Finding The Perfect Man
Chapter 4: Bitches and Accents
"That shirt is very offensive…" he says, with a look of disgust on his face, and I just can't hold it back anymore.
"Ok, First off. I'm late because I burned my fucking hand with hot coffee in the gas station, and I had to get it treated. Second, we work in a porn shop, Edward. Almost everything in here is offensive to most people, and Third, the shirt is talking about a stamp. Shit, get your fucking mind out of the gutter." I say, and walk around him, not able to hold back my smile at the look of shock plastered on his face.
I walk up to the counter and look back at Edward and see him scowling at me and then going into the back room, and slamming the door. I smile, and look over at Tony, who comes walking up to the counter.
"What just happened?" he asks, and I laugh.
"I just put the boss in his place…. No biggie" I shrug as Tony laughs. A customer comes in and starts to browse around. I give him a moment before I walk over, and ask if he needs any help.
"Yea… I'm looking for this product I found online…" he says, and hands me a piece of printer paper with a picture printed on it. I have to hold in my laugh when I see this, but I'm pretty sure we have it.
"Right this way" I tell him, and lead him to the back of the store, where I pick up the hilarious looking contraption.
"Yea… that's it… I'll take it!" I walk back up to the counter, and once I place it on the counter to ring it up, Tony looks from me, to the guy, to the product in front of us and then back to me. I look at him at him from the corner of my eye, and wink. And because I'm an ass like that, I start to mess with Tony.
"Have you seen how awesome these things are, Tone?" I say, lifting up the package. On the front is a picture of what's inside, which just happens to be a head piece, with a long dildo attached to where the chin goes.
"I'm getting one and wearing it for Halloween" I say as I place it in the black bag, and the man pays. I thank him for coming, and as soon as he leaves, Tony bursts out laughing.
"What the fuck was that for?" he says
"I don't even think I wanna know" I say as we both laugh, and walk over to the aisles to make sure everything is looking good.
At around lunch time, we call in to have lunch delivered. Tony wants Mikeys, but after I tell him about the horrible date I had with the bartender there, we decide on Chinese. The store is dead, and after telling Tony about what happened to my hand, I hear the sound of my phone ringing from my pocket, and decide to answer it.
"Hello?"
"Hey. Bella?" says a familiar voice with a tinge of an accent and I swoon. The sexy Italian Doctor.
"Hi Doctor Marciano" I say, in my sexiest voice. He laughs and sighs into the phone.
"Please…Just Eric. How are you feeling?" he asks, and I smile into the phone, and turn away from the dumb look Tony is giving me.
"Excellent. But maybe that has to do with the fact that this very attractive doctor healed me." I say, and his beautiful laugh sounds in my ear.
"Well, I loved helping such a beautiful woman." he says, and I know my face is fucking red hot right now. I don't know what to say, but thankfully before I can say something completely dumb, he begins to talk.
"So, I was wondering if maybe you'd like to get drinks tonight?" he says, and I immediately say yes.
"Good. Um, I'll call you after I get out of work to get your address and I'll swing by and get you, sound good?"
"Perfect. Talk to you soon, Eric"
"Real soon, principessa" he says, making my body quiver. I hang up the phone and sigh, leaning up against the wall as Tony rolls his eyes at me.
Our food comes soon after, and as we eat behind the counter, Edward comes out, ass face still intact, and proceeds to prop all the doors open and open the windows.
"It smells in here! couldn't you guys take that outside to eat?" he says, and Tony says he's sorry, while I ignore his ass.
After lunch, we get back to work, and I'm excited to see that I only have 2 hours left to be at work. About an hour before quitting time, a woman walks in holding an expensive purse and wearing jeans that probably cost more than the rent for my apartment. Tony looks at me, wiggles his eyebrows and walks around the counter to talk to her.
"Can I help you find anything?" he says, and I watch as the woman turns her head to look at him with a look of disgust, and starts to talk.
"Do I look like I would need anything in here?" she seethes, and Tony flinches from the harshness of her voice, which pisses me off.
"I don't know… maybe I can get you a nice plug to replace that stick you have shoved up your ass" I say. The woman inhales sharply and narrows her eyes at me and is about to say something when the door to the backroom opens and Edward walks out, looking at all of us before his eyes land and stay on the woman.
"What are you doing here, Lauren?" he asks, and she immediately points at me.
"This woman is awful… You should have heard the horrible things she just said to me." I suddenly wonder if this is his wife or something. Or maybe someone else in his family… shit. Edward looks over at me with no expression on his face, and then grabs the woman by her arm and pulls her into the backroom, shutting the door behind him.
