Fated (4 page)

Chapter Five

I pull up to the house an hour later, completely stuffed. I see Mar’s car when I pull in and I park beside it. My car is nicer than I deserve, seeing as I paid for it in cash. I walk through the front door and Marsi stops what she is doing in the kitchen.

“How was your appointment?”

“Good,” I answer her, suspecting that she is going to pick me for information.

“Good,” her eyes are wide like she is going to lecture me, “Soph
, this appointment is about the court case that you have.” Yup, there it is.

“Yeah, Austin said that he can probably figure it out.”

“Well that’s good. Where’d you go afterwards?”

“What makes you think that I went somewhere afterwards?”

“Because your appointment was at eleven and it’s almost one now.”

“Well Austin and I got some lunch afterwards.”

“Sophie,” she exhales.

“What?”

“I told you, he is incredible attractive, but he’s a womanizer.”

“Mar, it wasn’t anything like that,” I know that I
am lying, “We just went as friends. I mean, geez, I watched a girl come out of his office when I was going in.”

“What? That’s disgusting,” she says.

“Well if it’s any consolation I don’t think he fucked her in there, just kissed her a lot.” I smirk but the fun I get out of making Mar uncomfortable with my crudeness isn’t all that fun this time, mostly because the sentence causes me to become a little jealous. I do get a good laugh when she starts to look uncomfortable though.

“How do you know?” she asks me.

“It didn’t smell like sex when I walked in.”

“
Oh that’s reassuring. Look maybe sending you to him for your case is a bad idea. We can find someone else.”

“What, why?”

“Because he’s tempting.”

“Mar, you forget that my life just brutally fell apart including my fiancée who was just using me for my money, the last thing that I am looking for is a guy but sex maybe that could work.” Bingo, the look of disgust comes onto her face, “I bet that Austin could take my mind off of things for a while.” I joke with her. Her mouth drops open as she looks to me and says,

“Soph,” Marsi was always the one who was more… well how do I put this nicely, prude.

“Oh, you don’t think that he knows what moves the ladies like.” I say
winking at her.

“You’re disgusting.” She says and runs up the stairs.

“Oh, come on, Mar,” I say running up after her, “I’m only kidding.”

“Look, Soph, I’m just trying to look out for you. I want you to be happy and I kn
ow that he could never do that.” She spits out spinning around to look at me.

“You don’t have to worry about that. He wouldn’t go there with me anyways.”

“Why not,” she says all of sudden defensive.

“Well, you managed to scared him off of me completely,” I think I frown a bit, “And he said that he could never look at you that way, so I can only imagine that he would think the same of me.” I know that I now sound sad.

“Soph,” she gasps.

“What?” I ask her looking away from her.

“You like him.”

“What
? No,” I stop myself from saying anything further.

“You have a crush.” She’s teasing now. “I know he can be very enticing.”

“You know though, it’s not even that though,” and I see her face fall when she sees that I’m serious.

“Well then what is it?”

“Alright, well I met him before I got here.” I confess to her.

“What do you mean?”
she’s confused

“He had a case in Savannah, and that’s where I stopped to rest for the night. We were both at the same bar and started talking. I basically threw all my shit on him and he listened. He actually listened. Well he paid my tab and then left to the hotel, which I was staying at as well. I had to make sure that he knew I didn’t
tell him that to make him feel pressured into paying for me.” She nods her head saying that she explains and she would have done the same thing. “So, I caught up with him, he walked me to my room, kissed me on the cheek, and walked away.”

“That’s it?” she asks me.

“No, I woke up the next morning and went to leave there was a note under my door from him.”

“What did it say?”

“I hope on day that fate will magically bring you back into my life.” I had memorized it after the many, many times that I looked over it.

“Austin wrote you that?”
she asks, stunned

“Yeah, why?”
I ask her.

“Well, it’s just not something he would ever say to a girl that he would just bring home.” I
just shrug my shoulders at her.

Tuesday morning was something that I didn’t want to wake up and face. Sunday I could handle due to the fact that I was a little hung-over.
Monday I had errands that I had to take care of, but today, I am able to just sit and wallow in my self-misery.

I finally pull my body out from the covers at two and
I find myself sitting on my balcony, after I changed into a clean pair of lounge wear with my cup of coffee in my hands.

“Ah,” I scream as a stream of water comes over the edge of t
he balcony railing, splashing me in the face, it’s freezing. I pick myself up as I look over the edge.

“Hey,” I see Austin look to me
grinning with a massive water gun in one hand, “I saw you sitting out here by yourself. What are you up to?”

“Oh, you know, wallowing in my misery.” He laughs, and I notice that he has a drink in his other hand and I wonder if he is already drinking.

“Nonsense, come hang out with me.” he says not asking me.

“I’m not sure-,” he cuts me off.

“I won’t take no for an answer. Come on if you don’t come over on your own free will I will come in there and drag you out.” He demands me.

“What are you going to break in?”
I retort.

“No, Mar gave me a spare key… I’ll just use it. I’m sure she would understand.”
He  shrugs.

“Ugh,” I sound at him getting up off the chair, “I’m not putting on real clothes; I’m coming just as I am.”

“I wouldn’t expect you any other way, get up.” He smiles.

I walk out of my room just as I said I was going to, still in my black yoga pants and my white tank top; sliding flip flops as I walk to the back door. I open the glass door and meet up with him and he smiles.

