Pain is More Trouble than Love is Worth
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or anything involving the series 50 Shades of Grey. All rights are owned by E.L. James
If you do NOT like second person point of view stories, then this is NOT for you.
"blah blah" - dialogue
'blah blah' - inner thoughts
Blah blah - conscience
Chapter Three: Catch My Breath
As soon as the elevator doors open, you rush out of them, hurrying to find your car so that you can get out of this place as quickly as possible. You feel so frazzled and embarrassed by the whole situation that you forgot where you parked your car. You begin to press the locator button and you finally find it.
You climb in the car and put your things on the passenger seat. Taking a deep breath to calm yourself down, you insert the keys in the ignition, reverse and get back on the road to get to the highway.
'I cannot believe that any of that just happened.' You think to yourself.
I cannot believe that he offered you an internship after that hot mess of an interview. Your conscience adds.
'Thanks for making me feel even better about the whole thing.' You shake your head. 'Well, it's over now and I doubt I will have to see him again...Nope, never.' You smile feeling better already.
You plug an auxiliary cord in so that you can connect your IPod to the radio and let it play on shuffle. You turn up the volume and sing along to your music the rest of the way home.
When you finally get home, you find Kyle home from class sitting and watching television with Sarah Winston in the living room. Sarah is a short and petite honey blond, with green eyes that hide behind light brown glasses. People tend not to take her seriously because of her almost childlike frame and appearance but she quickly changes those perceptions in an instant.
They hear you come in through the front door and immediately hound you for information.
"Charlotte! How did everything go?" Sarah rushes in front of you to ask. You put your hands on her shoulders and tell her calm down. "Can I sit down first?" You crack a weak smile to which she smiles and you follow her to the couch, kicking off your shoes, rather, Kyle's shoes.
"First, I would like to say that I'm going to kill Kyle for hiding my shoes." You give her a glare and she just shrugs nonchalantly. "Sorry, it had to be done." You put your head in your hand and laugh at her indifference to your anger.
You sit cross legged on the couch and pull out the recorder and notes to give back to Sarah. As you hand them to her, you say, "I'm glad to see that you're feeling better." You smile. She takes the recorder and notebook gladly.
"Yeah, I'm feeling a little better. Kyle told me to come over when she called to check on me. She made me soup and everything!" You smile knowingly at her. Kyle does make some of the best homemade chicken noodle soup.
"I brought my laptop over so I'll go ahead and sync this to it now."
"You can use the desk in my room for a quieter place if you wanna listen to it as well." You offer and she happily accepts, making her way behind the L shaped couch in the living room to your room.
Kyle picks up the remote and turns the volume of the TV down. "So, how did it go?"
"It was completely nerve wrecking. I'm just glad it's over. He's so…intimidating." You shiver slightly remembering his pension for control. "He's also a lot younger than I had anticipated and extremely wise beyond his years." You sigh. "I really wish Sarah had given me more background info."
As if on cue, you hear Sarah yell out, "Sorry, Charlie." You and Kyle both laugh. You call back out sarcastically, "Yeah, yeah."
"I'm sure it went better than you imagine, girl." Kyle pats your shoulder. You shrug again, as if saying I guess. You look at your cellphone and notice the time. "I need to go ahead and get to work while I can still make it." You rise sluggishly off the couch.
"Char, why don't you cancel? You're gonna run yourself ragged." Kyle nags.
"I'll be fine." You reassure her. "Now where the hell are my shoes?" You cross your arms, glaring at her again. She looks at you and gives in, throwing her hands up in the air.
"Okay, fine fine. I'll give you your damn flats back." She disappears in her room and comes back with them, throwing them at your feet.
"This isn't over." She jokes, pretending she's serious.
"Yeah, yeah." You smirk and put your old, comfortable shoes back on.
"Bye!" You call out as you head to your shift at Victoria's Secret. You've worked there ever since your first year in college. You only applied out of a joke because your friends dared you to do it one boring day at the mall. Lo and behold, you actually got the job. It's not necessarily the store you imagined yourself working in but hey, what girl doesn't like to get discounts off of extremely nice bras and panties?
Your boss, Diana, is surprised to see you when you come in. "Charlotte, I didn't think you were coming in today."
"Yeah, I didn't think that I would make it either. My appointment ran longer than expected, but I'm here."
"Well, I'm glad you could come. We've got some new merchandise and definitely need your help to stock the shelves." She leads you to the back and you get to work.
You like work because it allows you to forget about whatever problem that you're worried about. You no longer have to think about Christian Grey today, or ever really. What would be the chances that you would ever run into him again?
After work, you drive home and to your surprise, Sarah is still at your apartment, transcribing the recording onto a document. Kyle is in her room talking on the phone to someone, presumably her mom.
