[The Shifters Committee 05.0] Sensual Hero

by Rebecca Foxx

  “Thanks, I guess you’re right. Just as fast as you can, ok? I’ve got a shit ton of meetings set up for the day and I can’t really afford to be late.”

  The driver nodded, some of the friendliness going out of his face at the tone Blake was using. Great. Now he was managing to piss off total strangers in a matter of sentences. No wonder CeCe wasn’t happy.

  He used to be fun. When the two of them had met he had been fun and spontaneous and all about making sure Celia felt like the most amazing woman in the entire universe. If that younger version of himself could see this version he had become, he would have sucker punched him. And it would have been deserved.

  “Mind if I put on the radio?”

  “Hm? No, no, not at all.”

  “Thanks man. That’s cool of you.”

  Blake had to laugh to himself. Sadly, that was probably the most genuine compliment he had gotten in a long time. She was going to leave him. All of a sudden it hit him with a force that made him feel like he was going to throw up.

  He was a fool not to have seen how bad he had let things get and he felt a blond panic as he realized just how a big of a gesture he was going to need to make if he had a shot in hell of keeping her. And that was when he heard it. Like a sign from god, the radio blaring one of the City of Angel’s most popular radio stations with a promotional thing that could very well be a game changer.

  “And all you have to do is get her here, folks. Or him, or it, for all I care. Whatever floats your boat. Point is, this is a trip that most people would never be able to take, no matter how long they lived, and it’s yours. All you have to do is be called ten and manage to trick the object of your affection into joining you at the designated spot. A spot I’ll give you once you’re the caller. Can’t very well announce it on air, can I? You think I want all of the crazies in this god forsaken city to come out of the woodwork? No, no thank you. I don’t think so. I’ll pass.”

  That was it. It was one hundred percent certifiable, which was how he knew it was exactly what he needed to do. If he was going to win Celia back, he was going to have to pull out all of the stops.

  “Excuse me, driver?”

  “What’s up, my man? What can I do for you?”

  “I was just wondering, do you happen to have the number for the radio station we're listening to right now?”

  Chapter Three

  “I don’t know, Claudia. Honestly, I don’t have it all worked out yet. I just know that I’m miserable.”

  “Ok, but Celia, let’s get real for a minute, ok? Like really real. Like, Oprah show real.”

  “Ugh. That sounds miserable. I’m only saying yes to this because you’re my best friend.”

  “Well thank you so much for indulging me.”

  “Well you're so very welcome.”

  “Here’s the deal. Celia, honey. You realize that there are large parts of every marriage where at least one of the people involved are miserable, right? I mean, you know that, don’t you?”

  “I know that people keep telling me that. It doesn’t mean that I have to be ok with it. It doesn’t mean that I have to just accept it as my life.”

  “Ok, well then what’s the alternative? What’s your next move?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t. Ok? Does that make you happy? Is that what you want to hear?”

  “Of course not,” Celia’s friend Claudia said with a softening voice and a sympathetic look in her eyes, “I really do want you to be happy. I just want you to think things through, also. That’s all.”

  “I know,” Celia said with a shaky sigh, “I’m sorry. I’m just frazzled, I guess.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “If I said no, would it stop you?”

  “No,” she said happily, “probably not.”

  “Well then shoot.”

  “Is there any way he could fix things? Like, is there something he could do that would just sweep you off of your feet and make you love him the way you did when you first met?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so, yes. I just don’t know what it is.”

  “That’s ok. You don’t have to. And if you want to leave that’s totally fine and I’ll support you for sure. I just want you to remember, if there’s any chance of keeping it together, it might just be worth it. You guys were really in love once, remember? Not everyone gets that. I should know. I’ve been married twice and I still haven’t found what you two had in your good days.”

  Celia thought that she had cried as much as she was going to over the state of her marriage, but when Claudia spoke those words she had to fight from getting choked up. It was confusing her, making her wonder about the possible life still left in a marriage she thought was dead.

  She needed some time. She needed time to think about what it was that she really wanted and whether or not her relationship with Blake was in any way salvageable. And as luck would have it, that was the exact moment when her phone beeped and she looked down to see that the caller on the other line was her husband.

  It was Blake, which meant that she wasn’t going to get that little break, after all.

  “Hey, Claudia? We’ve got a speak of the devil kind of a situation here. I think I’ve got to go. I wasn’t exactly easy to get along with when he left for the airport this morning.”

  “Sure, enough said. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been in that situation. Just remember, there might be more left there than you think, ok?”

  “Ok, love you.”

  “Love you too. Talk to you later.”

