Protein Shake

by Alexis Angel

  I raise my head and look toward the noise, blinking as I try to figure out who’d break in here like that. Ah, what am I saying? The answer to that couldn’t be any more self-evident.

  The one and only, Misty Lane.

  She has her hair tied up in a bun, and there’s a smile on her face; instead of looking like an alcoholic mess, this time she just looks… well, she just looks like a mess. From inside her pink purse, Cupcake is looking at me with his kind but lazy eyes.

  “Cara,” Misty greets me with a nod, walking toward my desk and sitting in front of me. Surprisingly, she isn’t walking erratically and her speech isn’t slurred. I think this is the first time in my life that I’m meeting Sober Misty. Which, now that I think about it, is kinda weird.

  “What are you doing here, Misty?” I ask her, my headache growing tenfold with her presence. Despite knowing that she was just playing a role, Misty really turned out to be a major pain in the ass. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting to see her ever again. But now here she is, as sober as a judge.

  “I came here for this,” she says with a smile, taking a folded envelope from inside her purse. She places it face down on my desk and slides it toward me. Never taking my eyes off hers, I pick the envelope up and open it.

  Inside, there’s a check.

  “It’s your payment,” she continues, “you deserve it.”

  I raise my eyes from the check and look at her, having no idea on what I should say. Is she for serious?

  “And I want to apologize. I know that sometimes I can be quite intense, and I guess I overdid it this time. I just lost myself in the role, you know? Being an actress isn’t easy, Cara,” she tells me gravely, almost as if she believes she’s offering me one of life's secrets.

  “You were in a reality TV show, Misty…” I tell her, my brain overheating as I try to crack her thought process.

  “Yeah, that really helped me hone my acting skills,” she giggles, patting Cupcake’s head with one hand. “But, anyway. I’m really sorry for all the stress I might have caused - but it was all in the name of love, right?”

  “Maybe,” I sigh, leaning back against my chair. Even though Misty might be a complete lunatic, I can’t hold a grudge against someone like her. She’s a lunatic, yeah, but a lovable one. And I guess that, in a twisted way, she really believed she was doing the right thing. I just wish she hadn’t, ahem, lost herself in the role she was playing.

  “Maybe?” She asks me, placing both her elbows on the desk and leaning forward.

  “Yeah. Things aren’t that great right now, and I haven’t heard from Liam.”

  “Oh, Cara, Cara… You really need to step up your game,” she nods sagely, looking at me as if she were my mentor, ready to make me see my true potential. “Do you know what you need to do?”

  “What, Misty?” I ask her, genuinely curious about what a troubled mind like hers will come up with.

  “Easy. Very, very easy - just put on something sexy and go find him. Nobody can stay mad at their true love… Especially if she’s dressed in nothing but a trench coat and lingerie.”

  “Are you… serious?” Does she really want me to go after Liam with a trench coat? I want to make things right, not to have a restraining order slapped on me.

  “Of course I’m serious! Trust me, I’ve done that a lot, and it worked every single time!”

  “Alright, Misty…” I chuckle, wondering if a trenchcoat and a lingerie is all of Misty’s arsenal when it comes to seducing a man. “I’ll skip the trench coat, but I think you’re right… I have to find him.”

  “Of course you do!” She giggles happily, jumping up to her feet. She walks around the desk and, now standing in front of me, she grabs me by the hand and forces me up. “And you have to do it right now!”

  “Right now…?”

  “True love can’t wait, Cara!” She cries out, working herself into a frenzy as she pushes me out of my own office. Ah, screw it - she’s right.

  I need to stop feeling sorry for myself and do something about it.

  True love can’t wait.

  Cara

  I can’t believe I’m actually following Misty’s advice. But, hey, she was right, wasn’t she? Aside from that trench coat thing, that is.

  After leaving my office building (or, rather, after Misty forced me to leave), I grabbed a taxi and headed straight toward Liam’s apartment building. It was a short ride, yes, but my heart was hammering against my chest the whole time. I never thought I’d feel this anxious for a man, but there you have it - sometimes love sneaks up on you like this, no warning shots at all.

