Authors: Charlotte Sloan
Chapter Two
Jacob left after the game mumbling something about losing a bet. Before he left, he slapped me on the shoulder and told me to grow some balls. I couldn’t help but smile like an idiot and for some odd reason, I slept like a baby. Having someone here with me to take my mind off of the situation really helped. It’s been a week since I’ve last seen and spoken to Julia so tonight was extremely important to me.
“Hey Mike,” Nathan called out as I made my way into the office fifteen minutes early. I was starting to feel a little down again, but I managed a small smile and greeted him back.
“Hey Nate, how’s the wife and kids?” Nathan sighed and sat down in his seat.
“The baby is growing up fast, she’s starting to walk now and getting into everything and breaking all my shit.” I laughed at him. Kids seemed to be walking earlier and earlier these days. I’m pretty sure she’s seven months. “And Christina might be pregnant again!” Nathan slammed down his paperwork and I couldn’t help but to laugh a little harder.
“Hang in there,” I said as I made my way to my cubicle. I needed that laugh, even though it was wrong, I was happy that other people were having a hard time like I was.
I spent the rest of my day handling projects that I neglected to do a week ago and I avoided Elizabeth as much as I could. We both worked as paralegals at a law firm so avoiding her for most of the day was a miracle considering we worked on the same floor. I couldn’t look at her because even though I was mad at myself, I was mad as hell at her also. She knew that I was engaged, but she came onto me and ultimately got me to sleep with her. I know that I could’ve easily kept my junk in my pants, but the woman was quite enticing. When I saw her as I was about to go on my lunchbreak, I froze.
“Hey,” Elizabeth said looking me dead in the eyes. I looked over her head at the clock, it was 12:36.
“Hello” I said as normal as I possibly could. I was flustered but I didn’t want her to know that. I tried to walk passed her but her slender hand reached out and grabbed my arm.
“Michael” she sighed “Let’s talk about what happened”. I released the breath that I didn’t know I was holding and looked back at her.
“There’s nothing to talk about. We fucked, I was drunk and it won’t happen again.” I said as quietly as possible. Her soft features contorted with pain and I almost felt bad for saying that to her. “Almost” being the key word. Her eyes began watering and I thought she was about to start crying, but the tears refused to fall.
“I deserved that” she said fixing her posture “But please, I want to speak with you and apologize appropriately.” She shuffled back and forth on her feet and this time I sighed.
“I told Julia what happened between us and she dumped me. People mess up every day and it sucks that I had to mess up with you. Like I said it won’t happen again. There’s nothing for us to talk about.” I saw something flash in her eyes when I mentioned that Julia had dumped me, but I was too stressed out to read too much into it. Without waiting for her reply, I turned on my heels and walked away.
Everywhere I went to grab some food was crowded and I mentally cursed myself. I hadn’t eaten an actual meal in a week and I was starving. The only thing that I ate was just random meat that I pulled out of the refrigerator which obviously wasn’t a proper meal. I felt like my stomach was eating itself. I needed to find someplace to eat fast! After walking for fifteen minutes, I finally came across a subway that was not as crowded as the other places. I didn’t really find subway filling, but it was better than nothing.
I ordered a foot long subway club with a turkey breast chopped salad. At least this time I’d be eating something a little better for my nutrition. I sat down in my seat at the back of the restaurant eating in silence as I watched young lovers walk in and out of the place.
“Subway never gives you enough food,” the teenage boy said as he held hands with what I assumed to be his girlfriend.
“But the food is good. I don’t want anything else. Come on please,” the boy sighed and said fine.
They were more than likely on lunch break from school. I watched them as they flirted with each other, unable to keep their hands off of each other. The boy appeared to really hate the place, but he put up with it because of his girlfriend. They reminded me so much of Julia and me at that age. I smiled as I realized we’d come a long way from that stage in our lives. The couple left as quickly as they came and I left soon after them.
I walked that long street back to the office with my hands in my pockets. I was trying to come up with conversational topics so that things wouldn’t get awkward after Julia and I spoke for a while at dinner. I shook my head in disbelief, I didn’t even know why I had to do that since Julia and I spent the last ten years together. I could hear Jacob saying, “I can’t believe you are going all out for a woman like this” I laughed to myself “I just want everything to be perfect” I was starting to feel too emotional, so I took my hands out of my pockets and hurried back to the office.
When I got home later that day, I ran quickly into my bedroom to pick some clothes out for tonight. I was starting to see why women spent so much time looking for something to wear when they went out. I thought a suit would be too formal, but jeans were out of the question. I decided to go with a simple black dress shirt with some khaki pants. I wanted to look good for Julia, but I didn’t want to seem like a complete stranger to her.
I showered and shaved. When I looked into the mirror, I noticed that I had a slight tan. My hazel eyes scanned all over my chiseled face and I looked more close to normal than I had been looking for the last several days. I toweled dried my hair and spiked it up a little. When I was completely dressed, it was 6’ o clock. It’ll take about thirty minutes to get to Julia’s mother’s house and around fifteen minutes to get to Shelley’s. I thought it’ll be best to maybe stop by a store and buy Julia flowers but I changed my mind, I didn’t want to appear too out of character.
