R & R
Chapter 2 WTH?
On the other side of the Twin-Cities, it so happened that Jules St. Claire was just getting home extremely tired from the weekend camping trip at 'Effigy Mounds' National Monument in Iowa. She'd had the bad luck of finding herself stuck behind an accident on I35 for 3 hours, which turned a 4-hour trip into seven. She finally arrived at home at 11 p.m., and fortunately, for her, Alex was opening the center that morning, so she'd be able to sleep in before her Monday classes.
She left her equipment and backpack against the wall and headed directly to the computer. She was waiting for a message from her twin who lived in NYC. As she waited for the PC to boot up she went to the kitchen for a bottle of water. She was thirsty and once she'd checked to see if her twin had left her a message she'd head straight for bed, but not before a long hot shower. The hot water would relax her muscles that had tensed up during the drive home and left her exhausted.
When she returned, without sitting down, she adjusted the screen on her HP Pavilion so she could read better; she hit the mail icon and saw she had 35 new messages. Intrigued she opened the inbox but didn't recognize any of the senders. She opened one and began to read.
"Personal Ad? Newspaper? Companion? WHAT THE HELL!! She went out to look for the paper that was sitting on the foyer table and flipped through the sections until she found the personal ads. There in a small square was the ad the sender was talking about. With her mouth open and mad as hell she crumpled up the newspaper and returned to the computer. Almost all of the emails said the same thing in the subject, 'Your Ad, I want to be your companion, Explore the outdoors and things of that nature.'
"Alex I am going to kill you!" She swore under her breath, she was sure her friends were the ones who had orchestrated the whole thing. Sam and Alex were set on getting her a girlfriend any way they could. She shook her head in anger. Tomorrow she would read the rest and as soon as she caught up to Alex she would hang her! Sam and her.
She looked for her sister's message amongst the others and after reading it, she smiled, she had told her that she would love to visit the next available weekend that she had open and that she would let her know as soon as she could.
She shut off the PC and after turning off the lights she headed for her bedroom where once she was undressed she hit the shower. Tomorrow would be another day and she was planning to have a good time making her two personal clowns sweat. Meaning her best friends and partners in the JAS Outfitness Center. However, for the moment all she wanted to do was rest. She had decided it would be a good idea to practice her kayaking with some hiking Sunday morning before heading back to Minneapolis, conveniently forgetting that it had only been a month prior to that she had recovered from a dislocated shoulder. Oh yeah it had been a grand experience. Besides, she had been able to try out her new camera taking pictures that she would display in her new photo album. Soon she was in bed, knocking out almost instantly.
The next day she woke up well past 9 a.m. with just barely enough time to get a coffee and get ready for work. She had a Wall Climbing session at 11 a.m.
When she got to JAS, Sam's Jeep and Alex's Forrester were already there, with a malicious smile she imagined just how she would get even with her friends.
As soon as she walked in Alex looked up from the reception desk and swallowed. Jules looked like the cat that had just swallowed the canary. Oh, oh she saw the messages, Alex thought and turned to try to look for Sam, who happened to be busy setting up the equipment for the Wall Climbing session that Jules would begin in an hour.
"Hiya Alex, how's it going?" Jules said in a tight voice but loud enough so that Sam would be able to hear her. Her attempt paid off in dividends when her friend raised her eyes and saw her. Oh yes girls, paybacks are a bitch, she smiled charmingly.
"Hey Jules how was your trip? Did you take a lot of pictures? It rained a bit on Saturday." Alex a tall woman with a muscular athletic body but not exaggeratedly so, with light brown hair and brown eyes had a tendency to talk too much when she was nervous. In addition, one wouldn't believe how a woman with her complexion could get so white upon seeing her friend come through the door.
"Yes but it was fine, you know I love the smell of wet earth! I got back late last night, but I had some time to do a few things before going to bed." She said as if nothing was up.
"Oh yeah?" Sam asked, she was a woman with dark brown hair and dark eyes and with a body just as athletic as Alex or Jules but her musculature was much softer. She moved closer and exchanged looks with Alex.
"Yep, I found a surprise in my inbox. Apparently I'm very popular, you two wouldn't know the reason for that would you?" She glared at both of them, daring them to deny their involvement in the personal ad.
Alex as well as Sam knew it would be useless to deny their part in the situation. Alex moved a hand to her neck, another nervous gesture.
"Well, you see, it's just that we thought it would be fun, you see like a form of publicity, you know?
"That is the most pathetic excuse that I've ever heard to justify your clear intent to sound totally innocent with me!" Jules exclaimed barely holding in her anger. "When are you going to understand that I'm fine the way I am!