  Misty’s words still echo in my head, too. She talked of true love, whatever that means, and these two words have been buzzing inside my head ever since I left the office. I mean, what the hell is true love? Is it about trust, sex, or something else? Is it about these butterflies inside your stomach, or that dizziness you feel when your crush looks your way?

  I always thought that love - let alone true love - was nothing more than a fantasy. A trick played by a smart cocktail of hormones, carefully prepared over millions and millions of years. A biological sleight of hand, if you want.

  But ever since I met Liam… It’s hard to explain, but now I understand how people get shot through the heart with that elusive arrow. More than just biology, it’s a feeling that transcends all that… Sure, it’s possible that I simply lost myself in an illusion, but something inside me tells me that’s not the case.

  Whatever there is between Liam and I, it’s real.

  And it’s exactly because I’m certain of that realness that I’m now inside an elevator, making my way up to the top floor of his apartment building. With my arms folded over my chest, I tap my foot against the floor of the elevator anxiously, watching as the numbers climb up in the electronic panel mounted over the doors.

  When the doors finally slide open, I stroll in the hallway confidently, making my way toward his apartment door. Taking a deep breath, I rap my knuckles against the door and wait anxiously, trying to hear if there’s any sound coming from the inside. I hear nothing for a few seconds, and so I just knock again.

  I’m almost ready to give up after my third try, but then I hear footsteps coming from the other side of the door. My heart picks up the pace once again, and it does it so fiercely that I feel myself growing slightly lightheaded.

  And that’s when the door swings open.

  “Liam, I --” I start to say, but then I shut up real quick as I realize that the man facing me isn’t Liam.

  “You must be Cara,” the man tells me with a smile. He’s tall and handsome, his sleek brown hair combed back, and he’s wearing dress pants and a white button-up shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He’s probably the same age as Liam, but he doesn’t seem to be part of the Donovan family: the lines in his face lack that ruggedness, and the twinkle in his eyes doesn’t have the same intensity that shone in both Liam and his father’s eyes.

  “I am,” I reply, surprised. “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Connor,” he says, offering me his hand. “I’m a friend of Liam’s. And his attorney as well.”

  “Uhm… Where’s Liam? I need to see him,” I tell him as I shake his hand awkwardly. Something in his eyes, though, tells me that I won’t like the answer he’s going to give me.

  “Liam isn’t here,” he replies, one hand of his still grabbing the door. “He was here with me a while ago, going through some paperwork, but then he left. You just missed him.”

  “Where did he go?” I insist, even though whatever hope I had of finding Liam has already been crushed into a million little pieces. Even if this Connor knows where Liam is, I doubt he’ll tell me.

  “I have no idea,” Connor shrugs, looking at me with an expression of pity. “I’m sorry,” he then adds. “You gave him a lot to think about, Cara. He’s probably just clearing his head right now.”

  “Oh,” I say, averting my gaze as I feel tears flooding my eyes. “I see. I’ll… I’ll just
come back later,” I continue, already turning on my heels to leave. I walk toward the elevator as if I’m in a daze and, the moment I hear Connor closing the door behind me, I feel my heart tightening up into a fist.

  Like Connor said, Liam’s just clearing his head. Which probably means that he’s clearing me out of his head. Oh, I’m such a fool. What the hell did I even come here for? Just like my foolish clients, I went after an illusion… And it’s my fault that whatever future I had with Liam became an illusion.

  Oh, what if I ruined things for good? What if there’s no turning back the clocks? I don’t know if I can keep my head up without Liam by my side. I know, I’m acting like an heartbroken fool right now… But that’s exactly what I am: an heartbroken fool.

  Maybe this is why I avoided love like the plague - it wasn’t because I didn’t believe in it, despite what I told myself. Instead, I was afraid. You see, love is like fire - it can warm you, yes, but it can also consume you whole, leaving nothing but ashes behind. And I was afraid of that… Afraid of the pain that walks hand-in-hand with unrequited love.

  “I miss you, Liam,” I whisper to myself as I step inside the elevator. The doors close behind me, and I press my forehead against the full-body mirror. Closing my eyes, I let the tears stream down my face, dark sorrow wrapping itself around my heart.