  Celia took a deep breath and then clicked over to speak to her husband. Why was she so nervous? She shouldn’t be nervous! She was talking to her husband, for christ’s sake. That should be just about the easiest thing in the world. Just another sign that that things between the two of them just weren’t working the way they should.

  “Hey, Blake. Sorry about earlier. I should have waited to see you off. I’m not sure what got into me. I just got this overwhelming feeling that I needed to run and I couldn’t ignore it. I guess I’m just sort of selfish like that.”

  “CeCe! Selfish? You? Hardly. I’m pretty sure you’ve never been selfish a day in your life. But that’s not why I called, ok?”

  “Um, ok. Then why did you call? Is everything ok?”

  “Sure, yes. I mean, kind of. Or no, not really. I need your help. I get that you might not really feel like doing that these days, but I need it anyway and it would mean a whole hell of a lot to me if you were up to the task.”

  “Ok, but can you tell me what exactly the task is?”

  “I fucked up. I forgot something at the house that I need and if I don’t have it I’m going to be completely fucked. I know you hate my job and you might not think me being in trouble with it is a bad thing, but I’ve worked really hard on this deal. If it falls apart I think I’m actually going to lose it.”

  “Ok, slow down. What did you forget?”

  “It’s a bunch of documents which are in a briefcase that is locked by a key I have on me. Here in LA.”

  “Jesus, Blake! It’s like you were trying to make it as difficult as you possibly could!”

  “It does kind of look that way, doesn’t it?”

  Celia took a deep breath and held it, counting slowly backwards from ten. Blake might be worried that she wasn’t listening or that she had simply hung up, which she knew would cause him massive anxiety. She didn’t care. Let him feel it. In the end, it would be better for the both of them for her to take a second to calm herself down.

  Before she said something terrible that she couldn’t take back. Even if she knew in her heart of hearts that she wanted, needed to leave this man to find one who would actually appreciate her, she didn’t want to hurt him. As strange as it sounded to say about a man she was planning on divorcing, she loved Blake.

  She had a sinking suspicion that she always would regardless of where she went or who, if anyone, she wound up with. She just couldn’t spend the rest of her life with
a man who put her second behind his job. It was too painful. Too isolating.

  “CeCe? Babe, are you still there?”

  She took another few moments to finish the countdown and rubbed her temples with her free hand. All of the sudden she felt a massive headache coming on, which couldn’t possibly considered a coincidence. This was what happened when she dealt with these kinds of situations with Blake and this was not even close to the first time some kind of crisis had come up with Blake’s job that required her help in some way.

  The trouble was that regardless of how much she hated his job, and she hated it more and more with each passing day, she couldn’t seem to say no to Blake when he asked for her help. Just like she wouldn’t say no this time.

  “CeCe?”

  “Yes, Blake. I’m here. So where is it exactly?”

  “Where is what?”

  “Are you kidding me right now? The briefcase. The briefcase you can’t live without. The briefcase you need me to get on a plane just to bring to you and turn right around and head back home for. That briefcase.”

  “Woah, ok. I’m sorry. Calm down.”

  “Calm down? Buddy, if you ever want to see those papers you need so badly again, you won’t tell me to calm down again, ok?”

  “Ok, you’re right,” he said with soothing tones that were somehow more annoying than the task he was asking her to complete, “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just stressed, I guess. This day hasn’t gone the way I was hoping it would.”

  “You and me both. Just tell me where the briefcase is and I’ll get it to you as soon as possible, ok?”

  “Ok, thank you. I love you, CeCe. I really do.”

  “I know” she answered with a sigh. And she did. She really did know that he loved her. It just didn’t feel like it was enough.

  Chapter Four

  “And that’s it. She’s off the air. Well done, Blake? Was that your name?”

  “Sure is.”

  “Well, Blake, it sounds like she’s coming. It also sounds like that lady is more than a little bit pissed off at you. Wanna tell the good people what the backstory is? Everyone loves a good human interest story, right? Come on, what’s the deal? Who was she?”

  Blake ground his teeth, his jaw working overtime as he used every bit of his strength to keep from saying what he really wanted to say, which was for the dj talking at him to shut the fuck up and mind his own business. This wasn’t the time for that kind of attitude, however, especially given that there were thousands of people listening in on this little exchange.

  Also, he had no right not to expect this kind of interaction. He had called into a radio show, for christ’s sake. Of course they were going to go for the jugular, to get the most sensational story they could eek out. It shouldn’t really matter to him anyway, not in the end.

  Because wasn’t it worth it? He should be willing and able to do whatever it took to give his beautiful wife the best experience he could possibly cook up. It was for Celia. As long as he repeated that like a mantra in his head over and over again, he should be able to do absolutely anything.

