Someone I Used to Know - By Blakney Francis Page 0,60
picked out. I was starting to be a little off-put by everyone’s shock that I wasn’t treating my house like a trashcan or brothel. Did I really come across as such a slob?
I hid my real feelings with a smile, choosing to hear his question as rhetorical.
“Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself –,” I glanced down to the open folder resting on the coffee table between us, “– Tad.”
“First off, you should know that I have a huge amount of respect for your work, Mr. Davies. Your portrayal as a teenage runaway in Letters to My Former Self changed my life.” His voice was layered thick with emotion, and I almost shuddered under the intensity of his gaze. It was like he was trying to hypnotize me with the directness of his eye contact. I found it disconcerting.
“Er…Thank you.” I said it as sincerely as possible, but even still, the sentence peaked at the end, like I was asking a question rather than asserting a sentiment.
“I was born in Ohio,” he said in a much lighter voice, turning on a dime from creepy to chirpy. “I come from a big family and it taught me a lot about responsibility. It also taught me how to organize…”
It didn’t bode well for mine and Tad’s relationship that I zoned out after the second sentence. I didn’t need an admirer as my assistant anyways. If you surrounded yourself with people constantly blowing hot air up your ass, your ego could float away with you. My sister, Brittany, was practically trailed by a fan club of minions, and she’d once had the audacity to submit her name for Emmy consideration for her work on a half-hour teen soap opera. She was such a joke.
I had to give it to Tad though; he was a sharp dresser. And even Adley would have been impressed by his posture.
Fucking great! How did she sneak back into my thoughts? Mentally, I gave her a great shove, and tried to refocus on Tad. He’d moved onto his college experience and how it taught him perseverance.
“Look, mate…” I cut him off suddenly. “I don’t think this is going to work out.”
Much to my surprise, in the face of rejection, Tad neither recoiled nor saddened. In fact, he looked delighted by the turn of events. Warning bells chimed in my head like noon at a clock tower, as the slightly smaller man slid off his chair and onto the sofa beside me with a pleased grin.
“I hoped you would feel it too.” His hand came to rest on my knee above the fabric of my jeans, and my eyes zeroed in on it with paralyzed incredulity. “I don’t believe in mixing business with pleasure either.”
Tad moved closer, and I’d become just about shocked silly. It wasn’t the first time I’d been come on to by a man, but it was the first time it had come so out of the blue.
“Umm…am I interrupting?” The blond who had fled my bed hours before asked from the doorway. She’d forfeit the option of jeans, in favor of a pair of cut-off shorts, and I couldn’t say that I was complaining about the change. Her golden legs went on for kilometers. There was a more golden hue to her skin and a rosy flavor on her cheeks that hinted towards a long day in the sun. The theory was only proven more accurate by the even messier than usual wave to her long hair, which looked like it had been hand-dried by the beaming sun.
“Adley!” I rushed towards her, pouring a million thanks into the expression on my face. She’d just made extricating myself from the situation I’d just stepped in, a whole lot easier. I didn’t like to hurt people’s feelings. Even with the girls I’d been with, I much preferred to slip out of bed unnoticed than have to face their wounded feelings. Tad seemed like a nice (if not presumptuous) bloke. “Sweetheart, I’m so glad your home.”
She made a horrified face which I hid from Tad by laying a sloppy kiss right on her lips. With her arm shackled tightly in my grip, I turned back to the third party in the room with a bright smile, happy to pretend nothing at all had happened and let him have his pride.
“Thanks for stopping by, Mr. …” I trailed off. I’d never gotten his last name so I was forced to fill in the blank with the next