Cancelled (5 page)

Johnathan's predictions came true; the last drawing received approval near the end of the workday on Friday. Bob called to say a team of engineers needed to evaluate the entire design one last time before work on the prototype could start. Johnathan wasn't buying it, but he didn't really care. If approval to prototype had come in, he knew neither he nor Alex would feel free to have a good time this weekend.

His beloved '87 911 Carrera was detailed and Johnathan retrieved his dry cleaned tuxedo to prepare for the dinner. He left a little before 5:30 to pick up Alex at her town home. Shifting the gears through the city streets, alternating between the car's muscle and restraint, he wondered if his Dad would have approved of her. He knew Anna loved his business partner like a daughter, so his Dad probably would feel similarly. Racing the project car he and Daniel Michaels restored while he was in high school, Johnathan lamented the loss of his father's real time advice.

Alex stepped out from the white door of the small historic town home she owned near GWU. Nearly skipping to the silver Porsche in her driveway, the perfect James Bond stunt double opened the passenger door for her. Alexis slid gracefully into the leather seat, tucking her long legs into the small space before the dash.

“That color black looks amazing on you.” Johnathan paid her a compliment as he returned to the driver's side and brought the engine back to life.

“Black is black.” She rolled her eyes at him.

“Ah, artists would disagree. Black is never just black. There's ebony, onyx, jet...” Johnathan glanced in his rear view mirror for space to change lanes. He returned his gaze to her cocktail length dress with a hem about three inches from her knee. “You look fantastic in jet, Miss Rodriguez.”

Music from the radio allowed them to avoid conversation for the rest of the short trip back up M street. Once at the hotel, Johnathan hesitated between giving the keys to the punk valet and leaving Alex alone to park the car. He opted to stay by her side, if only to give the semblance she was taken.

Their table was near the back of the pack, an indication they were low on the totem pole as contractors. Two older women and their young nieces, or maybe grand daughters took up Johnathan's side of the circle. Nerves made dining impossible; Johnathan couldn't take a drink or butter a roll without starting a chain reaction of catastrophe amongst the crowd of dishes on the table. Alex glared at him , but continued to make conversation with the man hired to photograph the auction sitting on her left.

“So what's your connection to the company?” a younger woman in red with stick straight brown hair asked, striking up a conversation.

“Oh. Um. We–I mean, I, am designing a robotic manipulator for one of their humanitarian projects.” He looked to Alex for help, but she was still captivated by the shaggy beast in a penguin suit with an SLR strapped around his neck.

“Manipulator?” Both girls started giggling under the stern look of the other two women.

The girl in the red dress leaned closer to him. Too close.

“What does your manipulator, manipulate?”

“Packages.” Johnathan said without any thought, and the girls started laughing. This time their chaperones glared at him, like he was purposely flirting back. “No, I mean supplies. Supplies for aid workers and ground troops.”

Johnathan wanted to get out of here. Nothing was going according to plan. He was trapped as the eye candy of two teenagers and worse, Alex was flirting with the help. He excused himself to the cash bar and intended on staying there.

Johnathan's absence caught Alex's attention as she excused herself to the ladies room. She spied him making new contacts at the bar, and continued her way out of the banquet room and into the wood paneled hallway towards the restrooms.

While still in a stall, she heard Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber come into the bathroom. They stopped at the mirror.

“Sucks only one hot guy. Maybe I can talk him into a dance or two.” The lipstick red dress smiled at her reflection and flipped her hair.

“I don't want the old photographer guy. That ugly woman is all over him. She can have him.” The royal blue frock pulled her strapless top up from the sides but the battle was a lost cause. She didn't have enough to keep the fabric up.

Handing her co-conspirator a piece of gum, the red dress finished her final touch ups. “With any luck, sexy robot guy will drink enough to quit pining for that stupid woman with him.”

Alexis opened her stall door and glided towards the sinks. Shoulders back, chin high, she offered the two twits a condescending, gracious smile.

“Too much to drink, and he'll be useless later.” The blue dress teased, completely unabashed by Alex's presence.

Both girls laughed and began walking away.

