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EPOV
I had a feeling it wouldn't matter what time I showed up at her office. Victoria wouldn't be ready. Not that she wasn't extremely punctual, because she was. It was fucking irritating. She got annoyed if other people weren't exactly on time or at least five minutes early. She was never fashionably late or even regular late, to anything. She was always in her seat before the bell rang, always ready and waiting for me when I showed up at her door to pick her up. Traffic was never an obstacle because she always left plenty of time to account for it. She had no patience for people who didn't wear watches or pay attention to the time. However, when it came to her work, and the demands and expectations that came with her title, she had absolutely no concept of time whatsoever. The client came first. The account was what mattered. Not that any of this was news to me. This is how Victoria was. If she had to study for an exam, she studied. She prepared. She didn't cram. She didn't go out the night before or study enough to just get by. She knew how to have fun when it was time to have fun, but there was a time and a place for both and there was no real difference between the two. She was fun but she wasn't crazy fun. She didn't take my breath away.
I didn't know my breath could be taken away until this afternoon. I still hadn't completely recovered from my brief encounter with Bella on the sidewalk. Only a few words exchanged, hers were brightly colored and more animated than mine, but the air between us buzzed with an electricity that was new to me, charged with an intensity, a longing. Or was I making it all up in my head? Was there really nothing there and I just wanted it to be?
When the elevator door opened on Victoria's floor I checked in at reception and got a visitor pass.
"Mr. Cullen? Hi! I'm Tracey. It's very nice to finally meet you. She'll be right down. The McMillen meeting is running late."
"Thanks, Tracey. It's nice to finally meet you as well." I've spoken to Victoria's assistant on the phone many times over the past few months when I was trying to get a hold of Victoria to finalize my plans for moving out here, but I needed a few moments to myself right now, to think, so I slumped down on the overstuffed leather couch and sighed into my hands. The subway ride had frazzled me and only served to make it bleeding obvious that I was being taken away from a place I wanted to go back to, from a person I wanted to see again and probably never would.
The elevator dinged and Victoria jumped out like Secretariat at the gate, rushing over to me as fast as she could in those heels.
"I'm so sorry I'm late, Edward. We're this close to closing the Hyundai deal and I couldn't get off the conference call. My boss was breathing down my neck about the financials and..."
"....It's ok. Really. It's no problem. I've got nothing better to do, remember?" I jump out off the couch to give her a quick kiss on the lips. She lets out a contented sigh into my mouth and melts under my hands, just like the old days when it my touch something to her and wasn't just a momentary distraction.
"I have an idea." I look over my shoulder and pull her down the hallway. Once around the corner I push her up against the cold marble wall and force myself on her hard and fast. Her mouth opens in protest and I slip my tongue inside, turning her protests into moans.
"Edwarrrrd, stoppit. Someone might see us."
"So what? Come on. You look hot. Lemme dirty that suit a little." I start unbuttoning her blouse and pulling it out from her skirt, my mouth trailing hot saliva down her throat. She lifts her head to give me better access and I feel the vibration of her vocal chords against my lips. Her hand is at the back of my hair, her fingernails dig into my scalp, and I grind into her hip with my own.
"I caaaaaaan't. Edward, I can't." She pushes me away roughly and instantly regroups and reconstructs herself, like I had never been there, like I had never touched her. The clack-clack of footsteps draws near and she launches into a sterile, rehearsed dialogue with me.
"Did you have any problems finding the building?" She smiles at the suits that have rounded the corner, briefcases in hand. They nod generically and push for the elevator, droning on about indexes, ratios, P&L's, and margins.
"No, ma'am. I managed just fine." I smirk. "Maybe I should just..." The elevator dings and the suits take off.
"...What is that?" She points to the guitar case at standing proudly on its own at my feet.
"That?" I mimick. "That's called a guitar."
"Where did you get it?"
"At a store that sells musical instruments. There's one on...Rivington? On the Lower East Side? I did a lot of walking today. Y'know, since I have no job or responsibilities. I even took the subway all by myself."
I know I'm being an asshole but I can't help it. I shrug a "what's the big deal" shrug, which I know will only send her over the edge.
"Edward. Where the fuck did you get the money for that thing?"
"Wowwww, what kind of language is that for a lady to use? I used my own money, ok? I come from it, remember? Loads of it. I'll inherit it all one day, too. So don't worry about me, Victoria. I know Big Daddy Cash has cut me off but I'll manage. "
"Ugh fine. Now's not the time for this conversation." Oooh goody. Can't wait for the time when it is.
After the office tour and the half dozen times she's stopped in the hall to field questions and take calls, it's nearly 6 o'clock. My stomach is digesting itself. We end up back at reception and I'm half-expecting her to tell me to have a nice day and show me out. Instead Tracey hands her a post-it which she reads in .2 seconds and looks at me.
"Some of the team members are going to Tao for drinks. Wanna come?"
BPOV
"Belladonna!! You're awake. How did I know?" I should just give Jasper a key. I let him in and push out my cheek for a Jazzy-smooch.
"Because you're smart and pretty?" I shuffle back to the kitchen table in my ratty bathrobe and rattier bunny slippers and plop down in front of my notebook. I was on a roll. Ah well. I pull the hair tie out of my knotted ponytail and re-do it loosely so it hangs over my shoulder.
"Or because I've passed out and crashed here enough times to know that you don't sleep?"
"Or that," I stick my tongue out at him playfully.
"I don't know how you do it, baby-doll. Work all day and night, come home, write for hours and then do it all over again."
"I dunno. Coffee? Drugs? I've always been this way." It's the truth. Sleep is something that just happens, not something that I plan to do.
