In My Veins (4 page)

“Why won’t you kiss me?” I asked making
him look the other way. He wouldn’t face me so I grabbed his shoulder to make
him do so. His grey blue eyes bore into mine before he forced himself to smile.

“I did kiss you.”

“James…”

He sighed, “I wasn’t sure if you would
be okay with it.”

“Wouldn’t be okay with it?” I repeated,
“James, I know that I’m inexperienced in comparison to other women my age but
that doesn’t mean I’m living in the 1800’s. I’m starting to think you’re not
interested in me…” I admitted hating how I was coming across but I didn’t want
to be part of a game if he wasn’t interested.

“You think that?”

“Well yeah… wouldn’t you?”

He nodded to himself before leaning
forward and was about press his lips to mine when I put my finger to his lips
to stop him, “I don’t want it if I’m forcing it from you.”

“Karina…”

“Goodnight James.” I mumbled while
opening the car door. I felt embarrassed for even bringing it up. I was
reaching the gate to the apartment building when James grabbed my arm and spun
me around to face him. His lips collided with mine before I had a chance to
argue. It started out soft like usual but I found myself moving closer as he
did. My hands found its way into his hair, perfect length to run my fingers
through, as we both went deeper into the kiss.

“So you mean to tell me… this guy is the
one that’s acting like he’s innocent?” Tiffany asked showing me a search of his
pictures. She came over for a movie as we chatted a bit. I finally gave in and
looked at what she saw the first time she looked him up. She did her search
again on my tablet before handing it back to me. “You’re not the one who put
his name in the search engine, don’t feel bad.” She smirked.

There were pages of pictures of him and
women at events for his company. All, not surprisingly because of his profession,
beautiful women. I ignored the pang of jealousy, reminding myself that he was
with me now. Not them.

“Maybe because he knows you’re a virgin
he thinks you’re into innocent types…” She suggested.

“So he’s pretending to be? That makes
sense…” I said sarcastically, “Maybe I’m thinking too much of it.”

“Or maybe he really isn’t attracted to
women.” She suggested again.

“You’re really no help Tiffany.” I said
while looking through the pictures again. Most of the pictures were old and there
were no duplicate pictures of any of the dates so I didn’t think much of them.

“And you really have no luck with men.”
She mumbled.

“No arguing there…” I replied thinking
of all the pathetic guys I had come across. “My luck when I finally decide to
get over dating anxiety I meet James.”

“You are lucky. He’s hot.”

One
month later, James had come over after work. It was well past midnight but we
hadn’t been able to see each other that week because of work. We figured it
would be better to just see each other in person rather than our usual texting
at this hour.

We cuddled on the couch and watched a
random reality show that was on. Our fingers were interlocked and I was resting
my head on his shoulder. Neither of us were paying attention to the show or
cared what was going on in that celebrities life at the moment. 

He had come straight from work so he was
still in his dress shirt but he had pushed up the  sleeves showing the toned
muscles even in his lower arms. I’ve always been a sucker for manly arms.

He noticed me looking and smiled before
he kissed the top of my head. “Celebrity reality not doing it for you?” he
asked.

“Nah, I like you better.”

He smirked “I would hope so.” As if on
cue he brought his lips to mine and I wrapped my arm around his neck as we
slowly started drifting down. He was pulling me towards him as I pulled him to
me. The way he was losing his usual self-control in that moment gave me some
hope that maybe he did see me the way I saw him.

My heart started racing and pounding against
his hard chest. His hand started traveling down my waist. But then he stopped.

He suddenly pulled away and looked
towards the balcony, “Did you hear that?”

I looked in the direction he was looking
and there was no other sound besides us breathing hard and the commercial on
TV.

Feeling frustrated from the awkward
position we were in to be having a conversation I pulled away from him, “I
didn’t hear anything.”

He stood up, not even noticing my
frustration and walked towards the screen door of the balcony. He opened it and
went onto it, looking around as if he was trying to hear whatever he ‘heard’.

I’m sure my expression said how I felt
as he came in. I raised my brow and crossed my arms as he was about to speak,
“Um… I have to go.”

“Of course you do.” I mumbled, “Okay.”

He stood in his spot awkwardly. I wasn’t
sure what to do either. Stay mad or walk him out like I would normally do.

I sighed and stood up to walk him out
but he grabbed my hand so I would face him. “I’m sorry… I really did hear
something.”

“I believe you.” I lied.

“You don’t believe me.” he said sadly.

“I don’t… but I trust you.”
Even
though I’m starting to think you’re hiding something.