“I doubt that.” The red dress had the last word before both girls' voices were swallowed by the heavy, wooden door closing behind them.

Alex thrust her hands under the automatic faucet. The cold water didn't register. She didn't feel like she had Johnathan's attention all night. It's why she started talking to Scott the Photographer in the first place. She didn't want him to feel obligated to amuse her, in case he wanted to make new friends.

Her ashen face reflected in the mirror evaporated her self-delusion. She didn't want Johnathan to make new friends. She wanted him to want her. The last few weeks had sucked. Constantly wondering if he felt something more; being worried she was misinterpreting the extra touches and longer lunches.

She exhaled up with her bottom lip and fixed her gaze. This was ridiculous! She never backed away from anything she wanted, and right now, she wanted Johnathan in a very bad way. All these years, he had been rock solid, made her laugh, been the one man she depended on to make her feel safe. She narrowed her eyes at herself and touched up her own lipstick. If he didn't want her, tough. She'd just have to change his mind.

Alexis surprised Johnathan by interrupting his conversation with a project manager from Neimer Electronics. Two scotches into the evening, Johnathan gave a weak regret as he followed Alex onto the dance floor. He had no idea what was going on.

A slow Sinatra song kept the beat for them and a handful of other couples on the dance floor. Spinning to lyrics about living a life that was full and without regrets stirred both dance partners as they wondered if this was real. Their bodies so close, the heat wasn't just from body temperature. Looking at each other, the crowded banquet room failed to matter.

“You want to leave a little early?” Alexis fixed her eyes on Johnathan's blue irises and refused to release him from her request.

Johnathan's skin flushed. He leaned slightly near her ear. “Actually, I rented a room here for the night. You know, in case we both had too much to drink and needed a place to crash.”

Alex's toned arms flexed around him slightly tighter than before. He pulled back to see a blazing smile greeting his forethought.

“Hmmm. I think...I think we should follow through with your plan, Mr. Michaels.” Alex laughed and jaunted off the dance floor.

Checked in with the front desk to get his key, Johnathan hurried back to the hallway near the elevator. Alex met him there with two unattended champagne bottles she had swiped on the way out. Johnathan nuzzled his Bonnie Parker in the elevator and they took a solo ride up to the eighth floor.

The room was a standard suite with one king bed and an over sized bathroom. Johnathan popped the cork off one bottle and poured it into the two water glasses next to the coffee pot. Clinking the tacky glasses together, both friends took a swig. Her catty grin awakened the ferocious hunger in Johnathan. He pulled her in for a proper kiss, nothing sweet and friendly like New Year's Eve.

Nothing prepared him for the volts of energy still buzzing on his lips. He didn't have long to consider their first real kiss before Alex was on him for a second, third, and fourth. Her hands expertly removed his jacket and released his shirt from the waist of his pants. A small voice in his head screamed for him to stop and think, but he didn't care. For too many years he had dreamed about being with this gorgeous woman.

He regained the offensive and buried his face in the hollow of her neck, right at the base of her hairline. She moaned slightly as he inhaled every feminine scent about her. His hands didn't remain idle, unhooking the small metal clasp at the top of her dress and sliding down the zipper.

She brought his hands back to the front before he could slip the straps off her shoulders. The tight black cocktail dress turned into a billowy, shapeless blob covering her front, but exposing her back. She needed his attention.

Before shedding her dress, Alex flipped off her heels and lightly touched his cheek with her hand. He leaned into it, feeling the same hesitation.

“Are you sure?”

He chuckled. Reclaiming her lips and rubbing his cheek to hers, he took a breath. “Alexis, I have fantasized this moment for months. I don't know what I did to cause tonight– I've been wracking my brain for weeks to tell you how much I am in love with you–but yes, I am absolutely sure I want this. I want you.”

Alexis fell into Johnathan and they stumbled backwards towards the bed. She was relentless in responding to his reassurances, desperate to make them both naked in seconds. Johnathan grabbed her hands and brought them to his lips.

“Sssshhh.” He kissed her gently on the lips and then tilted his face up to lightly brush her forehead. Enveloping her more petite frame with his masculine stature, he held her in an embrace. “We've waited so many years, we don't have to rush.”