  “Uh, Blake? You still there buddy? For your sake I hope so because you don’t get anything if you don’t stay on the line.”

  “No, no, I’m still here. Just thinking about your question.”

  “Well let’s start with who the lucky lady is going to be. Who exactly was that cranky lady on the phone?”

  “That was my wife. And I wouldn’t exactly call her cranky.”

  “Ha!” the dj said with a condescending laugh that made Blake wish he could reach through the phone and punch the guy in the face, “well you would be the only one. Seriously, man, what’s her deal?”

  “I asked her to fly from Colorado to LA just to deliver something I forgot at home. I think most women would be pretty pissed off about that one.”

  “You may be right, you may be right. So tell us, is this the kind of thing you do often? Like, are you a thoughtful husband or not so much? Because I’ve gotta tell ya, if I were to venture a guess, I would vote for the not so thoughtful one. You know, seeing as she seemed to think you were a complete and total douche. Would you say that’s a fair assessment?”

  Oh holy hell, he wanted to destroy this guy, but not because he was wrong. He wanted to destroy him because he was completely dead on. It wasn’t disbelief he had heard in his wife’s voice. It was resignation. She didn’t expect anything more from him than what she had gotten today, which meant that he was failing as a husband.

  Blake had never considered himself to be a failure at anything, not since he was small. He had excelled at pretty much every single task he had taken on and it was what he expected from himself. Come to find out, the one thing he was failing miserably at was his marriage.

  He felt like crying and breaking something all at the same time, a feeling of panic rising in his chest. He did his best to keep it at bay, knowing that it wasn’t going to help matters any. He just needed to make it through the rest of this conversation and hope that by the time he got to his wife there was still a wife to romance.

  “You know, it might be,” he said with a smooth friendliness he absolutely did not feel, “and that’s exactly why I’m doing this. What better way to make up for my mistakes than to sweep her off of her feet? Am I right?”

  “Let’s hope so, right? Do you think this will do the trick? I mean, let’s be honest for a second, a truly pissed off woman is hard to pull back from the edge. Do you think a three day vacation is going to do the trick?”

  “You know, I can’t say for sure. But what I can say is that I’m going to do my best to see that it’s a hell of a first step. I aim to please, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

  “Well that sounds like as good a place to start as any. Stay on the line for a minute and we’ll give you the rest of your information.”

  Thank god that was over. It was something he would never have tolerated or put himself through had he not believed that it was worth it, and anything that put a smile on Celia’s face was definitely worth it. He didn’t love that the premise of this whole thing had involved him lying to his wife, but in this case he considered it to be a necessary evil.

  He had known the minute he heard that jackass dj hollering out of the speakers of the town car that he had to be the one to win the radio station’s contest. It sounded like something completely over the top and totally designed to melt a woman’s heart. It sounded like the perfect thing to begin his campaign to win his wife back before it was really and truly too late.

  Now he just needed to hightail it to the radio station and pick up his winnings with enough time to make sure he made things extra special. They had to be. There were no other options. He couldn’t lose her and he was prepared to do whatever it took to make sure he showed her just how much she really meant to him. He owed her that much. It was sure as hell long overdue.

  “Good luck, sir.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I said good luck. Really, I mean it. Look, boss, I don’t know you at all and I’ll never see you again after today, but what you’re doing, it’s impressive.”

  “Shit, I don’t know about that.”

  “No, it is. I heard everything you said and I get that you fucked up with your wife, but a lot of people do that. People do it every day without giving it a second thought. It’s not the fucking up part that’s impressive, it’s the fact that you’re trying to do something about it. At least you’re giving it a shot, right? That’s got to count for something. I know my opinion doesn’t mean shit but I think what you’re doing is dead on. I hope this works out, man. I truly do.”

  “Huh. Well thank you. That’s very kind of you to say. Hopefully my wife sees it even a little it the way you do. You mind waiting for the car while I go in? She doesn’t know I’m meeting her at the airport, so hopefully she actually comes with me and gets in the car.”

  “She will,” the driver said with a complete certainty Blake wished he felt, “I don’
t doubt it for a minute.”

  Blake grinned, getting out of the car carefully so as not to ruffle the flowers he had brought with him; hydrangeas, her very favorite. He knew she wouldn’t think that he would remember a thing like that. He was hoping it might soften her towards him some. He took a deep breath, suddenly feeling the kind of nerves he had the first time he took Celia out.

  He could still see the way she had looked then, her thick hair in a messy bun on top of her head and her beautiful body clad in a stunning violet-hued dress. She had looked so happy to see him, her eyes lit up with joy and anticipation. It was that vision he held in his heart while entering the airport to find his unsuspecting wife.