“I’m so embarrassed. He’s, he’s going to think I’m some crazy girl that reads his papers or, or, oh I don’t know. But I’m so going to get fired for this!” I cried, and knowing it was my fault only made me feel worse.
Melody snorted. “You’re not going to get fired. He’s probably going to avoid us forever now, but you won’t get fired. Consider it a lesson learned.” She was shaking her head, a small smile at her lips. I’d wondered then, had Melody ever had any inappropriate interactions with any of the clients in the past? But still, whatever the reason, her certainty that I wouldn’t be fired reassured me.
“It’s interesting, though, what you read. Think he’s a writer?” she wondered aloud, and I knew that she’d see the romanticism of the poem after my poor choice had been properly scorned. In this case, the gashed-up hand was working well to do that for her.
“I don’t know,” I said, not admitting the part where I had a mental list of possible jobs for my previously faceless, dream man.
“Can I tell you the bad part now?” I cringed that I was about to come clean, but I also hated that I’d felt strange lately because I hadn’t told her. She was like my sister. And crushes were always better when someone else knew. That’s a fact.
“Hit me with the bad part,” she said, pulling off the freeway, the hospital coming into eye sight.
“Ever since I read that poem, I’ve been fantasizing about him. And today I finally saw him. I mean, obviously.”
Silence fell between us because she was a woman with eyes and therefore she knew what I finally saw him meant. He’s utterly, totally, dangerously handsome, and to have already been wanting him before I saw him? She knew I was sunk.
She found a spot and put the car in park, exhaling, sending a worry up my core.
“Britta, these people are like, billionaires,” her voice was quiet, to let me down gently, as if I didn’t already know this man was completely out of my league. But still, she was right, and it was the reminder I needed.
“I know,” I said, facing forward, looking at the red pillar directly in front of me with the word Emergency running vertically down the side of it.
“Okay, I won’t mention it again. Thank you for the ride,” I said, leaning forward, kissing her cheek. “I’ll pop by after they stitch me up so you know I’m okay. And please, don’t mention this stuff again, okay? I’m seriously mortified that I even had a thought,” I shook my head and grimaced, and she smiled softly, knowingly before saying her goodbyes and driving off.
She was right. I’m a twenty-year-old maid living in a studio apartment that smells like won tons, with nearly $250,000 in debt, no skills and no family, besides my cousin. What was I thinking?
4
Brooks
For the past three months, there’s been this smell all around my house. I’m not a guy who knows the notes in his cologne, so I sure as shit don’t know exactly what I’m smelling. But it reminds me of cake and body heat, something faint enough as to not overwhelm me but so indistinct that it drives me crazy, wreaking havoc on my cock. When I catch the scent, I want more, I turn around, and I’m unable to find it again. It’s fucking aggravating as hell and I have no idea where it is coming from and why it just started three months ago. No one comes over to my house. The last person to come to the house that wasn’t part of my service staff was my ex-girlfriend, if you could call her that, and that was over four months ago.
This morning I woke up a few minutes late, I hit snooze too many times. I was going to be slightly behind schedule today, and it was my fault, which made me even more irritated when I finally got out of bed. Then as soon as I dried off after my shower, I smelled that fucking smell again. That one that makes my cock stiff and my chest tight. It was kind of starting to piss me off a little, having something so intoxicating be invisible and impossible to trace. I knew I was going to be an extra special slice of asshole today, and as I got dressed, I tried to take deep breaths to relax.
I nodded and smiled my way through an entirely awful investors meeting that I attended only because I made a promise to a friend. It was a complete waste of time. And to make matters worse? There was a massive pothole in their parking garage and I ruined my shoe. Instead of my normal lunch meeting with my partner, I went home, not wanting to walk around in a wet shoe and sock a single moment longer.
It’d been a long time since I’d been at my house in the middle of the day on a Tuesday. Because I’m a fucking grown man with a job. But I was already grouchy and it would be a cold day in hell before I sat in a wet shoe through a work lunch. We didn’t have a lot of new stuff on our plates right now, since most of our work provided plenty of residual income.
I parked in the service driveway, next to a little shitty silver car who belonged to someone who worked for me, though I couldn’t be sure exactly who. I think I’d seen it once or twice over the last few years, but I couldn’t remember. I trusted all the services I used to hire
