I think I'm ruining poor Wanda's steering wheel digging my frustrated and still shaky fingers into it.
What the hell was that?!
I can't help but replay the whole thing no matter how much I try to get lost in the music on the radio. What an unimaginable idiot I must have seemed like to him. Oh my God. I've never felt more embarrassed.
Are you gay?! Why don't you just ask him to blacklist you from ever getting a job anywhere on the western seaboard. Ugh. I want to scream.
Maybe if he had been gay I wouldn't have spent the whole interview distracted by his good looks and getting so charged up that I imagined it was mutual. We were mentally married with a truck full of kids by the time I stopped fantasizing about him. There was just something so captivating about him. I can't shake him. I don't want to.
But I do. Because as much as he made very fiber of my body heat and cool at the same time I just made a huge fool of myself in front of him, and there's no fantasizing that away.
Wanda sputters to a stop and I foolishly lock her as if anyone but me would want her.
I shuffle my feet all the way into the apartment hoping and praying that Kate is asleep and I can crawl back into bed and hide under the covers and sleep this nightmare away.
I turn the key in the lock and before I even get it clicked around, Kate is flinging the door open. She still looks like beautiful death only now she's on fire, too.
"Jesus, Ana! What took you so long?! Where have you been?!"
She grabs me by the coat and yanks me inside almost making me drop everything I have tucked in neatly into my arms. She slams the door behind me.
"I just got off the phone with Christian fucking Grey, Ana!"
My eyes close slowly. Perfect. It was such a horrific experience he had to be a tattle tale and share the whole tragedy with Kate...who will undoubtedly make me relive it moment for moment, and never forgive me for blowing her literary career.
"He...he called? You said he wasn't returning your calls..."
I try to deflect her.
"Well, he called about you."
My ears perk up and catch fire.
"He...he called about me?"
Kate stares at me and assesses me with a disgusted look.
"Yes. He called about you. He was sorry he rushed you out."
"He...he was sorry he rushed me out?"
Rushed me out? He practically begged me to stay. Postponing a meeting and offering me a tour. Now I'm intrigued.
"Yes. He was sorry he rushed you out. He wants to meet you on Friday."
"He...he wants to meet..."
"Jeez, Ana, yes! Stop repeating me! What the hell happened at that interview?!"
What the hell did happen in that interview, I repeat her silently.
"I don't know really. Maybe it wasn't as horrible as I thought it was."
"Well?!" Kate pries on. She will want to know every detail, "what was he like?"
Where to begin? I can't quite think of the words even though I can't stop picturing him in my mind. The way those clear grey eyes felt like they were boring into my skin the whole time I was with him.
"I dunno. He was polite. Smart...intense. Really intimidating."
Kate isn't amused by my generalizations. She plops down on the couch and sniffles into a Kleenex as she lays down. Her eyebrow raises.
"Hot?" She's stifling a giggle and I feel my cheeks blush. Hotter than anything I've seen, I think. But I won't give her that satisfaction.
"He was attractive. Sure."
Kate pulls a blanket over her legs and looks to be getting ready to sleep. Thank god.
"I'm gonna rest for a few hours and then you and I are going shopping."
"Shopping? For what?" I ask incredulously. She gazes at me dumb struck.
"To figure out what we are going to wear Friday. Of course."
My heart plummets. We? So he's invited her, too. Any jolt of 'he wants to see you again' energy is gone. I've been down this road before. I'll become wallpaper once he meets Kate. It was fun while it lasted.
"Oh, right," I say as I sling my bags down haphazardly," I didn't realize you meant we were both going. You sure he doesn't just want to see you?"
Kate rolls her eyes and presses further into her pillow.
"Oh I wasn't invited. I'm crashing."
My heart rebounds a little. So he didn't ask her?! I'm somersaulting. But in typical Kate fashion she doesn't need an invite. Damnit.
I start to drift into my thoughts about what to wear. Kate is right. I'll need something. But first I need to figure out a way to meet Mister Christian Grey...alone.