We walked over to my door and he had me
against a wall before I had a chance to pretend I was still angry with him. His
body pressed onto mine again as his lips collided with mine. I had my hands on
his shoulders contemplating pushing him away or wrapping my arms around them
and pulling him closer. We both slowly pulled apart. I smiled as I looked into
his steel blue eyes.

 “Is this how you apologize?” I smirked
before pulling him back down for another kiss. “Because I like it.”

We were both out of breath and his eyes
were baring into mine before he turned around. I almost caught a glimpse of
whatever he was trying to hide from me. And I realized he
was
hiding
something from me. He wanted this just as much as I did but something is
keeping him from opening up to me. I felt it in my bones and I knew I should
probably run the other direction from him upon this realization but I couldn’t.
I wanted to know what it was more than ever.

*
*
*

Two months passed and we were closer
than before. He still didn’t take it further than making out but I didn’t mind.
He made it obvious he wanted me and I wasn’t some game to him. That’s all I
wanted.

I gave up on the search of his deep dark
secret when I realized I wasn’t in a movie. This was real life and he wasn’t
going to have a deep dark secret. I had seen almost every room in his house,
there was no dungeon or second family. I did meet his friends though and came
to realize his cousin Chris was his right hand man and best friend. I’d
sometimes catch Chris staring at me with a sad glint in his eyes, almost as if
he was worried about something. But I ignored it telling myself it was nothing.

Tiff says that we haven’t been hanging
out as much as we used to since James and I have been more serious about our
relationship. I guess she was right. I showed up to yoga less and my gym
schedule switched to early morning instead of late afternoon. So to make it up
to her, we’re meeting at my new favorite coffee shop, Tea Bean.

“Hey Tiff.” I said hugging her hello.

“Hey Kar.” She said as met in front of
the shop just in time. It was her first time here but I had been a couple times
with James already since the owner was one of his good friends as well.

I was greeted by the smells of roasted
coffee beans and vanilla just as we opened the door. Heaven.

I looked around as I waited for our order
to be ready taking it in. “I think I like this place.” She said looking at the
barista making our drinks. I smirked, “That’s Daniel. James’s friend. He owns
the Tea Bean.”

“You know him?” she asked surprised.

“Yeah he’s a nice guy. I only met him
briefly at one of the shows I went to with James.”

She nodded and brought her attention
back to me, “So how’s everything?” She asked awkwardly. Has it really been that
long that we’ve hung out? I guess I have been spending most of my free time
with James but I didn’t realize it had been
that
long.

“Good. How about with you?”

“Great. I miss you though.” She said before
getting interrupted by Daniel calling out our order. We walked over to the
counter to pick up our drinks and I was surprised to see one of James’s friends
behind the counter, Daniel.  “Hey Daniel. How are you?.”

“Oh, I was wondering if you were the
‘Karina’.” He said referring to the order, “I’m good, how are you doing?”

“Great. This is my friend Tiffany.
Tiffany this is Daniel, James’s friend.” I said as if she didn’t already know.

Tiffany had a huge smile as she greeted
Daniel. “Hi.” She said shyly before picking up her coffee.

Daniel smiled equally as big as hers,
“Hi nice to meet you Tiffany. What are you girls up to today?”

“Not much. Just catching up. Tiff thinks
James has been keeping me all to himself.”

“He probably has been.” He laughed as we
grabbed our drinks.

Tiffany nudged my side as we walked away
and glared at me. “Why did you tell him I thought James keeps you all to himself?
He’s going to think I’m clingy!” She whisper yelled.

I laughed, “Because you did say it. And
no he won’t. He agreed.”

She quieted down just as Daniel walked
to our table. He handed us two cupcakes, “Here you two go, on the house. It’s
my way of apologizing that my friend hogs your friend.” He winked at Tiffany.

“Thank you.” We both said in unison as
he went back to work.

“Well... Daniel is hot.” She giggled and
looked back at Daniel who was now busy making another order. I looked back at
him too and agreed. Daniel was the tall, dark, and handsome type. He had an intimidating
look because of his intense yet warm brown eyes but he was a teddy bear. The
fact that he could make a yummy cup of coffee or a fancy latte was icing on the
cupcake.

After a moment of Tiffany ogling over Daniel,
she finally turned her attention back to me, “We need to talk.” She said
suddenly serious.

“About?” I asked as I fingered a bit of
the white frosting off the cupcake.

