by J. D. Chase
I froze when I heard a subtle cough behind me, feeling my cheeks begin to burn in embarrassment. Oh crap - there’s someone in here with me. Someone just witnessed my cringe worthy jubilation. And then, although I had no way of knowing who was standing behind me - I had only met about five people in the building - I just knew who it was. I waited for the increasingly familiar image of midnight blue eyes to form in my mind. Bingo! There they are!
I steeled myself to turn around but I found that I was frozen to the spot. I could eyes burning into the back of my head, willing me to turn around. I closed my eyes, urging the elevator to hurry up and reach my floor. Just then that indescribable male scent reached my nostrils and inhaled it greedily. Somehow, I got the feeling that he had moved closer to me; that he was standing right behind me. I was almost tempted to push out my behind to see how close he was but whether it was because of my frozen state or because my memory reminded me just how clumsy I had been in his presence yesterday, I didn’t.
The doors opened and I shot forward, almost barreling into Angel. I spun around and thought I caught a glimpse of him, dressed in black, as the doors closed and obscured my view. I felt the color drain out of my face as my brain registered where I thought he was standing. He would have been right behind me, like right behind me. Thank god I didn’t stick out my ass! My hands flew up to cover my gaping mouth as I sagged against Angel, my legs feeling weak.
“What is it, Issy?” she asked quietly, as she steered me back to my office. Concern was etched on her face. “Dare I ask how the meeting went or would you rather not talk about it?”
I sat on my desk and opened my mouth to tell her my good news but no sounds came out. I managed to take a shaky breath and tried again, to no avail.
“Shit Issy, you are scaring me,” she whispered. “You look like you have seen a ghost.”
“I … I think I have,” I managed to stammer.
“Come on,” Angel urged. “We are going to lunch and you are going to tell me exactly what happened up there.”
Angel virtually dragged me to the deli on the next block. She shoved me into a corner seat and then ordered lunch for both of us. She then placed a glass of white wine in my hand and I tipped it back, draining the glass before grabbing hers and doing the same. Angel’s eyebrows shot up but then she calmly went back for more wine. I sat back and closed my eyes. After a moment, I felt my nerves beginning to calm and my mind starting to clear.
When we both had a refilled glass in our hands, I clinked mine against Angel’s and broke out in to a huge grin. “I did it, Angel,” I said triumphantly. “They loved my ideas and have instructed the builders to begin as soon as possible.”
Angel just stared at me - her eyes like saucers. Her nervous expression changing to one of disbelief.
“I know,” I said. “Unbelievable, isn’t it?”
“You idiot,” she breathed, closing her eyes briefly. “You scared me so much. I’ve never seen you so pale. I don’t understand. If it went well, what was all that about?”
I never kept anything from Angel but for some reason I didn’t want to share my Phantom yet. Did I really see him in the lift? Could I have imagined him?
“I guess it was just a reaction to all the nerves and stress,” I smiled at her.
“Well, I dread to think how you would have looked if it had gone badly,” she said, shaking her head.
Halfway through our lunch, I could bear it no longer and I suddenly blurted “Angel, did you see anybody in the elevator when I got out?”
“What?” she asked, cocking her head to one side.
“Did you see whether the elevator was empty when I came down from Norman & Wilde or whether there was anyone in there with me?” I demanded.
“Um … I don’t know - there could have been I guess. I wasn’t really looking, I was looking at you. You had a weird look on your face, like you were scared or something and then you looked round and you were deathly pale when you looked back at me. Then you began to act like you‘d had a frontal lobotomy.”
“Oh thanks!” I said laughing, although it would explain my inability to control my speech and movements.
“Well, you did. You couldn’t even speak,” she replied indignantly. Then she raised her eyebrows. “I mean you, lost for words … unfreezing believable! I should‘ve filmed you on my phone, nobody will believe me that you were speechless.”
I pulled a face at her and we finished our lunches in companionable silence. We then debated whether I had earned the rest of the day off or whether I should return to the office. The stress of my first design meeting followed by my encounter in the elevator had really wiped me out so I decided to bunk off, much to Angel’s disapproval and we went back to the apartment and chilled out all afternoon.
We had decided that we would order in pizza for dinner and chill out in front of a movie. We were just debating whether we had the energy to go out to each when the intercom buzzed. It was James, informing us that we had some gentlemen in the foyer, requesting to come up to our apartment. I was wondering who on earth it could be when I heard a disembodied voice moaning “I’ve got no chance catching her unaware in the shower now, all naked and wet.”
“Travis!” we both chorused, laughing. “It’s fine, James. You can let them up!”
A minute later the band trooped in through the door. Chad held up two bottles of champagne and Scott held a stack of pizza boxes.
“A little bird told us that a celebration was in order,” Chad said before throwing his arms around me. “Well done, Issy!”
