I’d never done anything like that before in my life, not even close. It was an unbelievably insane thing to do.
And it was magnificent.
Until I woke up the next morning and he was gone.
I knew I’d f**ked up. He was amazing. I was a drunken one night stand, I didn’t have his number and didn’t know his name.
I’d instantly plummeted into the depths of despair and washed away my hangover that very night with more cosmopolitans at Club, this time with Tracy bartending and Cam at my side where I explained the depths of my despair at length and every time the door opened or there was movement in that direction, I craned my neck, hoping he was coming in looking for me.
He wasn’t.
It wasn’t until three days later when I felt my comforter slide back, waking me from a deep sleep, my mind and body froze in terrified panic, then his weight hit the bed, his never to be forgotten voice said, “Hey babe,” his arms wrapped around me and he kissed me. Then he did other things to me, really, really good things.
Thus it began and even though at the start I was hopeful it would change – I’d manage to ask his name or he’d ask my number or he’d knock on the door during the day or he’d spend the night and take me out to breakfast – it didn’t change.
And sitting there in my office, staring out the window when I should have been working, I realized that I was right there with Tracy all this time. I was hopeful. I wanted that feeling back that I had when I first saw him and the feeling I got, but I foolishly denied, every time he came to call. The butterflies in my stomach. The certainty that was borne of nothing but instinct that he was the one.
But a year and a half slid by and I kept my hope while losing my dignity again and again and again.
Now things had changed.
And now I was learning that he might be hot, he might be confident, he might move with grace and there might be a multitude of things that were fascinating about him but he also could be an annoying, bossy jerk who told me what to do, didn’t listen to me and could hurt Troy’s feelings without batting an eye.
On this thought my phone rang and I jumped. It was the house phone which never rang. Everyone called my cell. But I’d turned off my cell so I could get some work done thus Tracy coming by for a surprise visit after she heard about my break-in and she couldn’t get hold of me.
Automatically I reached out and took it off its base then wished I didn’t as I beeped the button and put it to my ear thinking it was probably a marketer because on the rare occasion my phone rang it was always a marketer.
“Hello?” I asked hesitantly, ready to beep it off the instant I heard a marketer.
I didn’t hear a marketer.
“Ohmigod!” Cam shrieked.
I blinked and my chin came off my knee. Camille Antoine was not a girlie shrieker.
“Cam?” I called.
“Ohmigod!”
Oh boy. I knew what this was.
“Cam, the break-in… it’s cool, it’s –”
“You will not believe what happened!”
My back straightened.
Ohmigod! Leo proposed! Tracy, Cam and I had been waiting for-flipping-ever for Leo to propose (Cam obviously more than Trace and I but just barely). None of us could figure out, since they’d known each other for five years and been living together for four, what was taking so long.
Now it had happened.
Yay!
“Oh Cam, I’m so –” I started to gush.
But she cut off my gushing with, “Mitch asked to be taken off the case!”
I blinked again.