Chapter 1
Kate is huddled on the couch in the living room, and here I am trying to brush my hair into submission.
"Here are the questions," with her foot, Kate gestures toward a yellow legal pad cast about our coffee table, "Write whatever you can, I'll take care of the rest later." She blew her nose loudly into a kleenex making her perfect pale cheeks turn a rose red and her olive green eyes water.
Even ill, Kate Kavanagh looks breathtaking in her WSU hoodie, and gray joggers that have yet again made another appearance from the mound of clothes on her bedroom floor. "I really appreciate this Ana, it took me almost nine months to get this goddamn interview," she blew her nose once again "it would have probably taken another six to reschedule." For a moment I wondered how a girl with such dedication could have such a lackluster immune system, especially on such an important occasion, but instead of voicing such a thought I said "No worries Kate, this is payback for all the times you made sure I didn't aspirate on my own vomit Freshman year," I turned my back on her to go fix my hair. She coughed rather loudly before croaking "Beer before liquor-" I couldn't help smiling despite of how early it was "Never sicker."
"Liquor before beer," I laughed walking out of the bathroom to face my sick friend once again "You're in the clear." She looked up at me, her eyes losing their childish glint and becoming much more serious "Thank you Ana, I don't know what I would do without you." I shook my head leaning in the doorway of the bathroom "It's fine Kate. Trust me, I wouldn't do this if I didn't want to." I looked down at my watch realizing that I really had to leave. "Do you need anything before I go?" I began racing around the apartment collecting my keys and slipping on my shoes. She was taking a long sip of what I assumed was tea, which meant she was taking far too long to respond. I would have rolled my eyes at her if she had been another second, but instead of speaking she simply held up the notepad I had forgotten on the coffee table. That would have been very bad. "Thanks," I said as my cheeks started to heat up. Only I could forget something as essential as the questions for the interview.
When I went and grabbed for the notepad Kate didn't budge. Instead she used it to pull me closer. "Seriously Ana, don't worry, she's only the CEO of Grey Enterprises and a major benefactor to our University...what's the worst that could happen?
Plenty could happen, especially on my snowy drive to Seattle. Kate practically begged me to take her Mercedes, but in my eyes nothing could beat my lil VW bug. And while Kate insisted I should junk the car soon, I will say this. Wanda, as I had dubbed her, was a lot of things, but the car had never let me down before. On prom night when my date got blackout drunk and was incapable to drive, Wanda was there. At high school graduation when Jimmy Phillips lit a cigarette too close to my grandma's oxygen tank , Wanda was there. On my first day at Washington State University when I realized I left all my toiletters in my Mother's car, Wanda was there. To be frank, Wanda has outlasted most of my friends, and all of my previous relationships. It didn't matter though because on a cold night when one would need a lover to warm them up, I would just crank Wanda's heat and jam out to whatever CD I hadn't yet broken.
That being said, her basically flat tires were slipping and sliding against the road, and I drove with a white knuckled grip on the wheel for pretty much the whole ride. "It's not like Kate's car would have been any better," I thought to myself, but at the same time I could already see Kate requesting that the car be towed away if I ended up crashing it. What a sad day if I were to crash. Not only would I lose my car, but I would lose my pride, and as I hit various patches of ice, skidding ever so slightly, I couldn't help wonder which part would be the worst of it.
I forced myself to think of something much less foreboding so I began thinking about my destination. The destination I was seeking was the global enterprise so humbly referred to as Grey House. I'd never actually been to the Grey House building, but from the pictures I saw online it was quite incredible. It looked to be this huge twenty story building with all this curved glass and steel. It had a very industrial look and the moment I got off the highway I immediately recognized it. Even with the snowy sky as it's background Grey House was breathtaking.
When I pushed down on the accelerator Wanda began to grunt and groan. These groans were foreign to most healthy cars, but I had to admit that Wanda's days were numbered. She'd been making these noises for months, yet I refuse defeat. Everyone warned me against spending my cash on a rust bucket like Wanda. She's lasted this long, and I wasn't letting her go until my graduation. I've promised this both to myself and to Wanda on incredibly long drives much like this.