“Yeah, well done babe,” said Ethan, bending his head to kiss me on the lips gently.
Before I could cuss Ethan for kissing my lips, I was wrapped in a celebratory bear hug by Scott. He released me and I stood, genuinely surprised and happy that the guys had taken the time to congratulate me. I let out a long sigh of pleasure until I heard a growl behind me. I turned to see Travis holding his arms out to me. “Come here sexpot,” he grunted. “A celebratory shag is in order, I think.”
“Sorry, Travis but I prefer my pizza like my men - hot! And your plan fails on both counts,” I said as sweetly as I could.
“Please yourself,” Travis muttered like a petulant teenager. “I ain’t always going to be chasin’ you, you know. Miss it, miss out, baby!”
“I’ll take my chances, Travis,” I said, as seriously as I could manage.
We all tucked into pizza and champagne before arguing about which film to watch. Travis wanted to watch a porno - surprise, surprise and sulked when he couldn’t get his own way. He then tried to instigate a game of spin the bottle, but there were no takers. He sat in the corner muttering about the lack of rock star behavior in the band and was generally ignored by everyone.
We all settled down to watch an action hero movie but I could feel my eyes closing after my big day. Travis immediately offered to take me to bed so I made Scott promise to guard my body and my honor if I fell asleep. The next thing I knew, I could hear Angel’s voice gently telling me to wake up but I knew that I didn’t want to. Images of midnight blue eyes and dark brown, bed head hair were rolling through my mind and I very much wanted to hang on to them. Angel’s voice became a little more insistent and I fought to stay asleep until I heard Travis’ voice loudly declaring that she should leave me alone because I was obviously having a wet dream about him.
My eyes flew open. “What’s the matter?” I asked Angel, my eyes searching her face for clues.
“Nothing, you were dreaming and I was worried that it was a bad dream, that’s all,” I could see concern in her pale blue eyes before she hugged me and began to stroke my hair in an unmistakable gesture of comfort.
“No, you weren’t having a bad dream,” Travis jumped up, grinned excitedly. “You were having a wet dream … about me. You were moaning and groaning, touching yourself and calling my name!”
I was about to tell him that I wasn’t in the mood for his jokes when I noticed that all of the other guys were just staring at m
e. As soon as I met his eye, Scott looked away uncomfortably.
Angel ended the awkward silence by announcing quietly, “Guys, I think it is time for you to go.” She looked over at Chad gave him a look that clearly was a request for assistance.
Just as Travis began to protest, Chad sprang up and steered him towards the door. Ethan and Scott hastily followed and began talking animatedly about an upcoming rock festival. I had the distinct impression that it was a tactic to distract Travis and it worked - he began to proclaim how many times he would get laid during the festival. Scott shot me a sideways glance and lifted up his hand in an awkward wave before following Ethan and Travis out of the apartment.
“I will call you in the morning,” Angel said to Chad softly with an apologetic shrug.
“Okay. Night Angel. Night Issy,” he replied, a look of confusion and concern etched on his handsome face and then he was gone.
“Are you okay?” Angel asked, turning back to me. Her voice was barely a whisper and her eyes were gently probing into mine. “You just don’t seem yourself today.”
I closed my eyes, afraid that she would see the image of that face that seemed to be burned into my memory. Then my thoughts jumped back to Travis’ crass comments.
“Oh god, tell me that it was only a bad dream and not what Travis said,” I begged her, my eyes flying open wide.
“Well, no … not exactly,” she said, squirming in her seat under my horrified gaze.
“What do you mean?” I cried, my hands flying to my face.
Angel couldn’t have looked any more uncomfortable as she shrugged and cast her eyes down to her hands in her lap. “You … you weren’t calling out Travis’ name but … um … from the noises and … actions that you were making, it was obvious that you were … having sex in your dream,” her voice trailed off and her face blushed a deep shade of red. I’d never seen her look so mortified.
I buried my head in my hands to hide my own embarrassment. I knew exactly who I’d been dreaming about having sex with. Angel had heard me having sex loads of times - I wasn‘t exactly quiet when I let go. Hell, she had unwittingly caught me in the act on a few occasions but we had always laughed it off, without any awkwardness between us. I wondered why this was so embarrassing for us both.
“I think you might be right,” her gentle voice dragged me from my thoughts. “It is so unlike you to be nervous or stressed - this meeting must have played with your head big time. You are all over the place. The next one will be so much easier, you’ll see. I think a good night’s sleep is what you need. Come on, off to bed with you.”
I nodded but still couldn’t bring myself to look at her. I stood and began to walk over to my bedroom door. I was almost there when I heard Angel’s voice.
