hand. She was thankful that she’d left work earlier than normal because at least there was a seat for her on the bus. At her stop, she limped her way to the exit and down the stairs. She hopped off of the bus, on to the curb, and began her hobble down the last block to her house.
Suddenly, two kids were shrieking as they ran past her and a third child ricocheted off of her in his hurry to run past her. She was thrown to the ground, right into the middle of a puddle. She sat there, wet, dirty, dripping, and wanted to burst out crying. She looked the last little distance to her building and felt her heart lift as she saw her boyfriend, Colin, waiting at the base of the steps. She hauled herself out of the mud, ready to run up to him and throw her arms around him for some comfort and hugs.
“Rose. My God, what happened to you? Are you ok?” He looked her up and down with some disdain. She wondered if he’d always had that snobbish look about his handsome features.
“I’ve had a horrible day, Col…” She reached out to him for a hug and he took a step backwards to get away from her. She frowned at him in confusion.
He said, “Listen, Rose, I wanted to talk to you.” Her jaw snapped shut as she stared at him. He didn’t even care that she was standing there, her body soaked to the skin, so long as she didn’t try touch him. He just went on to what he had to say, as if he’d rehearsed the whole speech. Her eyes narrowed on his face.
“Yes, I wanted to tell you that I want to…well, I want to stop seeing you. I don’t feel like this relationship is going anywhere and I don’t think there is any reason to continue it.” She nodded her head silently at him, feeling as if the world had tilted the wrong way that day. What else was going to happen before she crawled into her bed for sleep?
“I know now that I’d never marry you. I mean, we come from such different backgrounds, there is no way I could marry you. My family would never approve of you. So, I just don’t see any point in going on pretending we have a future when I know we don’t.”
He had said all of this while staring at the street, watching the traffic rush by. He turned at the end of his speech and said, “Well, I guess that’s it then, Rose. I’ll be seeing you. Oh, I’ll have all of your belongings that you’ve left at my apartment packed up and shipped to you before the end of the week. I don’t believe I’ve left anything in yours, but if you find something just send it to the office. Bye now.” With that he’d turned and sauntered off, spine straight and whistling a happy tune.
She’d watched him walk away, until he’d turned the corner out of sight. She had totally forgotten that she was soaked and dirty, except that she wanted to be safely locked inside her apartment before she started crying. Certainly all thoughts of being held by her boyfriend had fled in the wake of his astonishing monologue.
She hadn’t told any of her family or her friends what had happened. There was no way to hide from her family the fact that she and Colin were no longer together though when he hadn’t accompanied her to several Sunday gatherings. He’d always come to all of her family gatherings after they’d started dating seriously. She’d hidden the details of his break up speech from everyone though. The whole day had been humiliating from start to finish, and then his break up speech was the worst. He had implied that her background wasn’t up to the rigorous standards of his family when her family had opened their arms to him simply because she’d asked them to. They’d asked curious questions about him, but had shown remarkable restraint overall. Certainly no one had ever even hinted that they thought he wasn’t worthy of becoming a part of their family. They all knew that she was serious about him, intended to marry him, simply because she’d brought him to dinner. None of them ever brought any one home to meet the family unless their intentions were aimed at marriage.
She simply told her family that she and Colin had mutually decided to part ways. They’d clucked over her and then let her be, at first. It hadn’t been until work had swamped her that they’d started worrying over her. She didn’t have the heart to tell them that she was more or less on probation at work for her clumsiness in dealing
with the clients.Her friends were not so easy to dodge when it came time to tell them about the breakup. She’d gushed a few too many times about how wonderful she thought Colin was, and how she was looking forward to planning their wedding. None of them bought that the decision was mutual, least of all Delia. She’d have slain dragons for Rose had Rose let her. Ever since they were in college together, the two had been the closest of friends. Even telling Delia the full story of that day was too much for Rose, though, and she’d never shared all the details of her probation nor of the breakup. Delia was left to guess and come up with all the wrong answers for Rose’s recent workaholic behavior.
Delia suddenly reached out and took the pencil from Rose, interrupting her silent ruminations. Delia dropped the pencil on the desk and grabbed Rose’s hand and tugged her to her feet.
“Come on, honey. You need a break, even if it’s only a short coffee break. You can tell Auntie Delia all about what’s going on. I know something is going on, Rose, so don’t bother denying it, ok? Let’s go!” Delia looped her arm through Rose’s and pulled her to the door.
Rose said, “Wait, Del, I need my purse!”
Delia shook her head, “No you don’t. Coffee’s on me today.”
So Delia and Rose went to the little coffee shop on the corner across from Rose’s office and Rose reluctantly told Delia about the warning she had gotten from her boss a few months before.
“This is why you’ve been working like a woman obsessed, Rose? Are you sure?” Delia watched her with worried eyes. Rose smiled weakly at her friend and nodded.
“That’s it. Not really any big secrets here, Delia, just me burying myself in my work so that I can keep this job. I have a meeting scheduled with Tammy next week. I will know more then about whether my efforts are paying off then.” Rose sighed.
“I still wish you would tell me what happened with Colin. I know something happened and I know it was most definitely not a mutually decided break up!” Delia wagged a finger at her and then leaned her chin on her hand to look at Rose. Rose just shrugged and asked Delia about her life to distract her. Her friend gave Rose a look that said she knew it was a distraction but she would let it slide this time. Rose quirked a smile at her and raised an eyebrow.
“I started seeing this gorgeous man last week! Oh my, he took my breath away when I saw him!” And with that, Delia was off and running telling about her men, her experiences delivering flowers and selling little stuffed animals in the florists shop. She couldn’t believe how crazy people went for these little creatures, cute though they were. She’d seen two ladies cat fight over the last of the season’s special animal. It was, she assured Rose, very frightening to watch two grown women tussle over one tiny stuffed black cat.
The two laughed and chatted and finished their coffees. Delia took care of the bill and then the two walked back to Rose’s office together. As they were getting close to the doors, Delia pulled on Rose’s arm to stop her.
“Will you go out with my friend, Rose? I know you are busy with work, but I promised him you’d go out with him. Please?”
Rose rolled her eyes and nodded. “You haven’t gotten his hopes up about me, have you? Haven’t told him I’m husband hunting or that I have hips perfect for childbearing or anything like that have you?” The two had a friend from college who continued to claim that men loved her wide hips because they indicated her ability to bear many children. It was a constant source of amusement for them.
“No, no. He just wants to have dinner with you. No commitments or expectations beyond that. Ok? Would Friday night be ok? Or would Saturday be better?”
They decided Saturday would be better and that Rose and her date would meet at The Blue Moon Jazz Bar for drinks around six in the evening.