“James.” She said putting her coffee
down. “I think it’s great that you guys are so into each other, but, you’re
spending a lot of time with him. So you two must be
that
serious. I feel
like I don’t know anything about him. And as your best friend, and self-defense
teacher, I think you need to catch me up on him.”

“Self-defense? You teach yoga.” I
laughed.

“That’s not the point. I need to know
more about him.”

“What’s there to know?”

“What’s he like? What’s his family like?
Does he have any siblings?”

I felt sad as she mentioned his family,
“I actually haven’t met his family yet. Besides Chris at least.”

“What? You’ve been dating for over
four months and still haven’t met the family?”

“No… he’s really slow about everything.
It’s almost like he’s hesitating moving forward…you know? At first I didn’t
mind; I thought he was perfect because of it. But now it’s making me worry…” I
admitted.

“So weird…”

“Yeah…” I said and took another sip of
my latte.

“You think he doesn’t take the
relationship as seriously as you do? Like he’s just using it to…you know. Get
some.”

“First of all. I wouldn’t
let
a
guy just use me to ‘
get some’. 
And
as weird as it is, we haven’t
even gone past making out. And even that, I felt like I had to force it out of
him. But he hasn’t met my family yet either…”

“Why not?”

“Because I want to meet his family
first. You know my parents are old school and will ask about his parents and if
I don’t know anything what am I going to say?” I loved my parents and we got
along great, but I knew they were going to ask a million questions upon meeting
James. I had to be prepared too. I barely told my mom I was seeing someone and
she wanted to know every little detail.

She nodded understanding, “Or maybe
you’re just avoiding him meeting your family as well.”

“I’m not!” I promised.

“Maybe you should bring it up then?”

“Maybe…”

*
*
*

I
was finishing up an update of our latest project for my boss, Mr. Yang, when I
got a text from James saying he wanted to meet with me after work for dinner at
his house.

I smiled at the thought and replied
before I put my phone away before Mr. Yang could see I was texting. He doesn’t
really care, but I was competing with Jennifer to get the promotion he’s
rumored to be giving someone soon.

From my peripheral view I saw that
someone passed by my cubical and stopped. I prayed that it wasn’t my boss or
Jennifer and whoever it was would just go away so I could leave sooner but they
didn’t go. I turned to see who it was and had to force myself not to groan when
I saw that it was Jennifer.

“Well don’t you look lively.” she said
sarcastically.

Ever since I started working at W&D
Ads, Jennifer has been competing with me as if I purposefully got this job to
take her place. Naturally I started competing with her too so we both try to
one up each other with every accomplishment. Which kind of sucked because I was
never confrontational or competitive before working at W&D.

“But seriously. You look horrible.
Haven’t been sleeping?” She asked.

Jennifer was gorgeous. But her coldness
and jealousy made her beauty pointless. She was definitely the definition of an
ice princess. She had spotless alabaster skin and long dirty blond hair with
piercing blue eyes. She arched her eyebrow as she passed me when I didn’t
answer.

“Hi Mr. Yang.” I smiled as he walked by.
Aside from Jennifer, working for Mr. Yang has been great. He’s the ideal boss. She
fluttered her eyelashes and said hello to  him as well. He doesn’t fall for
Jennifer’s kissing ass tricks. She thinks it helps because she’s always out on
her sick days and should be getting fired for it. But she comes up with great
ideas so that kept her around.

He smiled, “Hello Karina. How’s the Banana
Coffee campaign going?”

“As good as Banana Coffee campaign can
go,” I laughed. “I actually wanted to talk to you about something else though.”

“Great, come to my office.” He said
passing Jennifer.

It felt like just yesterday that I had
my interview in his small office. It was my first out of college
real
interview
and I wasn’t expecting to actually get it. I had many other interviews after
and I was convinced I’d never get a call back weeks later. I was prepared to
start looking for jobs outside of the L.A. area when I got the call from Mr.
Yang saying I got it.

“So what is it? Good news I hope.”

I smiled, “Very. I got in contact with a
makeup company that’s eager to work with us. We worked with one of their
affiliates, Elodie, a while back and they liked the concept we came up with.”

“Who?”

“Adela
Français. Their
part of Elodie Beauty. We did the hair dye magazine ad for them.”

“Didn’t you do that one?”

“Yes.” I said trying not to sound too
eager.

“Wonderful. If you can come up with something
for Adela that they approve of, I might have some good news for you.” he said
with a wink.

As I made my way out of the office
Jennifer
happened
to be nearby. She glared at me, pretending to make
copies. I smiled knowing she heard every word.