Rocked by Him (5 page)

"Hello, miss," the concierge in his red jacket said.

I gave him a tight-lipped smile in return, making my sore feet move me to the elevator as fast as they could.

The light in that metal box was too bright as well, and I shielded my eyes as I stabbed on finger out at the buttons, hoping I hit the right one. Bed was calling out to me. A date I already felt late for.

The ding sounded. The door slid open. I walked out, half dazed. It took me a second of looking at the door numbers as I fished for my key to realize I'd gotten off on the wrong floor.

"Damn it..." I said. I'd already walked about a quarter of the way down the hall. The walls were a cream color, all the doors a dark-stained wood with little brass plates with the suite numbers engraved on them.

Then someone started screaming. I froze. It was a woman, and she was pissed. Something crashed, and glass shattered. A lower voice came through. The guy, I guess, trying to calm her down.

He just made her louder.

I'd never really lived in apartments before. There was the dorm my first year of college, but after that I lived in a house with a couple friends. Before that, I lived at home with mom and dad. This sort of thing was new to me.

I almost liked listening to another person's rage, another person's anger. Misery loves company and all that. I guess I also enjoyed eavesdropping on people on
occasion. Dad said I got it from my Uncle Marc, who made no secret he liked listening to other people's conversations.

I could almost make out what she was saying.

It was when she stormed out through the apartment two doors down on the left side that I realized the time to hop back on the elevator for me was about two minutes ago.

It was another blonde club bimbo. Right then, her
spray tanned face was hot red with fury as she stabbed one long, fake nail back at the open doorway.

"Asshole!
You said you had more!" she screamed.

I felt like shrinking back, not wanting her attention to fall on me.

"I'm sorry, babe. Really, I didn't say anything about having any stuff. You made that up."

The sharp-faced guy with the leather jacket appeared in the doorway.
Minus leather jacket, anyway. He wore a white undershirt.

"
Die in a fire!" blondie screamed.

He just crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe, giving her a quirked eyebrow and a crooked smile. He looked like the classic
badboy, then, like James Dean had stepped off the set into the world of reality and color.

The sight of it actually made the throbbing in my feet and the burning behind my eyes
subside for a few moments.

Maybe that's why I did what happened next.

"What are you looking at, bitch?" blondie said as she spun around to make her dramatic exit. We were of a height. She'd stirred the air with her movement, and the pungent smell of her perfume made my nose twitch.

"Nothing," I said, "Nothing at all."

"What. Ever," she replied, shouldering past me so hard I almost lost my balance.

There was no way I was sharing an elevator with her, so I let her take it and
watched the door close behind her.

"Nice," the guy said. I'd forgotten about him standing there.

Another door opened and an old, bald man wearing a stained wife-beater poked his head out into the hall. His nose was bright red, and a vein throbbed in his forehead.

"What in hell is going on?" he said, looking between us.

I pointed to myself, shocked. What did
he
think was going on? That I was involved? That I was the blonde bitch?

"Nothing, nothing at all, boss," Mr. Rebel said, still leaning with his arms crossed.

"Yeah?" the irate neighbor said, stabbing on finger out, "Well you can explain that to the cops!"

That made Mr. Rebel pause. He stood up straight and let his hands fall to his sides.

"You called the cops on me?"

"When a girl screams bloody murder, you bet your scrawny ass I'm
callin' the cops! You all right, miss? He didn't hurt you?" he said, turning back to me.

I am such an idiot, I thought. This is why you don't stick your nose into other people's business. Because then you get involved. I already had enough business of my own (and Bud's) to take care of without worrying about a third party.

I should have just turned around and taken the next elevator. Or gone up the stairs. It was only a floor up. I put it all down to craziness induced by being recently cheated on and dumped.

Brushing some hair back over my ear, I smiled.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

The bald man squinted at me, screwing up his face as he tried to decide whether I lied to him.

"Well, it doesn't look like he hit you..."

We went back and forth like that for ten minutes, with me reassuring him that Mr. Rebel had done me no harm. That whole time, Mr. Rebel stood in the doorway staring at me. It made me self-conscious. It made me want to run upstairs to redo my makeup, and to put on something nice. I felt very aware of just how hung-over and exhausted I must have looked.

Then the cops got there. Two tall guys with dark uniforms, shiny badges, and guns on their hips. They took Irate Neighbor's statement, then mine and Mr. Rebel's. I had to say, we made a pretty good team. He gave his name as "Drake Tyler" to the cops.

You see, it turns out we were just rehearsing for a YouTube video. Drake even offered to show them what we'd come up with on his computer so far.

The cops looked at each other, sharing a rolling of the eyes. Just another couple kids and their internet shenanigans. I could see it in their faces right before they told us to keep it down and left.

"Hey, thanks... Jennifer, was it?" Drake said.

I faced him. He tall enough that I had to tilt my head back a bit to look up into his eyes. Those were lovely, dark and deep. I could see how he used them to such great effect at the clubs and bars.

His arms were well-defined, and the features of his face just had some sort of pop to them that made you notice just how nice his cheeks and jaw were. And those were further emphasized with what seemed like perfectly spread out stubble.

I had to remind myself that Jerry had looked nice, too. And this Drake seemed to go through women like a chain smoker with access to free cigarettes.

"Yeah, well, you're lucky you caught me in the right mood. And lucky I got off on the wrong floor. I'm in 404."

"Luck, and my good looks, right?" Drake said, flashing me a smile.