I drove the freeway in utter silence and decided to turn on the radio. I just needed something to distract me from my thoughts and concerns. When my phone began ringing, I turned the radio off and answered it.
“What’s going on Jake? You know I’m about to go out with Julia” I said without saying hello.
“Yeah, yeah.” Jacob said, “I never asked, where you taking her?”
“Shelley’s.”
“Shelley’s? I thought you hated that place.”
“I do, but that’s where she’s wants to go so that’s where I’m taking her.” I heard Jacob sigh before he shouted into the phone.
“Whipped!” I really didn’t want Jacob to kill my mood.
“I’d rather be whipped instead of at home alone jerking off” Before Jacob had time to come up with a comeback, I hung up the phone. “That’ll teach him” I said laughing.
When I finally arrived in front of the house, I took in a deep breath and exited my car. Whipped or not I had to make a good impression. When I knocked on the door and Julia opened it, I was at a loss for words.
She was gorgeous wearing a lime green short dress with black high heel shoes. Her hair and her make-up was done expertly. Her brown eyes scanned over my body in the same manner that mine did hers. She poked out her lip in a way that made me think that she was pouting. “You look good” she muttered under her breath and a wide smile spread across my face.
“Thanks, you’re always gorgeous so it’s not surprising that you look good too.” She told her mother that she’d be back later and closed and locked the door. We walked awkwardly back to my car and I held the door open for her. She said nothing as her slim body slid into the seat and I shut her door once she was all the way inside of the car. I walked around to my side with a goofy grin on my face like I had just hit the lottery or something.
“We’re going to Shelley’s right?” she asked once I began driving.
“Yeah, that’s where you want to go right?” I asked glancing at her from the corner of my eye. She nodded and sat back into her seat looking oddly out of the window at the passing cars. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know if I should start with small talk now or wait till when we were at the restaurant. The awkward silence was killing me and I wanted to make sure she was having a good time. I decided to break the silence, “So how have you been?”
“Fine” she said too quickly not even looking my way. Ouch! The coldness from her voice stung me a little bit, but I continued on.
“Well, I’m glad one of us is fine.” Julia turned and looked at the side of my face and sighed.
“You know that’s not what I meant,” she paused and took a deep breath. “I’ve been miserable as hell, but don’t think that it means anything. I’m still pissed off” her high pitch voice cracked when she said that. She almost sounded like she was going to cry. I felt good that she was affected as much as I was about our breakup.
“I’m miserable too, but at least we get to see each other now.” I looked at her and flashed Julia a quick smile just as I pulled into the parking lot of Shelley’s. When we entered the restaurant, we noticed that it was packed, I was glad that I made reservations that morning.
“Do you two have a reservation? We’re pretty crowded at the moment and will not be able to seat people for another two hours.”
I honestly didn’t know why this restaurant was so popular; I found the place to be quite nauseating.
“Yes, my name is Michael Christianson.” The host looked through his list of names and smiled at me.
“Please follow me.” He grabbed two menus and led us to the back of the restaurant which was a little more secluded.
“I’m impressed,” Julia said once we were seated and the host was out of ear shot. “I’m surprised that you made a reservation. You normally made me do things like that.” I looked through the menu, unimpressed but still attempting to find something remotely interesting to eat.
“Well, I did it for you. I’m sitting in a restaurant that I hate for you.” I said and Julia blushed as she looked away from me. The restaurant got a bit noisier as a group of women made their way towards our direction.
“Dorian just irritates me so much sometimes” one of the women said and I looked their way because the voice sounded familiar. The host was sitting four women, two I recognized as being women from work. One of them being Elizabeth! My face turned pale as a ghost when her eyes landed on mine.
Chapter Three
“Are you alright?” Julia asked when she heard me gasp.
“I’m okay,” I managed to bite out. The waiter came back then and asked us if we’d ever been there before and what would we like to drink. I asked Julia as nicely as possible to order whatever she wanted and I excused myself to go to the men’s room.
I was thankful that no one was in it. “What the hell is she doing there?” if I had any more reason to hate Shelley’s, I had one then. I was glad that Julia had absolutely no idea who Elizabeth was, but I knew that Elizabeth would understand right away that the person that I was with was Julia.
I turned the faucet on and quickly splashed water into my face. I had to calm myself down; it wasn’t as if I was doing anything wrong. I just didn’t want Julia and Elizabeth to be in the same place at the same time. I finally was able to compose myself and I went back to Julia. She looked at me in confusion.
“Are you feeling okay, Michael? Do you really hate being here that much?” I shook my head. Of course I couldn’t tell Julia the real reason why I was disheveled, but I came up with a response that was close enough to the truth.
“No, I thought I saw something gross which freaked me out.” I quickly changed the subject. “So what did you order?” Julia gave me a sheepish smile.