"Hey, Sarah." You go into your room and throw your things down on your bed, changing into some basketball shorts and a tee shirt. You walk back into the living room to find that Sarah's done. She takes her headphones off.
"Charlotte, I cannot thank you enough for doing this. You did an excellent job. I knew I was doing the right thing by giving this assignment to you." She cheerfully praises. "One question, though. Why did you not take his offer to let him show you around the property? He obviously wanted to spend a little more time with you."
She raises an eyebrow, looking at you for a second, but looks at her laptop and continues to make sure that the document is edited properly.
You start to blush, thinking of that moment. Yeah why didn't you? Your conscience mocks.
'The Christian Grey, interested in me? Nah. I don't think so. He was just being polite. I'm sure he offers a tour to all of his guests.' You bite your lip consumed by your thoughts.
Right and you just happen to be the princess of De Nile.
Sarah looks back up at you, waiting for an answer.
"I didn't want to take up his time. He was busy. Plus, being around him made me uncomfortable. He was so formal. How old is he anyways?"
"Twenty-seven. Yeah, I see what you mean by the formalities with him constantly calling you by your surname the whole time. Did you take any notes?"
You hit your forehead with your palm. "Oh no! I totally forgot."
"It's cool, don't worry about it. I mean if I were in your position, I would've become completely blindsided by his looks, too." She jokes.
"Yeah, I guess." You scratch the back of your neck, trying to look and sound as if you had no interest in him at all.
"You guess?" Sarah looks at you in shock. "Please do not pretend that that man was not the most beautiful creature you have ever laid eyes on."
'Yeah, he was, but I do not wanna think about it.'
It's never like you to just swoon over a guy because you can see through most guys and their BS. When you first met Christian, though, you knew that this man was of a different breed.
"I'm sure you would've done a better job of drawing information out of him." You use flattery to get the attention off of you.
"Oh please, Char. The man offered you a job. A freaking job! That is pretty damn awesome considering the fact that this interview was completely last minute for you." She finishes proofreading and gets up to unplug her MacBook and starts to pack her stuff up to leave.
"Come on. You have to tell me what you really thought about him." She tries digging up more information out of you.
'Why doesn't she just let it go?' You inwardly groan and follow her into the living room, plopping on the couch, crossing your legs Indian style.
"He's obviously very ambitious, controlling, very conceited, and intimidating. He does have charisma though so I understand how girls can get caught up in that." You hope she drops it after this.
"Sounds like you weren't exempted from his air of charm, either, Miss James." She jokes, giggling
You hide your face in your hands so she doesn't see your reaction.
"Why did you want to know if he was gay? That was the most embarrassing question. I was so afraid he was going to have security throw me out on my ass." You shiver thinking about that moment.
"It couldn't have been that bad now could it? Look on the bright side, he didn't right?" You laugh and hit her with a couch pillow.
"Hey, don't hit your editor." She jokingly warns. "Besides, he sounded like was in to you."
You snort automatically, thinking how ridiculous of a notion it was.
"Please, I very seriously doubt that."
She shrugs, pulling her jacket on and her purse. "You never know. " She walks to the front door and turns the handle opening the door. "I'll see you later. Tell Kyle I said bye."
You wave at her as she disappears outside.
You get up, go into the kitchen and warm up leftovers from last night. Taking it back to your room, you sit it on your desk and open your laptop, pulling up an article that you're supposed to read for one of your discussion classes tomorrow.
'Twenty pages. Freaking awesome.' You inwardly groan.
You finish an hour or so later and realize that it's almost one in the morning. You take your empty plate to the kitchen sink to wash it and on your way back to your room, you realize Kyle's door is shut and the lights are off.
You climb into bed, shutting off the lamp on your bedside table, and curl up under your covers. You happily shut your eyes and drift off into a dream where cold, grey eyes seem to stare back into your own.
The next couple of days keep you very busy. Your job and school work tend to consume you so that you have very little time to think about anything else. Plus, finals are approaching next week and you need to focus. Kyle is just as busy and you two barely have any time to hang out together.
When you go to the journalism lab on Thursday, Sarah tells you that she's got the article done, but wants you to proofread it. You do so and are surprised how good it turns out, but then again, Sarah is a miracle worker when it comes to articles, so you shouldn't be too surprised.
Later that evening, in one of your rare moments of peace, you call your mother, Natalie. Your mom has always been a source of strength and comfort for you. She is one of your best friends and you guys have a healthy relationship.
"Hey mom."
"Hey dear. How are you? I haven't heard from you in a while."
"Everything's good. How about you? Is work okay?"
"Yeah, it's good. I delivered a premature baby yesterday that we were very worried about but it turns out that everything is going to be okay." Natalie is an OB/GYN. She has been for twenty-five years.
"That's good. How is Dad? I'm sure he'll be glad to go to have summer break soon."
