Chapter 2 of the untitled work

CH 2

“Hey Rache!”

“She survived!  How’d it go?” Rache squealed.

“It went fine.”

“Fine?!  Fine?!  Are you deliberately underplaying or are you just so out of it you couldn’t see how hot he is?”

“He is very attractive,” Ramey hedged.  “But, Rache, how much do you know about James, really?”

“Oh Ramey, stop being so –Ramey! And relax and enjoy the view!”

“No, really, at the end of the night, he helped me get a cab.  I don’t remember telling him where I lived and somehow we ended up in front of my building.”

“I’m sure you just were distracted or forgot.  Just relax.”

Defeated, Ramey said, “You’re right.  I must’ve been distracted by his hotness.”  She wasn’t going to learn anything useful from Rache about James.

Rache giggled, and they spent the rest of the conversation discussing James’ various attractive attributes.  

*****

Later that evening, as she sat in her car outside her mark’s favorite worksite, she revisited the night before in her mind.  As she went through the timeline again, her subconscious kept thinking while she snapped pictures of the same immaculate man and the same woman, only this time in a pair of designer jeans and a tank top.  As she appraised the amorous antics of the couple, Ramey couldn’t help but wonder if they were as bored as she was.  For the second time in two days, her alarm bells were ringing in her head.  They were faint, but they were definitely there.  She chalked it up to remembering last night and wrote it off.  She emailed her pics, packed up her stuff and left.  It was late, and she had a meeting with her client in the morning to deliver what she had learned.  It would be unpleasant, to be sure, but getting paid has it’s own uplifting energy.

*****

The next morning, Rotti woke her up with slobbery kisses and whining.  It was so late when she got in last night, she forgot to take him out for his business.  She glanced at the clock.  If she left now, she still had time to make up the run she missed last night while taking pictures of the immaculately dressed cheater.  Ramey dragged herself out of bed, threw on her running clothes and shoes, grabbed the leash and headed for the sunrise.  She went over her material for her meeting with her client while she jogged.  As she rounded the last corner before her building, she collided with another runner coming out of the parking lot of the apartment building next to hers.  Thanks to years of self-defense and hand-to-hand combat, it took her less than two seconds to get back on her feet, poised and ready for action.  Rotti beat her to it.  In those two seconds, Rotti had pinned the runner to the ground, pressed his growling muzzle into his neck and held it there, awaiting instruction from his owner.  Before calling off the dog, Ramey walked over to the pinned pedestrian to determine if they were friend or foe.  As she looked over the dog’s powerful shoulders, she looked directly into the face of her blind date from two nights ago.

“Rotti! Heel!”  Ramey commanded.  The dog immediately stood down but kept his body squarely between Ramey and the stranger.  Ramey stepped around Rotti and extended her hand to help him up.  He was sweaty and dressed in running shorts and a nicely-filled out white UnderArmor shirt.  His long, tanned legs ended in ankle socks which disappeared into well-worn trainers.  In his extended arm, he held a white paper bag and next to him in the grass, there was a perfectly-landed cup holder with two cups of coffee, sloshed but still intact. 

“James!  What a surprise!  I’m sorry about Rotti.  He takes his job very seriously.”  She shrugged with a smile.

“I have a confession.  I convinced Rachel tell me your usual time and route for your run so I could hatch a plot.  I was hoping to take a similar route and run into you, but not exactly literally.”  He smiled apologetically.  “I brought breakfast.” He said, holding up a bag of fruit, some coffee and a couple of kolaches from the local bakery.  Now that he knew James was a friend, Rotti was trying to test the bonds by begging unsuccessfully for what was in the bag.  He settled for sniffing it instead.

“I would love to eat breakfast with you, but it’ll have to be fast.  I have a meeting with a client soon.”

“That’s fine.  I have some business to attend soon as well.” James agreed.

They sat on the curb as the sun rose higher and at the breakfast.  As they talked,  Ramey could feel herself letting her guard down and decided to just let it go.  Briefly, she leaned to the side and rested her head on his shoulder.  It was exhausting being so damn paranoid all the time.  It was 8 o’clcok in the morning.  What could happen with the sun high in the sky in a public place?  James shot her a funny look as she straightened up and shrugged to herself.  She smiled at him over her cup as she sipped her coffee and tried to play it off.  She couldn’t have someone she just met thinking she talked to herself-even if it was true. 

After breakfast was eaten and all the trash had been disposed of, they started their goodbyes.  As Ramey came back from the bin, James looked suddenly serious.  He moved closer to her, making her acutely self-conscious of the fact that she had just finished her run and followed it with coffee.  She looked down at her feet and smiled apologetically.  He reached out and pulled up her chin with his finger.  As they stood, nose to nose, she could see how intensely his green eyes burned.  He lowered his lips to hers and, for a second, let them linger.  She closed her eyes and melted.  A second later, he stepped back, releasing her from his spell.  As he walked away, Ramey swore her lips were still tingling.  Oh well, there was no time to think about that.  She had half an hour to shower, commute and tell her client her soon-to-be-ex-husband was a cheating liar.  As she raced through her shower, Ramey mused, “Why do people fall in love at all?” She was pretty sure her tingling lips could clearly answer her question.