  Oh, please, God - tell me I didn’t screw it all up.

  Just give me another shot.

  Cara

  “I don’t get it. What is it with airports?” Renee asks me, grabbing a handful of popcorn and taking them to her mouth. She does it without taking her eyes off the screen, almost as if she were afraid of missing something important.

  “It’s part of the formula, I guess,” I tell her with a shrug. We’ve spent the whole afternoon watching old (and bad) romantic comedies and, somehow, it seems that every movie we chose has an airport scene where the man must hurry in order to stop his true love from leaving forever.

  Maybe that’s what I should do - book a one-way seat to Paris and then cross my fingers and hope that Liam will race against the clock to make me stay in New York. Yeah, right. Like that would happen.

  “C’mon, Cara, cheer up!” Renee tells me suddenly, turning around on the couch so that she’s facing me. Grabbing the popcorn bucket, she shoves it into my hands. “You’ve been gloomy all day. It’s not like that will help.”

  “I know,” I sigh. “It’s just driving me crazy, you know? Sitting here and waiting for a miracle. I just wish there was something I could do to make things better,” I tell her, that feeling of frustration taking over me once more. If I wouldn’t look like a maniac, I’d just hurl the popcorn bucket against the TV and howl in frustration. Thankfully, I still haven’t lost my mind completely.

  “He’ll come around, you’ll see,” she says, but I can tell by her tone of voice that she’s not entirely sure of what she’s saying. How could she be? It’s not like she knows what’s going in Liam’s mind.

  “I don’t know, Renee… Maybe this is it. Maybe I’ve blown things.”

  “Oh, stop saying that. Just like you told me… Liam is clearing his head. Sure, he might be a bit pissed, but that doesn’t mean he hates you now. I doubt it that he’ll simply brush aside everything you guys went through.”

  “And what exactly did we went through? It was all a lie. None of that was real,” I say, gritting my teeth as I remember every single moment I spent with Liam. How he opened up to me, how he made me want to surrender my body to his… No, I’m wrong - it was real. More real than everything else in my life. But maybe if I pretend that it wasn’t… Maybe that will make the pain go away.

  “It was real, Cara. You know that. Sure, it was all a bit unorthodox, but that doesn’t mean that your feeling wasn’t real. And you know men… They get all bitchy and pissed after a fight, but that doesn’t mean they hate your guts. Maybe he is just blowing off some steam,” she continues, doing her best to drag me out of the depressed state I’m in.

  “What if blowing off some steam means he’s in some bar right now? He’s probably with another woman already. Maybe he doesn’t even remember my name anymore,” I reply, looking at the screen while my brain rushes through all these hellish scenarios. God, it hurts to just think of Liam in another woman’s arms.

  “Jesus, Cara… Seriously, you gotta stop thinking about shit like that. Do I have to lock all the windows in your apartment?”

  “Really funny, Renee. No, I’m not going to jump from a window. It’s just… I don’t know, this sucks.”

  “Welcome to the rest of your life,” she says with a shrug, and I just give her my death-stare. “I mean it, Cara. Nobody said that love was supposed to be easy. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it’s painful… Yeah, love is all that. But you can’t lower your arms just because it’s hard. You gotta keep fighting. And the Cara I know is a fighter, not a quitter.”

  “I guess you’re right,” I sigh, running one hand through my hair. “What do you say we go out? I’m going insane just sitting here.”

  “Now we’re talking!” She chirps happily, jumping up to her feet. “Tequila!” She proclaims, balling one hand into a fist and throwing it up in the air.

  “No, no tequila… Just --” I start, but then I hear someone knocking at the door. We look at each other in complete silence, my heart kicking and punching against my ribcage. Could it be…?

  Swallowing hard, I start walking toward the door, my mind already conjuring a smiling bright image of Liam. It’s gotta be him. Oh, please, God, let it be Liam.

  Feeling a knot in my stomach, I curl my fingers around the handle of the door and turn it. I hold my breath as the door turns on its hinges and - surprise, surprise - there’s no Liam waiting for me in the hallway. Instead, there’s a gangly teenager with a knapsack, his face covered in acne.