Suddenly my thoughts were consumed with the sound of scraping metal and despite pushing the pedal flat to the ground she began to slow. As my speed decreased at an alarming rate, the immaculate building off in the distance was long forgotten as Wanda began to belch out puffs of gray smoke. My field of vision was skewed and I began to smell burnt rubber. "What the fuck," I shouted at Wanda. She groaned once more and I swerved off to the side of the road. Once the imploding car was stationary I threw my door open and gulped in the fresh air that came rushing toward me.
I appeared to be the only one that bare witness to the death of Wanda and I couldn't help the relief that washed over me. It's one thing for your car to die, it's a whole other thing for your car to die and have a bunch of people swarming around you to gawk at your own personal tragedy. I scooped up my backpack from the passenger seat. At the very least I wasn't too far from my destination so I wouldn't have to explain the reason for my tardiness. With my backpack slung over my shoulder I walked around the barely breathing Wanda to the sidewalk. My car was facing a different direction than the other cars, but thankfully no one was hit. On the asphalt she had left two huge tire marks that would forever display the urgency of her stop, and I could only think one thing. "Kate's never gonna let this go."
Just when I was about to turn and leave I heard heels clicking toward me. "Miss, are you okay?" I turned to the stranger ready to console them with false promises, but I was immediately taken aback. She may have been a complete stranger, but she was not merely good looking - she was the epitome of beauty. Her long fingers pushed back her free flowing copper hair as her gray eyes pierced into me with a thousands questions while her mind surely was filled with concern. I nodded almost robotically before squeaking a pathetic, "Yeah." She was close enough that I could smell her perfume, but far enough away that I could get a full view of her. She was wearing a dark pencil skirt and a white button up. I wondered briefly if she was cold seeing as her legs were on full display and I doubted that the thin material of her shirt did much, but my thoughts were cut off by her hand shooting out and grasping my forearm,
"Do you need a doctor?" I wanted to crack joke about needing a love doctor, yet somehow I refrained. I would blame this on the fact that I was too busy getting lost in her eyes, but that sounded just as cheesy. "I don't," I pointed toward my car, "but she does." The woman stared at me oddly. I shrugged my shoulders, "My car...she..acts up sometimes." The woman's eyebrows pushed together creating the slightest crease between them. "I'm not sure if I would call that acting up." Because she still held my arm out in front of me I could clearly see my watch. "Fuck!" I ripped my arm away from her, "Thank you for your concern, but I'm terribly late." I turned on my heel contemplating breaking into a sprint due to embarrassment of how I acted toward that fine specimen and my general possibility of tardiness. "I'm sure whoever it is can wait," she brushed past me and toward Wanda. I was frozen in place as I watched her lift the cars hood unleashing a whole plume of smoke. "Don't worry," she said "we all use the excuse of car trouble, at least this time you'll be telling the truth."
I'll be honest, as a woman I knew very little about cars, and I assumed this to be the case with most women. Yet this beautiful stranger defied all the odds in my head by not only lifting the hood, but also having the common sense to say, "There's not much I can do now...if I try to touch anything I'll probably get burned." She turned her head back to me, "Where is it that you're going?"
"The Grey House," I said "I'm interviewing Christian Grey for my school's newspaper."
The woman's face cracked into a breathtaking smile as she said, "Well your in luck I just happen to be Christian Grey." I would have laughed, seeing it as a joke, but the longer I looked at her the more my faded memory sharpened and I realized….holy shit Christian Grey just watched my car implode. "Oh," I said not really knowing what else to say. She smiled at me, "Oh." I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I ripped open my backpack trying to grab for Kate's notes. The pad slipped from my hand and clattered on the ground. Christian leaned down picking the papers up from the snow and swiftly wiping off the back. Before she handed the pad over to me, she must have glanced at one of Kate's many questions, smirking and looking at me with a questioning brow. "Are you gay, Mrs. Grey?"