Before Alexis could respond, she felt Johnathan's hands finding their way up her thighs. A brief glance of surprise flashed across his face as his hand reached a clear physical sign of her desire for him. She sucked her breath between her teeth and closed her eyes.

“It's your plan. I'm just following along.” She smiled and leaned her head back, ready to experience an amazing night of love with her best friend.

4

T
he alarm clock shouted a morning radio show. Johnathan grinned. Releasing the pillow next to him, he sat up full of energy. Monday had never felt better.

Seventeen hours since he had left Alexis after a late brunch, he purposely took extra care in getting ready for work. Brushing his teeth to an upbeat rock anthem, he decided to take her someplace nice for lunch today. Maybe even take a two-hour.

An array of the latest designer names donned glass bottles of varying shapes with slightly different shades of amber liquid. Spritzing the same designer label he wore Saturday night, his hand accidentally knocked a full bottle of an old standby–the traditional man-man's cologne–that his mother bought him every Christmas. The racket it made as it spun around the porcelain sink made him grapple for it, missing the bottle a few times as it slalomed back and forth. Finally wrestling it near the drain, he deposited the bottle into a box of donations for the Veteran's Hospital. Anna would be sure to ask him for the box once she returned home for the summer.

Outside, an unseasonably warm first day of March greeted Johnathan. He removed his Targa Top and cranked up a band he worshiped in high school that was still making music, more than a decade later. His late father hated the Seattle grunge and West Coast geek rock that had frequented Johnathan's CD stereo. It was mostly Johnathan's shaggy hairstyle that his father griped about. Even doing six and out, a few quirks of Daniel Michael's Army days lingered in Johnathan's childhood.

Johnathan was still jamming when he cruised into his paid spot in the parking garage. Slinging his black bag over his shoulder, he strolled into work on cloud nine. Eric stood sentry outside of Johnathan's office door.

“You're early,” Johnathan said as he noticed him.

“You're late.”

Johnathan fumbled with his keys to unlock his door. Docking into his work station, he checked for a flashing light on his phone, a signal for voice mail. He looked at Eric, waiting for the reason for his pouncing.

“We have a problem with the hydraulic lines for the Hedis prototype.”

“What kind of problem? I'm expecting final approval today.”

“I know. I know. I forgot you cut costs by allocating the lines we already had in inventory. You didn't resource them out.”

Johnathan opened the company's job tracking software and sure enough, Eric was right. He had forgotten to add them to the resource list for the project because they were already in inventory, not a new purchase.

“You used them, didn't you?”

“No one allocated them in the system. They were from an old job. Our deal was anything left over...” Eric took a few steps backwards in defense. He tried to spread the blame.

“So it wasn't in the damn computer. You've had the Hedis paperwork for two months. Didn't you think it'd be a good idea to familiarize yourself with the budget and cost-analysis?”

Eric crossed his arms in front of him. Johnathan rarely pushed back when it came to accountability. “You know I don't look at that stuff–“

“When are you going to realize all of this, everything you see here, is because Alex and I turn a profit? We aren't a charity for wayward engineers.” He paused to let his last statement sink in. “You have to start paying attention to the dollars and cents of your actions.” Johnathan rubbed his temples, trying to think of any other way to get a hold of more cables without re-ordering them. Visions of his company ten years down the road flashed through his mind, with Eric still mucking up his best laid plans.

Eric's eyes wandered around Johnathan's small, but neat office. He stared at all of the blueprints on the wall; projects that he and Johnathan worked on together. “You know, there was a time before Alex when we had more fun and you weren't such an ass.” Eric laid a paper clip sculpture on Johnathan's desk before turning aroound to return to the Cave.

Johnathan picked up the mangled office supply and held it between his finger and thumb. From the pliability of the joints, he figured Eric stood outside of his office a good fifteen to twenty minutes. A physical manifestation of his guilt over the screw up. Johnathan set the little star back on his desk and tried to think of a feasible solution. He'd cover for Eric and say he didn't realize the cables were already allocated on another project. But he wasn't going to face Alex until he had a plan to recoup the costs.