For some reason, my headache chose to kick back in at that moment. The pain in my feet redoubled. Hotness and sex appeal be damned, I couldn't spend another minute standing out there!

"Keep telling yourself that. Nice meeting you; try not to get into any more trouble. Otherwise we might actually have to make that YouTube video next time."

"Sounds like fun!" he said, that crooked smile broadening.

Something in me ached to fall for that badboy charm, but exhaustion overpowered it. So I gave him a wry shake of my head and waited for the elevator. He stood leaning against his doorframe, arms crossed, watching me as I got on.

I think I dreamed about that smile. I know I passed out as soon as my head hit my pillow.

***

One of my plans the previous day had been to stop at a small corner grocery store to pick up a few things.

Most of the food in my place "belonged" to Jerry, or he saw it that way in any case. When he left, he took most of it with him. I had plenty of dishes, nice shiny pots and pans and lovely square plates, and no food to serve on them.

I hadn't slept well, either. In fact, I woke up exactly forty-two minutes before my alarm was supposed to go off. Instead of wasting all that time trying in vain to return to my restless sleep, I got up.

It actually gave me enough time for a nice, long shower. It's amazing what standing under that stream of hot, steaming water can do for your state of mind. It not only washes away sweat and dirt, but also some of that emotional and mental grime as well.

Or that's how I felt, anyway.

So it was feeling refreshed that I got out of the shower and wiped a curved line out of the fog on the mirror. My hair looked so dark when wet, a nut brown color. My bare shoulders steamed, and the tile floor of the bathroom made my toes curl from the cold.

I looked my reflection in the eye. Was that a flash of determination? It had only been a couple days since I'd been dumped and started the job from hell. I felt proud of myself for feeling determination so soon.

All those movies and books I grew up with said I was supposed to be an emotional wreck for weeks. Vulnerable and delicate. I nodded to my reflection. That wasn't going to happen, not to me.

"No more men," I said coming to a decision.

I was going to be a career girl. First thing today, I intended on reporting Bud Loughery to HR for sexual harassment. His replacement had to be better, right? Then Lucinda and I could go grab dinner and vent.

It was a bit odd, how I found
myself thinking of Lucinda, clinging to her. We'd only known each other a couple days as well, but I felt the potential for a strong friendship there.

I smiled at myself, taking a moment to admire my teeth. I'd gotten braces a year before
I started college, and any time I looked at myself like that I remembered the awful tightening sessions, the inability to eat what I wanted, the constant pain.

It was a nice smile.
A winning smile. A smile I could use to help advance my position at Styrex.

Man, I needed to take showers more often! It had been so long since I'd felt so inspired.

It had nothing to do with my little charade with Drake last night, I swear! Though, as I went to work getting myself ready to face another new day, I thought that it had been exciting. Dangerous, somehow. I bet those cops wouldn't be pleased to learn how we'd fooled them.

I also wasn't doing myself up looking so nice for him. No, not in the least! Good looking people did better in
life, that was a fact. And I wanted to do well.

For a moment, I clicked my
blow-dryer off, plunging the bathroom into comparative silence, and fantasized. Yeah, I'd go to the elevator and find Drake there. No club bitch on his arm yet. He'd smile at me. I'd smile at him. All alone there in the elevator, he'd hit the "Stop" button, and we'd reach out for each other...

"
Gah!" I said at my reflection. Most of the steam was cleared.

What did I just tell myself? No more men! No more how handsome and dangerous and rebellious they seemed. No matter how thick their auras of mystery!

My alarm went off in the bedroom. It was tuned to a pop music station. I didn't recognize the song, but knew Katy Perry's voice right away. I danced to it as I dressed (a grey skirt ending below the knees, a creamy blouse, and a nice jacket).

There was a nice diner just down the street I'd noticed. I bet they had good breakfast. Grabbing up my purse, I went down the hall only to find the pile of mail by the door. In my stupor last night, I'd just stepped over it all.

Picking it up, I leafed through it. Bills. My first round of real bills as a real adult! A flyer for a pizza place, something for duct cleaning. And a letter from home.

I recognized the scrawl across the front as my mom's handwriting. At first, I thought I would just toss it on the counter in the kitchen and get on with my day. Instead, I put my purse down and tore the letter open.

It was just like her to send an actual letter, rather than calling, or sending an email. The written word (and by that, I mean written on a piece of paper with a black pen, always black) held so much more weight with her. And calling? Well, she was probably just trying to save either one or both of us the long distance fees.

It was thick paper, folded twice. I dropped the torn envelope as I let my eyes scan her writing.

The gist of it was this: dad was starting to show the first stages of Alzheimer's. It ran pretty heavily on his side of the family. He was only just fifty three this year, I kept thinking. Wasn't he too young for that?

My week just kept getting better and better!

Thinking that made the last vestiges of my first good mood in three days disappear, replaced by a sour feeling in my empty stomach.

And I also felt guilty about feeling angry. I'd just been dumped
, and hit on at work, not diagnosed with an awful, personality and memory-consuming disease!

Mom ended the letter by wishing me a good start to my "first real job" as she put it, and hoping that the news wouldn't put me in low spirits.

"Thanks, mom," I said, sighing as I folded the letter back up and tucked it into my purse, wedged between my iPhone and my wallet.

My stomach grumbled a complaint at me as I slipped my feet into my shoes.

"Yeah, yeah."

Everyone had something to complain about with me. Even my own body!