"And I wouldn't change you for the world. You're the lucky one who doesn't need sleep to be beautiful. Wanna grab some coffee with me?"
"The elixir of life? Let's go."
Jazz and I find an empty bench in Tompkins Square Park and pop a squat with our iced coffees. It's breezy this morning but I can already feel the heat and humidity pilling on my skin. Through the trees on the side of the park that borders the street there are tables lined up with people playing chess and cards. I browse over their faces, young, old, thin, worn, and I wonder if they even know each other, the pairings are so odd. A young boy of ten at the most is playing a violently quick game of blitz chess with a man wearing nothing but a garbage bag, and they're both slapping a time control box each time they've made their move. I'm thoroughly impressed and enthralled by the concentration on their faces and what must be going on in their brains until I am distracted by a flash of sunlight and a glimmer of bronze. I dart my eyes and catch the top of someone's head who just sat down amongst the crowd. My stomach jumps and rolls and I feel instantly sick. I want to get up and run.
"Bell, baby, you're turning green. What's up? Bad mocha?"
"Huh? Oh. Nothing. I just thought I saw somebody I knew."
"Better not have been that pig who knocked you over yesterday."
"Lemme guess. Alice told you. Christ, Jazz, when are you two going to do it already? You sat at the bar for fours hours last night talking to her and you went home alone. I don't get it."
He sucks down the last of his frozen caramel macchiato or whatever the fuck and flings his empty into the trash bin.
"I don't want to ruin it."
"Ruin what? You can't ruin something that you don't have."
"But I do have something. What we have now."
"You want more. And you're never going to be satisfied or completely happy with what you have now until you untie your balls and go for it. I'm friends with Alice too y'know, and I've seen the way she looks at you. It's fucking gross." I laugh and nudge into Jasper's shoulder with my own.
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I unlock the front door and drag the blackboard out onto the sidewalk. It's 2pm and the sun is well on it's way to reaching its highpoint in the sky. It will easily surpass 90 degrees today. I wipe my knuckles across my forehead, already sweaty from only a few moments standing out in the August heat. I'm wearing my black skinny jeans and red Old Navy flip-flops and a tight white tee that says Bowery Poetry Club across the chest. It'll draw the customers eyes to my breasts (pushed up with help of a black lace bra), which is advantageous when they're wondering how much money to leave in the tip jar. Strands from my ponytail are stuck to the back of my neck and I can taste the salt on my skin as I tongue my lip ring.
"You're out here early today."
I spin around, disoriented from the heat and the liquid sex that just reached my eardrums. I dare myself to look up. When I do, he's standing there. Far enough away for it to bother me that he's not standing closer. His hands are stuffed in his pockets and he has that guitar slung round him again. He shouldn't have worn a light gray t-shirt, the weather is too oppressive and I can see the sweat beginning to dampen under his arms and down the center of his chest where the strap is pulling against his breastbone. I might pass out from that alone. Fuck the heat.
He looks down at the chalkboard and the phrase I finally came up with yesterday after he left. He squints and ponders it thoughtfully, his brow in a perpetual state of wrinkle. I can't take it. His hair is shining golden brown today.
"Let's see what that beautiful mouth can do," he reads it slowly and methodically, my knees hinge but I remain steady. If he only knew where I drew my inspiration.
"Hey. It's Edward, right?" Ugh I'm such a douche. I know damn well what his name is. I was doodling it on a cocktail napkin five minutes ago. "Getting a head start on lunch?"
He cocks his head to the side and smiles. There go my knees again.
"It's very rude to be late for a lunch date, especially two days in a row."
"She won't be ready. It doesn't matter what time I get there, so I figured I'd come by and see if I could hit you hard enough this time to roll you out into traffic." He bites his bottom lip to stifle a clever giggle.
I don't know whether to laugh or be annoyed. Instead I disregard the comment completely and use this stroke of blind luck and divine intervention that brought Edward back here to do a little investigating...or snooping. Whatev.
"So Edward. If you have lunch uptown every day, what are you doing down here? It just seems out of the way, that's all."
"I like it down here." He answers without looking at me, shuffling his weight from foot to foot and squinting up into the sunlight.
Oooookaaay.
"Are you from New York?"
"Nah. Washington. You?"
"Phoenix. ...Where in Washington?" There's no way he could be from my father's podunk town. No fucking way. I think there's a total of five people who live there. Not that I'd know first hand anymore. I haven't been back there since my parents split up when I was five.
"You wouldn't know it."
"Try me."
"Trust me, Bella. If you know this town, I'll...uhh, I'll do the dishes in your club for an entire night."
"A betting man? You're on. I can't resist a challenge."
He balls his fists up and crushes them to his eyes, rubbing them intently. It's obvious that he's hungover. He reeks of booze.
"It's a very wet, very gray, very gloomy town in the middle of fucking nowhere called Forks.
Fuck. Off.
"Forks, huh? Sounds like a small town."
"Understatement."
"Where everyone knows each other?"
"Unfortunately."
"Where getting into trouble passes the time?"
"Ha. You been there?" He has no idea.
"I should have properly introduced myself yesterday. ...I'm Bella Swan."
Silence. No reaction. And then...
"Get the fuck out of here," and he's laughing. He actually has to set his guitar case on the sidewalk so he can bend over and laugh at his shoes.
"Chief Swan is your fucking father??!!" He's wrapped his arms around his waist and is clutching his sides. "Oh god. That's incredible. That's the fucking funniest thing I've ever heard. Ow, my side. Oh man."
"Are you done yet?"
"Hang...on...ok...phew. Yes, ok, I'm done."
"Good. I'll show you to the kitchen."
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this is going to get a lot more musically oriented soon. I'll post links to the songs, etc in my profile. :D REVIEWS ROCK!!