Her Perfect 10 Page 8

  SD had many adventures, figuring out different categories and ratings that were jotted down in her little black book, that ultimately helped her accomplish her mission. She met many people and felt a lot of different emotions. She also learned a few of life’s lessons on the way.

  This is her story.

  To: sd275@solc.edu, profmereeder@solc.edu

  From: oc736@solc.edu

  Subject: Assignment #4 Write the blurb of your autobiography.

  Once upon a time, there was a perfectionist. He enjoyed his simple life and thought it was mostly complete. He started taking a creative writing class in secret to help achieve one of his dreams, and his writing partner immediately told him he was boring. He was insulted, but also intrigued. One day, not long after this happened, his girlfriend dumped him, saying he was too predictable.

  He suddenly knew they were both correct. And that he had to change it.

  The perfectionist started taking risks. He pushed himself out of his comfort zone. He spent the semester secretly conversing with his writing partner, taking some of her advice and finding out what life was really like. He did things he never thought he could do, and realized there was so much more to life than making sure everything was perfect.

  He laughed and loved, hurt and cried, but he lived a much fuller life because of that one class he took that changed his life. Because of that girl who was brave enough to call him out on not only his awful writing skills, but also his cowardice to type out his thoughts and feelings.

  Does he ever get to meet that girl who changed his life for the better? Or will he be forever grateful to someone he never met?

  Sadie

  My phone chimes with a new text message. It’s got to be OC736. I cringe, knowing I epically failed this assignment. Crashed and bombed. Exploded in a burst of flames, accompanied by a boom so loud you could hear it fifty miles away.

  And he’s going to call me out on it.

  How could he not? It’s exactly what I do to him every week.

  I still hide my face behind my hands, wanting the text message to go away, or maybe for me to go back in time to before it came in. No, that’s not long enough. I still knew I had tragically screwed up at that point. Maybe back a couple days, to earlier in the week.

  Oh, hell no. This week has been as exciting as watching a snail slither across the expansive lobby at work.

  If I’m going back in time, let’s go back to Saturday, to my seven minutes in heaven with some stranger that could kiss like an angel and wet my panties like the devil. If I have to relive any part of the last year, it should be those seven minutes. I’ll replay them over and over, until the end of time, and never grow tired of it.

  Holy fuck, that man could kiss.

  Alena told me after banging on the door and telling us our time was up, that I was in there with Rob’s brother, the guy I’ll be walking down the aisle with. Honestly, I can’t fucking wait for Alena and Rob to get hitched now, because I desperately want to see the man behind the mask. His broad shoulders, dark hair, light blue eyes that I’ve seen somewhere before, even if I can’t quite remember where, and smooth skin with just a sprinkle of chest hair that was hiding under that polo shirt wasn’t enough. I desperately want to feel his hands on me again, his lips against mine, his tongue in my mouth, his whispered voice in my ear, his dick hard and stiff between us, but definitely pressing into me and showing me he was enjoying our time together just as much as I was. I want it all again. Hell, he can even wear the damn mask, I don’t really care. He could be hideous, and I’d still want to get locked away in a closet with him again. For a hell of a lot longer than seven minutes, too.

  Since I can’t go back in time, I should probably look at the stupid text from OC736 and see how he’s going to make fun of me for that lame attempt at a blurb of my autobiography.

  God, this sucks.

  Taking a deep breath, I grab my phone and settle against the headboard of my bed, glaring at my closed laptop that sits innocently on my desk. It’s not my laptop’s fault. I know that, logically. But it’s still the thing that brought about today’s failure, so I can hate it with all my heart for as long as I like.

  OC736: What happened?

  Wow. That’s not nearly as mean as I would’ve been to him. Then again, I called him a coward. Maybe he’s holding back because he’s not as bold and unrestrained as I am. I don’t want him to hate me, or my work, but I don’t want him to hold back either. I want to hear all my flaws, so I can improve them, instead of keeping them in the sucky level they’re at.