“I ordered Macon Blanc. I hear it’s a pretty good wine.” I knew that the wine varied in prices and I inhaled sharply. ‘I’m doing this for her so swallow your pride’ I thought to myself. “And I know how much you hate trying something new so I ordered something that had chicken inside of it. You really need to try different things.”
“I’m working on that every day.” That wasn’t a complete lie; I was working on things about myself that would entice Julia to come back to me. I looked around trying to see if Elizabeth was near us, but I couldn’t find her. Maybe they weren’t seated as close as I thought they were.
“Do forgive me if I am not as adventurous as you.” I said sarcastically and Julia smiled a sincere smile. She was quite adventurous with her appearance. She had long hair one day and would cut it short the next day. Julia was an artist and she looked at her body as a canvass presented to her from God to create new and beautiful things with.
“I can tell,” she said as a frown plastered onto her beautiful face. “I hate to admit it but I really do miss you.” I could see now that she was thinking about me as much as I was thinking about her. She chewed on her glossed lips and breaking one of her rules I reached my hand out to her. She hesitated to take it, but her small hand enclosed into my larger one.
“I know that I hurt you and that you don’t trust me,” I said clearing my throat. “But I need you to understand that if I didn’t truly love you, I wouldn’t have told you what I did.” I knew that didn’t make the situation better, it wasn’t like she caught me with Elizabeth but I told her and that had to count for something. “We can take it slow and start over new,” Julia stared into my eyes with an unreadable expression on her face so I continued.
“Let me make this right, I can earn your trust again and I can be the man that you want me to be.” I didn’t feel like a real man at the moment begging for Julia’s forgiveness, but it had to be done. She thought long and hard before she responded.
“Ok”, she said as the waiter brought us our food and poured the wine into our glasses. My heart leapt for joy and I completely ignored the rancid food that the waiter placed down in front of me. “This doesn’t mean that we’re back together. I’m not ready for that yet, but we can start over fresh.”
“I’ll take it” I said as I released her hand and I picked up my glass. “Let’s make a toast.” I said and she quickly picked up her glass as well. “A toast to new beginnings,” Our glasses touched and I downed my wine, I needed to be a little buzzed before I ate the “food”.
“Thank you for bringing me here” Julia said and began eating her food.
Julia and I laughed and told each other about what happened the week that we hadn’t seen each other and I was surprised that her week was just as awful as mine. She excused herself to go to the lady’s room after a while and I exhaled with relief about how well the night was going and that’s when
she
approached our table.
“So that’s her?” Elizabeth said and a frown formed on my face.
“Please, Elizabeth. I’m asking you nicely to leave us alone, please do not cause a scene.” I could tell that she was drunk because she wasn’t as collected as she normally was.
“She’s cute,” she continued, disregarding my pleas for her to just leave me alone. “If you’re into little girls I suppose.”
“She’s the same age as me” I said irritated. Elizabeth chuckled and her eyes rested unfocused onto mine.
“And does she drive you wild with desire like I did?” I could feel my face burning up. An image of her naked body flashed in my mind.
“You’re drunk, Elizabeth.” I said looking around making sure that Julia wasn’t coming back. I saw her walking towards the table looking into the hand held mirror she always kept with her. Elizabeth followed my glance and grinned.
“I guess I’ll let you go back to the little girl, at least for the time being.” Elizabeth grinned and stumbled back in the direction of her table. When Julia sat back down, she looked after Elizabeth in confusion.
“Do you know her?” she asked returning her attention back to me.
“No,” I lied. “She was just a drunk woman that thought she knew me”. I didn’t want to tell Julia that she was my co-worker. Julia was smart; she would have put two and two together and figured out that she was the woman that I cheated on her with.
“She’s pretty,” I hated that Julia said that and I definitely was not going to agree with her about it.
“I guess if someone’s into that type of woman. You’re more beautiful.” Julia flashed me that brilliant smile and continued eating.
When we arrived back at her place, she was completely back to her carefree self and not the cold woman that avoided me for a whole week. “I really had fun tonight. Thank you.” It was completely dark outside now, but I could see her eyes glittering.
“Thank you for coming out with me, I meant everything I said tonight.” I was about to cut the engine and walk her to the door when she stopped me with a hand on my hand. I looked at her and she smiled just before kissing me gently on the lips. I cupped her face with my hands and pressed my tongue inside of her mouth. She was sweet and her mouth was warm and when we pulled apart I could faintly see the blush on her cheeks.
“See you later” she said before she exited my car. I waited until she was safely in the house before I pulled off. I was so happy at that moment that I had completely forgotten running into Elizabeth. The way that Julia kissed me just then proved to me that she still loved me. I really felt like I had another chance with her and I just had to remain on my best behavior and she’d eventually come back home.
“This is looking good,” I said as I made my way onto the ramp for the freeway. A few more dates like this and she’d definitely open her heart to me again. I thought about calling Jacob and letting him know how the date went, but I knew that he wasn’t going to appreciate it since it didn’t end with us “in the sack”. I drove that freeway in deep happy thoughts feeling like I had acquired the world.