"Well… it was nice knowing you, Bells." Tony says as he moves to get back behind the counter, and all I can do is stand there. I may have inadvertently fucked up everything with just one sentence.
Fuck Me.
I wait impatiently for the door to open and them to come out, and when they finally do about 10 minutes later, the woman walks past the counter without looking at me and storms out of the store.
"Isabella…. Can you please come here for a moment."
Shit. Isabella. No one calls me that unless they're about to rip me a new asshole. I walk slowly towards the door, and past him. He shuts the door behind me, and I stand there facing him. He still hasn't said anything a minute later, and I look up to see him gripping the space between his eyes with his thumb and finger.
"Edward… I'm.." I start but he holds his hand up to stop me.
"I just want to let you know you're not in trouble for saying what you did to her." his green eyes set on me, and I start to feel all warm inside, but I quickly shove that feeling aside.
"Who was she?" I ask. He looks up at me, and lets out a breath.
"My girlfriend. But I told her not to come to my job, but she seems to have a hard time listening to what I say." the look on his face is angry, and I suddenly feel kind of bad for him and I can almost understand why he's such an ass. With a girlfriend like that….
"That's all, Bella. You can go back to work now." I turn around and walk out of the door, not giving a look back and Tony is there waiting for me behind the counter.
"Are you fired? Am I going to be stuck with Captain Asshole all by myself now?" he asks and I laugh.
"No… he just let me know that I wasn't in trouble for what I said to her…"
"Who the hell was she anyway?"
"His girlfriend" I say, and he makes as face and makes a noise like he's in pain.
"Poor guy" I look back the door Edward is behind and I nod my head. Poor guy is right.
IOIOIOIOIOIOIOI
"Ok, Tony. I'm off. See you Monday" I say, since tomorrow I have another day off. He waves at me and I walk through the door and out to my car. As I'm driving, Eric calls me and asks me for my address which I quickly give him, and I'm surprised to find out he lives less than 5 blocks from me in these brand new condominiums that opened up last year. He tells me he'll pick me up around 7, and I say ok, and rush home to gush about my plans for tonight, and get ready.
The girls are freaking out and we're all crossing our fingers that he doesn't dress like a giant douche bag. The girls help me dress, as the always do, and we decide for me to wear some skinny dark jeans, a yellow satin halter top and matching yellow t-strap sandals. I put my hair up in a ponytail, and as I'm spraying it down with hairspray, the sound of the doorbell ringing makes me drop it and rush out to the door. The girls take their usual places on the couch, acting like they're oblivious to what's going on. I pull open the door and smile when I see Eric standing there, in a nice black button up, with the top button left open, and grey slacks.
"Hi" I say, and he smiles as he looks me up and down.
"You look amazing" he says and leans down to kiss my cheek. My nose fills with his heavenly scent and I have to hold back a moan I feel bubbling up in my chest.
"Thank you. Um, Eric theses are my roommates, Alice and Rosalie. Guys, this is Eric." I say, motioning between them. Eric steps in and walks over to the couch where Alice and Rose jump up and shake hands with him.
"Nice to meet you, ladies" he says, kissing the backs of their hands. He turns back to face me and ask me if I'm ready, and both of them mouth "Marry him" to me and I fight to keep my face straight as I tell him I'm ready. I grab my clutch and keys and walk out of the door as he rests his hand on the small of my back as we walk out to his car.
He holds the door open for me and helps me in and once I'm inside the car, I look around and see just how beautiful this car is on the inside, and he takes care of it very well because there's not a scrap of garbage or anything like that in here. He gets in the car, and starts it and I'm happy when I'm not assaulted by loud obnoxious music, instead, soft classic music plays through the car, and I instantly relax against the seat.
"Have you ever been to the Blue Room?" he asks and I nod my head. The Blue Room is a classy Lounge type thing downtown. The girls and I went there a couple of weeks ago, actually.
He smiles as he drives, and I can't help but look at him. He is truly a good looking man, and successful… there's got to be something wrong with him.
We pull up to the lounge and he walks around the car to help me out. We walk in and he tells the person in front that he has reservations for the VIP area. She smiles and leads us to the back and moves aside a long white curtain. On the other side, is a white leather couch, and a table in front of it. He thanks the woman and hands her some money and we walk to the couch. Someone comes along quickly to take our drink orders, and he orders a gin and tonic. The man jots down his order and looks over at me.
"I'll have a Scarlett O'Hara, please" the man walks away to fill our drink orders and Eric smiles at me.
"Nice choice" he says, and I laugh.
"Thank you…. So tell me about yourself"
"Well. What do you want to know?" he asks, just as our drinks are brought out. We thank the man and I take a sip of my drink.