"Oh for sure. He's always complaining how kids don't have enough work ethic today." She laughs.
Your dad, Robert James, is an English professor at the university you attend. Somehow, you have been able to avoid his lectures. He's planning to retire soon anyways, to start penning novels.
"That definitely sounds like dad." You suddenly hear barking in the background.
"Lo Lo!" You say excitedly, hearing your white bichon frise Lola.
"Your sister just came in from walking her." Your mom says. "Allison! Your sister is on the phone, say hello!" Your mom yells out to your younger sister, Allie, who is sixteen years old.
"Hey Char!" Allie yells.
You laugh. Your miss your family's antics. You also have a brother, Devon, who is six years older than you and lives in LA with his pregnant wife.
"So, I've heard you met a nice young man." Your mom suddenly says out of nowhere.
"What? What are you talking about?" You say in surprise. 'Is she talking about…Christian? No way.'
"I forget his name. It was a color or something like, Mr. Black or Mr. White. Anyways, I was talking to Kyle's mom and she told me you interviewed a very powerful man that seemed to be interested in you."
'Thanks Kyle. Thanks a lot.'
"Mom, nothing happened. It was an interview for the school newspaper and it did not go beyond that." You roll your eyes. Your mother is always inquiring about your love life. She never fails to let you know that she expects grandchildren from you and your siblings.
"Okay, honey, if you say so. I'm going to go get dinner started. I'll talk to you later. Love you!"
"Love you too, Mom. Bye."
When you get off of the phone, you text Kyle immediately saying, 'Remind me to duct tape your mouth.'
She sends a response five minutes later that reads, 'Sorry love. I just had to,' She includes a smiley that bears a huge, toothy grin.
You shake your head exasperatedly.
On Friday night, you and Kyle are chilling in the living room, trying to decide what fun activity you girls could get into. Both of you desperately need a break from classes, work, newspapers and studying in general. You're in the midst of conversation when you hear a knock at the door.
You look through the peephole and open the door to a smiling José holding a bottle of white wine. José is one of the first people that you and Kyle met as freshman and you all have been friends since that first meeting. He's extremely smart and happens to be studying engineering but he also happens to be a pretty good photographer. He is always trying to take candid photos of you much to your chagrin because you hate pictures.
"José! Come in!" You quickly hug him and he comes in to hug Kyle, too. You all haven't been able to see each other this semester since everyone is graduating so you're very happy that he could stop by.
"Chicas, I have to tell you something very exciting." His smile stretches from ear to ear.
"Well don't keep us waiting forever!" Kyle exclaims.
"You know that new swanky art gallery downtown? We'll they're gonna put my photos on display next month!" He beams proudly.
"En serio?! I can't believe it! I have to write an article about this." (En serio – Seriously) José has taught you a little Spanish along the way.
"Congrats! You definitely deserve it!" Kyle hugs him again.
"You guys definitely have to be there." He says smiling at both of you, but keeping most of his attention on you. You blush knowing that he still crushes on you till this day.
You see, you and José have always been close, but he wants to be closer than that. Way closer. There's not much to dislike about José with his goofy charm and good looks but you've never been attracted to him. There's nothing magnetic pulling you to him. Actually, you haven't met anyone like that in college. Your friends always tease you for never dating or going out, but you've never felt the need to. No guy has been able to make you feel weak at the knees.
Until Mr. Christian Gray that is…
'No! I do not like him! I've successfully put that man in the deep dark recesses of my mind and you just had to bring him up again.'
It's the truth and you know it.
You shake your head and focus on the wine that José is pouring for the three of you. You study his features, his tanned skin, his dark eyes and hair. He is very attractive but you still feel no heat…down there. You hope that after four years of shooting him down, that he finally gets the message.
Everyone picks up their glasses and makes a toast to success and graduation.
On Saturday, you get up early to go to work. When you arrive, it's busy. The store has a major sale going on and whenever people see the word "sale" things become extremely crazy.
Diana is once again glad to see you as she puts you and two other girls, Molly and Jennifer, to work, helping out all of the customers. For the next several hours, people are accosting you with questions about what the sale pertains to, where to find certain lingerie sets, and so on.
After the crowd dies down, you have few moments of peace to eat lunch and talk about the unbelievably busy day you're having so far with your coworkers. When you're done eating, your boss comes in the break room.
"Charlotte, if you're done could you please go and change the mannequins at the front window?"
"Okay." You get up and make your way to the front of the store. Diana has already put a new box of clothes out for you to put on the mannequins. You step up on the platform, beginning to take off the bra on the first mannequin.
When you slide the straps off of plastic shoulders, you look out the display window to see a pair of grey eyes staring straight back into yours.
'Oh shit! You've gotta be kidding me!' You gasp.