  Sadie: Tell it to me straight.

  OC736: What happened? Are you sick? Did someone die? Did you forget who I am? You weren’t writing to me, that’s for sure.

  Sadie: It’s the word constraint! I can’t think straight when I have to keep my words to a minimum.

  OC736: Type another one, without a word limit.

  Why is he being so nice? I’m a total bitch to him every week! He has every right to be just as mean to me now.

  Sadie: No. I’m a failure. Just give it to me already.

  OC736: What am I giving you, exactly?

  Sadie: Call me names, insult my work, tell me how awful I am.

  OC736: I don’t think you’re awful. I look forward to reading your work every week, even though I know you’re only going to reel me in with HALF a story. Today’s a bad day. Rewrite it, specifically for me, with as many words as you like.

  He’s giving me a second chance? Where did he come from? I need to find out and commit it to memory, so if I ever find another guy from the same area, I can latch onto him and do some serious rating.

  Sadie: Can I do it tomorrow?

  OC736: Do it whenever you like.

  Sadie: You’re being too nice to me.

  OC736: Did you read MY blurb? You changed my life! Being nice when you’re having a bad day is the least I can do.

  Hypothetically! I hypothetically changed his life. And I have a feeling he’s a better person overall.

  Sadie: After all the things I’ve called you, I don’t deserve this kindness.

  OC736: As far as I know, you’re a 92-year-old, overweight, smelly woman who sleeps around and can only eat through a straw. Everyone should be nice to 92-year-old women, no matter their size or level of promiscuity.

  Sadie: Dammit, I’m miserable! You’re not supposed to make me smile!

  OC736: I’ll bet you look beautiful when you smile. Anyone as tactless as you has to have a killer smile.

  Sadie: I’m rolling my eyes now.

  OC736: While you’re smiling?

  Sadie: Maybe…

  Definitely. I kind of like him right now, for not kicking me while I’m down. And a million other reasons I’m trying not to think about. Which means he’s almost the only thing I think about. That’s a problem. I might not ever meet this guy. I need to find a way to get him out of my thoughts.

  Cake! I’ll think about cake instead.

  He likes baking, and dessert is something I can have. A person—him specifically—isn’t. I’ll focus on cake every time I smile because he’s in my head.

  Cake sounds really good right now… Do I have any in this apartment?

  At this rate, I might actually wind up being over three hundred pounds when this class is over.

  I have no idea what I’ll write when I redo my assignment, for his eyes only, but I’m definitely going to do it. For him. Because he’s giving me a chance, and I want to. I want to prove I’m not completely mundane, which is what my blurb made me sound like. Even if it’s not for a grade.

  My last text for the night doesn’t hold my usual snark. He’s earned a rare but honest emotion from me. Probably even more than one.

  Sadie: Thank you. For making me smile and giving me a second chance.

  OC736: You’re welcome.

  Chapter 7

  Owen

  I’m late for work.

  I’m never late for work.

  But I’m late today. I may have stayed up
way too late thinking about SD and her lack of ability to weave an interesting story when told to keep things short. I may have checked my email account three different times this morning before I left my apartment, hoping to find her rewrite. And I may have attempted to send seventeen different text messages to her, only to delete every single letter after I reread it and realized things needed to stay the way they were left last night.

  Yes. I did that seventeen times.

  You’d think I’d realize how right I was after, say, the third or fourth time I convinced myself to leave it alone. But no. I would question it and start all over again.

  I feel like I’ve missed my weekly installment of her brand of crazy.

  I’m running through the doors of the building, seeing, but not acknowledging fake Barbie and Sadie at the desk, and racing straight toward the elevators. If fake Barbie is already here when I’m arriving, I’m in trouble. Her shift starts the same time mine does. The elevator doors are open, but closing, and I need to be on that elevator.

  “Hold the doors!” The sound of my shoes slapping the marbled floors is ridiculously loud as I push past the last few stragglers. The doors are on their way back open when I finally slide my loafers across the last couple feet.