"Whatever you think I should know" I say. The smile never leaves his face as he takes a sip of his drink and clears his throat.
"Ok, Well. My family is from Sicily, my parents moved to America when I was 4. I have 2 brothers, and 1 sister who live on the east coast, but every year we all get together and take a trip back home to Italy…" I'm lost in his eyes as I listen to him speak. The way he says certain things with that accent makes me want to pounce on him right here, but I keep myself calm and listen to him.
"I'm 30 years old, never been married, no kids and I'm a pediatrician."
Wow… he's perfect…
"My hobbies are reading, painting and listening to music, and my favorite types of music are classical, jazz and a little bit of rock."
He smiles, and reaches down to grab his drink as I sit there, slack jawed as I watch his lips press against the glass…
So sexy….
"What about you? Tell me about yourself." he says, and I take another sip of my drink and put it down, resting my hands in my lap and looking up at him.
"I'm from Arizona, but my parents moved us from there to a small town called Forks when I was 2. They divorced when I was 5, and my mom moved back to Arizona and I went with her. I moved back to Forks with my dad when I turned 14, and I stayed with him until I went to UW. I have my Bachelors in Business Management, and I'm an assistant manager at… a store downtown. I'm 25, and I love to read, and watch movies and listen to music, and I love classical and jazz, and rock too, and a little bit of dance music."
He scoots closer to me, and looks at me as he smiles wider, and licks his lips.
"You like to dance?" he asks, and I can't form words, so I nod like a jackass.
"I know what we can do on our next date, then" he says picking up his glass from the table, and draining his glass.
Inside, I'm jumping up and down and then doing pelvic thrusts, and outside I smile and tell him that sounds great… a second date… with this sexy man…. Double score.
We continue to talk, but neither of us feel the need to drink anymore, so we leave and he takes me a couple of blocks away for this nice Italian restaurant to have dinner. We talk the whole time, him telling me funny stories about his family, and me telling him stories about me growing up as a clumsy child. The bill comes, and he slides his platinum card into the booklet, and hands it to the waiter.
"Did you enjoy your meal?" he asks me and I nod. I have chicken parmesan, and it was out of this world.
"I make better Italian food than this… maybe I'll show you some time."
He cooks too? Holy shit, I think I've hit the mother load.
I nod my head and we get up from the chairs as soon as he gets his card back we walks out to the car, his opening the door for me, and we start driving towards my house. We continue talking in the car, and I find that I really enjoy his company and when we pull up outside of my apartment, I think he's going to drop me off at the door, and say goodbye to me from there, but I'm pleasantly surprised when he parks in a parking spot, and gets out of the car. He opens the door for me, and we hold hands as he walks me to my door.
"I had a great time with you tonight, Bella." he says, and I smile and nod.
"I had a nice time with you too, Eric"
"Are you busy tomorrow?" he asks and I shake my head
"No. tomorrow I'm off from work actually, and I don't have any plans yet." I tell him, and his grin widens.
"You want to do something? I don't work either tomorrow, so maybe I can pick you up around noon, and we can have lunch and maybe go watch a movie or something?" I let out a light laugh and tighten my grip on his hand.
"That sounds great."
We stand there, smiling at each other, and I don't know whether to kiss him or hug him goodnight, and I'm about to move in for a hug, when he leans in closer to me, and brings his hand up to cup the side of my face.
"Can I kiss you?" he asks, and I nod way too quickly, which causes him to laugh loudly. His face turns serious quickly, and his face leans down and he presses his lips to mine. His lips are soft and warm, and after a second, our mouths open and we deepen the kiss. His hand is still on my face and his other hand comes up and rests on my hip as my hands come up in front to grip his shirt. His lips feel so perfect against mine, and I wouldn't mind staying like this all night.
We part way too soon, and we both breathe deeply as we try and catch out breaths. He looks at me, and then leans down, pressing his forehead against mine.
"That was amazing" he says, and I let out a breathy "yea" and my arms slide from the front of his shirt, to around him where they lock together behind his back.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Bella. Goodnight." he says, and leans back and softly gives me a quick kiss.
"Goodnight" I say, and stick my key in the lock. He starts to walk away once I have the door opened and as I look back at him, he turns and looks back at me and we both smile and I walk in, shutting the door and resting against it as Alice and Rose run over to me.
"How was it?" Rose asks, and I look at her, with a wide grin, and then look past her, out into space.
"Perfect…"
:) So I'm doing this new thing. All reviewers will be sent a snippet from next chapter, so press review and leave me some love!
See ya soon, and FYI, next chapter is EPOV :)
-Ana