  “Are you… mm… Caralyn?” He asks me hesitantly, his cheeks turning crimson as his eyes find my cleavage. In my hurry to get to the door, I completely forgot that I was wearing pajama shorts and a skimpy top.

  “That’s me,” I tell him, my heart once again lowering its pace in disappointment. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.

  “Well, this is for you then,” the boy tells me, taking an envelope out from his knapsack.

  “Okay… Thank you,” I tell him with a nod, my eyes focused on the black envelope he pushed into my hands. With a parting smile, I close the door and turn to Renee, shrugging as I show her the envelope.

  “What’s that?” Renee asks me, looking at me while she kneels on the couch, her arms folded over the headrest.

  “No idea, it doesn’t say anything.” I turn the envelope over, but there’s nothing written on the outside. Carefully opening it, I take a single folded sheet of paper from the inside. There’s a golden lettering on the top and it just reads Liam Donovan. My heart resumes his galloping pace once more as I read Liam’s name, and I have to take a deep breath to calm myself.

  “What, Cara? Tell me!” Renee demands, getting out from the couch and hurrying to my side. “Read it!”

  “Cara, I’m sorry I’ve lied to you,” I start to read, my voice fraught with tension. “As an apology, I’d like to invite you to an event I’m hosting tomorrow night. I hope to see you there. Liam.”

  “That’s it?” Renee asks me, surprised.

  “That’s it… The directions and time of the event are on the back, but aside from that… There’s nothing else,” I say, my brain fast at work as it tries to decode the meaning behind Liam’s note. Is he apologizing because he wants to make things right? Or is he doing it because… because he wants to end it on a positive note? “Oh, what do I do?”

  “What do you mean? You go to that event, whatever it is, and you kick some ass, Cara!” Grabbing me by the shoulders, she forces me to turn toward her and then repeats her words slowly. “Kick. Some. Ass.”

  Cara

  Why the hell am I feeling so nervous right now?

  I’ve splurged on a beautiful thousand-dollar dress, I’
m wearing my best Jimmy Choos, and there’s a let’s-take-over-the-world smile on my face. And still, my legs feel like spaghetti noodles.

  “Are you ready?” Renne asks me, looking out the window of our taxi, one of her hands already grabbing the door handle.

  “Yeah, let’s go,” I tell her, pretending that I’m okay even though I’m a nervous wreck. But what the hell - a woman must conquer her fears, right? Even if her fears include attending a black tie event in a five-star hotel. I know, after Liam’s little note I should be feeling at least a little hopeful… But I just can’t seem to do it. What if I stroll inside to see him arm-in-arm with another woman? What if he went to all this length just to humiliate me? I don’t think that Liam’s the kind of guy who’d do such a thing, but when it comes to men… Well, you never know, right?

  “Whatever Liam has on his mind,” Renee starts as we leave the taxi and start walking toward the hotel lobby, “he sure didn’t care about the cost.”

  “Yeah,” I mutter under my breath. Liam booked the Mandarin Oriental, one of the most expensive hotels in New York, for his surprise event - and that just makes me feel even more nervous about the whole thing.

  The moment we step inside the lobby, one of the clerks walks straight toward us and asks for our names. After checking that we’re on the list (well, I’m the one on the list, Renee’s just my plus-one) he then gets us inside an elevator; then, he leads us through a few luxurious corridors, the walls lined with what I suspect to be expensive and original paintings, and finally stops in front of two large double doors.

  “In there,” he proclaims solemnly, pushing one of the doors open and allowing us a peek of the most amazing ballroom I’ve ever seen. Renee and I both step inside at the same time, and I struggle to stop my jaw from hanging open as I look around the room.

  Three gigantic chandeliers hang from the ceiling, their sparkling light covering the room; instead of walls, half the ballroom has huge floor-to-ceiling windows, allowing everyone inside a nice clear view of Central Park. Circular tables, covered with red tablecloth and expensive silverware, are dispersed on the floor, and the distance between them is so perfect you’d say someone went around the room with a ruler.