  “Owen, my man! What’s the rush this morning?”

  Of course, Clive is on this elevator.

  “I’m running late.” I check my email one more time, willing the elevator to move at warp speed when my inbox is still empty. I have one minute. One. I’m always at least fifteen minutes early. In those fifteen minutes, I put everything in its place, get my computer up and running, check over any work emails that may have come in overnight, say hello to Alice and get her a cup of coffee. All before clocking in at my desk and starting to accept calls.

  “Huh.” Clive grunts, shrugging his shoulders as he checks the time. “You are. What gives? You’re never late.”

  “I know.”

  “Hot date with Penny last night?”

  “No, we broke up a couple weeks ago.” The numbers on the screen above the door slowly increase. We stop at almost every floor, and people push their way on or off the elevator. I flex my fingers, using prayer now, to see if that will get us to my floor any faster.

  “What? No way! You were together a long time.” Clive’s jaw drops, hanging open, pulling me out of my head long enough to actually look at him. How is he always so sincere? And does he know everyone in this building? There are literally thousands of people who work here, and Clive always seems to know everyone by name. He also somehow remembered my—now ex—girlfriend’s name.

  “Yeah, two years.”

  “That sucks, Owen. Sorry to hear it.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “Does that mean you’re free to come out with us tonight?”

  Shit. I groan in my head. I totally walked into that one. He’s been asking me every week, and I’ve been lucky enough to always have something to do. Now I’m stuck. I shrug noncommittally. “Possibly.”

  The doors close at the fifteenth floor. There’s only Clive, me, and one other poor soul left in this small block of moving metal, and that guy works on the twentieth floor. The next stop should be for me.

  “You should totally come. Sarah and I will be there, and Sadie’s finally agreed to come out with us tonight, too. And Tiffany from that accounting group on the second floor.”

  “You know what?” I smile, surprising myself as well as Clive. “Email me the address. I’ll meet you there.”

  I’m too stressed about getting to work on time to come up with different words, but going with him tonight isn’t predictable, boring, or any of the other names SD likes to call me.

  “Yeah?” He’s like a puppy trying desperately to sit still long enough to earn his treat. “It would be so cool to have you there, Owen, you have no idea.”

  The elevator doors slowly show my hallway, and I squeeze through them as soon as I’m able, talking to him over my shoulder. “Yeah, why not? It certainly won’t hurt me to get out tonight.”

  “You won’t regret this!” His voice echoes after me, but I’m too far away to respond. Swinging the door open, I make a beeline toward my desk and check the time on my phone. Four minutes late. Honestly not too bad, considering what time I left home.

  As soon as my computer is up and running, an instant message blinks from my toolbar. Alice. I haven’t even logged into the phones yet, so I get up and hesitantly make the short trip to her office.

  “I missed my coffee this morning, Owen.” She doesn’t take her eyes off her computer screen, her fingers typing away furiously, while she chastises me with such a vague statement.

  “I was late, I’m sorry.”

  “Everything ok, or do I need to worry about you?”

  “Everything’s good.”

  She says nothing.

  The drawn-out silence is too unnerving. She’s waiting for more of an answer, but what the hell do I tell her? How do I explain why I’m late for the first time in my five years working for her? “I had a weird...” How long has it been since I missed my weekly dose of SD’s brand of crazy? Half a day? How is that possible? “Twelve hours or so. I’ll get it sorted out this weekend and be back to normal by Monday.”

  Her fingers stop, instantly bringing an even stranger silence to her office as she adjusts her glasses on the bridge of her nose, looking at me for the first time this morning. “You have my number if you need anything, right?”

  “Yes. It’s nothing, though, really.”

  “Nothing doesn’t make you late for work, Owen. This is totally out of character. Is the Penny thing finally getting to you?”

  That’s almost laughable. The drastic change in my behavior has nothing to do with Penny. I shake my head for emphasis. “It’s not her.”