"Jules, it's not that…" Sam tried to intervene but a deadly look from Jules shut her up.
"Girls you are my best friends and you know that I care about you a lot, but for Christ's sake! My personal email account is full of messages from God knows who probably a bunch of crazy people trying to meet me au natural! What in the world, were you thinking when you did that? At least you could have created an alternate email account or something and not used my personal account!" She declared airily.
Alex and Sam turned to look at each other with looks of "Oh, oh" on both their faces, which made it obvious that neither one had thought of it, but what was done was done, and now they'd have to face the consequences of their so called innocent ad. The truth was that they wanted to encourage Jules to come of herself imposed solitude. It had been more than three years that she had been with anyone much less a date. They knew that Mika's infidelity had not only hurt her but also left her cynical as well towards any type of relationship. The only relationships she had at all and permitted herself were with them, who had known her since their university days when the three were part of the Baylor University Cross Country Team, and with her twin who she loved dearly for the obvious reasons.
"I see that my brilliant JAS associates forgot that simple little detail didn't they?" She looked at them both with a malicious gleam in her eye, Oh yes. Jace we will be seeing each other this weekend. "My friends, this weekend I'm going to NYC. Jace has invited me and I don't want to let her down." She winked and with a happy stride headed to her office.
"But…but, hey it's not fair!!!!" Blubbered Alex all hot and bothered, that weekend was Jules turn to take care of the Center.
"You and your big idea!!" Sam hit Alex on the shoulder.
"Ouch!" She stared at her painfully.
"You see what a mess you've gotten us into?" I had a date this weekend with the delicious Janine." She glared back in frustration.
"Well you could always bring her back here for the night, we close at 11 p.m., you know for some classes." She wiggled her brows gleefully.
"For being a Business Administrator you sure have a mean streak Alex. Sam complemented her but to herself she thought that Janine wasn't exactly the athletic type. At least not in that way. She had a body many would die for but it wasn't due to her strict exercise regimen, but due to starvation.
"Hahahaha, thanks I think." She stood wondering, what are we going to do now? It was pretty obvious that Jules was not interested in romance and she wasn't planning on answering the emails that she had received, so they had to think of another plan. Alex did not notice that she was being observed from the office and obviously forgot that Jules knew her very well and that lost look Alex had only meant one thing, PROBLEMS. Unfortunately for her friend the one who usually wound up with them was herself since Jules always caught her before she could get away with it.
The day went by without much happening, at 11:30 p.m. she was just getting home, she wasn't tired. It was rare that she felt that way what with being in such great physical shape and the fact that she adored her job made it seem not like a job but something pleasurable. She had picked up a Pizza on the way home, her culinary abilities were limited, she was an expert in the art of survival in nature, but cooking was not exactly one of her fortes. Fortunately, her twin adored the kitchen and if they ate well during their years at BU, it was because of her.
She had showered before leaving JAS so she had left her backpack on the foyer table, with pizza in hand she headed directly to the couch and turned on the laptop that had a wireless connection to her PC on her desk. While it booted up she went to the kitchen for a plate, napkins and a bottle of beer.
She began to read her email. Truthfully, she was curious to see who had responded to the personal ad that her friends had had the nerve to publish in her name. Today she had another five responses.
"Let's see what we have here." She said to herself.
She opened each one. Some were just simply enough to make you die of laughter. Others were interesting, but not sufficiently to get her to respond to them. Even so, she responded nicely to them by inviting them to JAS to try out the facility without letting them know she was one of the owners that spent most of her time there, and reminding them to let reception know they were there by RunRivergrrl's invitation. Surely, she would see some of them, seeing as she was usually there during the evenings.
She opened the next one just as she was taking a bite from her slice and as she read what it said she nearly choked, surprised at what it said. She coughed several times, she took a drink of her beer and reread the message a couple of times just to be sure that what she had read was right.
"This one sure is a head case, even her nick is corny." She shook her head and decided to answer.
Hi Little Dreamer,
Thanks for your message and that you praise my love of nature. I definitely love to be in direct contact with it, but nevertheless it's the outdoor activities that I speak of that require an experienced person or at least to have certain abilities to be able to handle the rigors and dangers that you may encounter when doing them. They are not a game and it is much better to have plenty of experience before trying to attempt them as a hobby. Once again, thank you for your words, but without trying to offend you, I think your friend might be right. You require experience to do what I do and you don't have that at all. Thanks for your interest.
RunRivergrrrl
She finished reading the messages, erased most of them, leaving only the business or personal contacts. Before shutting down, she wrote her sister to let her know that she would be visiting over the weekend and that she would let her know what time she'd be arriving on Friday.
She turned off the lights and went to bed; the next day was her turn to open at JAS.