“You look lovely,” he says and it causes me to laugh.

“Thank you, as do you.” for a moment I can’t take my eyes off of him, he is wearing a pair of work out shorts with a white T-shirt and a pair of sunglasses, I was sad that they were concealing his incredible eyes.

“This way, my dear.” He says using the water gun to point me in the direction of his house. We walk up the back and into his open door and he closes it and then shows me into his ‘music room.’ I see the guitars sitting around the room and the enormous CD collection.

“Still keeping CD’s?” I ask him.

“Yeah, there’s just something about having the case. I have a few albums stacked around here somewhere.” He says as I thumb through the collection, finding something that interests me.

“No.
Fucking. Way.” I say holding up one CD. “1997 called they want their band back.”

“Are you holding Limp Bizkit?”
He asks, laughing.

“Yup
.” I smirk, secretly dying to listen to it.

“Which one?”

“
Three Dollar Bill Ya’ll,” I say smiling and walking over to the CD player that sits in the corner. I skip through the CD until I get to track nine. “Favorite song that they have ever done,” As the guitar to their cover of Faith encases the room and I look over to Austin who has started to laugh at me as I am sashaying and dancing over to him while singing the first verse at him, he’s smiling and I realize that this song might describe us, perfectly. When the chorus starts Austin jumps up from his chair and starts jumping around the room singing/screaming along with Fred Durst. As the second verse starts he begins singing it to me like I was doing with the first. And then we start in on the chorus again together, until he screams the words in the song and we go along screaming the words into one another’s face, I feel the need to then mimic the sound of the record being scratched on the table as Austin starts to play the air guitar around the room. The song finally ends and we erupt into laughter.

As the secret track comes through I start to rap the whole thing into Austin’s face as he laughs at me but by the time that the song is fading from the stereo his face has become more serious as he is looking at me until the following song comes on and pulls us out of our daze.

“Limp Bizkit, huh?” he says smirking to me.

“What we all have guilty pleasures?” I say looking back at his CD collection, “Plus I’m not the one that owns the CD.”

“Yeah, Yeah,” he smiles. We sit around his room for hours just listening to music, not saying a word, but explaining everything through music, going from one genre to another. He is like my musical soul mate; he is the only other person that I have ever met who had such a wide variety of music as I do. Joe never understood my love with music.

“Next,” I say smiling to him, “A Day to Remember, A Plot to Bomb the Panhandle.”

“That’s a great one.” He says clicking on it form his I-tunes account. I’m singing along with the word when, I think, Austin realizes that the song has more meaning to me than just that I like it. He looks to me turning it down.

“Are you alright?” I nod my head to him, “I can’t help but notice that…” he points to the computer screen and then reaches over and wipes a tear that I haven’t realized I let loose off of my face.

“Yeah, it’s just rough.” I admit, and I’m thankful I don’t have to explain what is.

“Do you want to talk about it?”
he asks.

“Not really.” He nods still looking at me.

“Well if you want to I’m here, you know that right?”

I sigh heavily, looking at him, “I’m pretty sure I was m
ore in love with the idea of Joe than actually Joe.”

“Then why did you almost marry him?”
He questions.

“Because I didn’t know the different I’ve always wanted that happily ever after, I guess. I one day want someone to be able to call my husb
and. I want that storybook ending; as much as I pretend that I’m a hard ass.”

“I think everyone wants that, secretly.” He shrugs.

“Even you, mister playboy?” He laughs, shaking his head as if he is almost embarrassed.

“Especially me,”
he admits.

“Then why not try and have a relationship with anyone of the number of girls that you bring home?”

“I told you, because they don’t really care about me; only long enough to get me back to my place, maybe steal something, or smash in my windshield, but I have seen many of them later and they don’t even remember me.” And it’s the first time that I realize that sleeping around is his defense mechanism that he really is, just like me, a wounded soul.

“I would remember you.” I say before I can stop myself. I just want to take the hurt out of his eyes. I look up to see his eyes staring into me. He breaks our gaze and he smiles. It’s a smile that tells me thank you.

“Want to hear me play?” and I nod my head.

Austin walks me home from his house well after the sun has gone down and he is looking over to the ocean. We approach the door and he suddenly turns to me.

“It can’t be good for you to sit around all by yourself all the time.”

“Yeah, well I have to find a job.”

“I need an assistant. If you want to you could come work for me.”
He offers.

“Why would you do that?”
I ask.

“What I’m going to tell my dad,
because my assistant quit-,” I stop him.

“Did you sleep with her?” I ask

“Sophie, as much as we pretend I’m going to be honest right now. You don’t want to know the answer to that.” And for the first time he lets on that he is as attracted to me and he knows that I am just as attracted to him.

“Ugh,” he laughs as I watch his hand go to brush the back of his neck.

“The real reason why is because I always hate who my dad hires and really everyone that works in his office, and I like you. You’re not fake or sugar coated. You’re raw, dirty, and gritty; and you’re not afraid to put in my place.”

“Are you admitting that you need to be put in your place?”
I ask, just slightly flirting with him.

“Yes,
” He says and I watch as he begins to walk away. “You want the job?” he says as he turns around, looking to me.

“S-Sure,” I stutter not being able to say no, and he smiles at me.