  “What she did to you was shitty, but you can’t let it get to you.”

  “I’m not.”

  She eyes me skeptically. How out of character would she think I’m acting if I told her I’ve made out with several different girls in the past two weeks? Or that almost all my thoughts are of another girl, one I’ve never laid eyes on, but whose words pull me into her world for brief moments of time, and I would rather talk to her for hours than get a decent night’s sleep?

  The first girl, the one at the bar, was definitely just practice. I hate to admit that, but she hasn’t been a thought in my mind since the next day when I told SD about her. But the girl from last weekend, the first girl I got shoved into a closet with? From that stupid game, that is now my most favorite thing to do at a party ever? Even after being pushed into that closet with someone else afterward, I couldn’t get the taste of her out of my mind. Or the feel of her body pressed against every inch of me. Her breasts were smashed so firmly against me, I know the exact size of her nipple, because they burned invisible marks onto my chest. And Christ, when her fingers trailed over the zipper of my khakis, her wide eyes telling me she was feeling anything but my zipper, it was all I could do to remember we only had a few minutes and meaningless sex is against my morals. I certainly didn’t remember we were in a shitty closet and I knew almost nothing about her.

  I’ve never wanted to do a one-night stand before. Never even been mildly tempted. But I would’ve done anything that girl would’ve let me do with her.

  And I still don’t know what she looks like.

  I know the color of her eyes, her hair, her lips—a bright berry red that were swollen and puffy from kissing me so hard. I know the feel of her dress as it bunched in my hands, before I grew bold enough to really touch her bare skin. I know the silky, smooth feel of her thighs under my palms. I know how it feels to have my knee wedged between her legs and the sound of her moans while she squeezed those thighs around mine. I know her getting that turned on from my touch had me just about exploding by simply kissing her.

  How did she pull that reaction out of me?

  Why did I suddenly not care about our lack of any kind of history?

 
And what does that say about me? That I was willing to forget my own beliefs because of one out-of-this-world kiss? Or that I still would, given the chance?

  Oh shit. Alice is still talking to me.

  Clearing my throat and shifting my feet, I try to push my confusion aside and focus on what my boss is saying. Something about the latest numbers that have been coming in. Despite my field trips away from my desk to run her errands, I’m still in the top five percent. Nothing new or exciting there. Eventually, I get dismissed to start working for the day, almost a half hour late.

  Now if only I can focus on work instead of two girls that are stuck in my head for incredibly different reasons.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The club is dark and humid. The bass vibrates in my chest from almost half a block away. My normal haunts—if I actually go out—are bars. Plain and simple. Get a beer, socialize, watch part of a game on TV. That’s how I usually “go out.” But this is clearly a dance club.

  This isn’t going to be as simple and cozy as I thought.

  Through the haze of people and flashing colored lights, I can’t see Clive, Sarah, or Sadie anywhere. I have no idea who Tiffany is or what she looks like. I order a beer, feeling crushed between the already half-drunk people on either side of me. The specials tonight are shots, or some pink drink with a little umbrella in it. I have to scream to give the barkeep my order, and I spill half my beer on the counter when some college girl starts jumping up and down because they started playing what was apparently her favorite song.

  This place is so not my style.

  A hand grips my shoulder and I step back to make room for whoever wants to stand between what is now a gaggle of college girls and the bar. The hand holds on, leading me away from the crowd. As soon as I’m not surrounded, I turn around. Clive leans in to shout in my ear. “You made it!”

  Nodding my half-hearted agreement, I join him at a table far away from the dance floor, where we can almost hear each other if we yell. He points out Sarah and some girl that looks vaguely familiar dancing together, totally lost in the music and ignoring everything else around them. Clive then says something to me. Or I think he does. I give him a questioning look and cup my ear. His mouth moves, but I still hear nothing. After I shrug my shoulders, he laughs, leaning in close to me again.