“Issy, if there was something else on your mind, you would tell me, wouldn’t you?” Her voice was so small that it made me feel guilty for not telling her the whole truth. She was the only person that I had opened up to about my past - we told each other everything. I quickly rallied, telling myself that I didn’t even know for sure that my mystery man was real - that I hadn’t imagined him. Although I felt that it justified keeping recent events from Angel, the thought that I might be imagining things was not a comforting one.
I took a deep breath and turned towards her with a forced smile on my face. “Of course I would, Angel,” I said as convincingly as I could manage. Then I bolted into my bedroom before she could tell that I was lying.
Sleep evaded me for a long while so I decided to listen to my iPod in the hope that it would soothe me into sleep. I selected my rock ballad play list and then hit shuffle. A slow drumbeat that was so familiar to me made that it could have been my own heartbeat sounded in my ears. The beautiful rhythm that was usually a comfort blanket for my soul caused an ache deep in my chest that was so strong that I realized I was sobbing into my pillow. “Oh Daddy,” I whispered. “What is happening to me?”
Chapter 3
I awoke feeling restless and irritable. A hot shower and strong coffee did nothing to improve my mood before I left for my office and I found myself snapping my usual greeting at James as I left the apartment block. I failed to notice the lively chaos that was Manhattan in rush hour - there was one thought that was consuming my attention. As I entered the revolving door of the Orion Building and nodded to the guard, I resolved to find a way to determine whether the phantom was real or whether I was about to have a full on breakdown.
I automatically walked towards the elevator but, when I noticed that my heart was beginning to pound as I watched the indicator light slowly moving down towards the ground floor, I bolted for the stairs instead.
By the time that I had climbed up to my floor, my feet had begun to protest that my 4 inch stilettos were not intended for climbing. As I retrieved my door key from my purse and slid it into the keyhole, I began to feel stupid for my total overreaction to an innocent elevator indicator. I silently resolved that I would never take the stairs again and that I would stop acting like an idiot as I opened the door to my office.
It was the smell that I noticed first. My office smelled just heavenly. Wondering where the scent was coming from, I turned and my heart jumped as my eyes fell on the huge bouquet that was sitting on my desk. There were so many different types of flowers in various shades of pink. They were simply beautiful. I didn’t need to wonder who had sent them so I didn‘t look for a card. Only Angel would care enough to bother and only she had a key to my office to put them in here. I snatched up the phone and called her, a huge smile on my face. She answered on the third ring. “Huh … hello?”
I felt guilty that I had obviously awoken her but I needed to thank her for the bouquet. I was so touched by her supportive and generous gift. It was just what I needed to clear my head and stop these silly thoughts about strangers.
“Thank you so much!” I shrieked down the phone. “You are the best friend ever!”
Her thoughtful gesture made me decide to forget about strangers and phantoms and concentrate on what was important. Angel’s friendship was the most important thing in my life, with my newly fledged business a close second. I silently vowed never to keep anything from her ever again - whether it was real or imagined.
Angel’s confused, sleepy voice interrupted my thoughts. “Well thank you, but I have no idea why you are calling me, dragging me from slumber to thank me … oh, is this about last night?”
“Um no, this is about the your gorgeous, thoughtful gift,” I said quickly, wanting to steer the conversation away from that embarrassing topic, that I had pushed to the furthest recesses of my mind. “Thank you, it means more than you know.”
There was silence for a second before Angel, sounding puzzled, said “What gift?”
“Oh, come on Angel. Wake up, sleepyhead!” I urged in frustration. “The flowers… in my office … on my desk. They smell divine and it’s the most beautiful bouquet that I have ever seen. I have no idea how you managed to sneak them in here, missy but I am just delighted that you did. I am not going to get much work done this morning - I just want to stare at them. Thank you so -”
“Um Issy - I have no idea what you are going on about. I haven’t sent you any flowers, though I am now wishing that I had. Not quite the best friend in the whole world now, am I?” Angel’s voice had grown quiet but then she almost shrieked. “Well, come on … who are they from? Is there a card?”
I grinned and reached over to the bouquet to investigate. “Um, I can’t see one,” I muttered as I searched through the cellophane and satin ribbon.
“That’s weird,” said Angel. “Are you sure?”
“Yep,” I confirmed. “Nothing. Nada.”
“I know!” she cried. “Which florist are they from? You could call them and ask. They must have forgotten to include the card.”
I rifled through the layers again but I could find no way of identifying which florist had created the bouquet. Angel was as perplexed as I was.
“Ohhhh, unless you have a sec
ret admirer!” she shrieked.
I jumped, not entirely sure that it was her loud shriek that had startled me. My head whipped around to look behind me. I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t a conscious decision but, as expected, my office was empty.
“I know! I know!” she said excitedly. “Call down to the guard and ask him who delivered them. Am I a genius or what?”
I couldn’t help but giggle at her words. It was a good idea. Someone would have had to unlock my door so the delivery guy could place the bouquet on my desk.