The Moment She Knew (5 page)

“Maybe if you didn’t get so drunk at a CHARITY event, this wouldn’t be an issue right now!”

“Yea yea I got that, but you wanna move in a bit quieter because that. Would. Be. Awesome.”

Callie
looked out her window. Below Ryan was standing outside loading a few boxes in the apartment.
Ah the cousin must have arrived
she thought. She contemplated going outside but remembered she was wearing her shorts and glasses; she was looking what she classified as bum chic but most would say she was a plain hot mess. And now wasn’t the time to go and introduce herself with Mr. Sterling and Ryan arguing.

Two minutes later
there was that knock at the door. She opened the door and Ryan walked passed her. “I smelled bacon and please tell me you have coffee because I’m out.” Ryan walked in and went straight to the kitchen.

“Yup
, I’ll start the coffee.” Callie took the cream out of the refrigerator.

Ryan
leaned over the pan and grabbed a piece of bacon that was scorching hot. “Mmm, bacon. Look I wanted to say sorry about last night,” he tilted his head and gave her puppy dog eyes.

“It’s ok. I was a bit uncomfortable anyway
,” she said as she caught him stealing another piece of bacon.

“So we are good?”
She smiled at him. She couldn’t be mad at Ryan, he was too important to her.

“Yea we are good and wait for
the bacon to actually be cooked,” Callie smacked his hand away.

From the hallway
you can hear Mr. Sterling losing his patience. “And then he wants to take a coffee break! Un-fucking-believable!”

“Wow your cousin has a bad temper huh?”
She said grabbing a coffee mug from the cabinet.

“Yea at times
, but we grew up together and despite how we talk to each other we actually like each other. I’m going to help him move the rest of his shit; can you call me when the coffee is done?”

“Yea
ill bring it over to you guys.”

Ryan kissed her on the cheek as he made his way to the door
. Callie poured the coffee into two mugs and wrapped up the bacon and egg sandwiches. The door was open to Ryan’s apartment so she walked right in announcing herself as to not be rude.

“Hey
, brought over breakfast and coffee,” she shouted into an empty kitchen. Ryan ran into the kitchen and grabbed the coffee and started downing it. “Thank you Callie. Hey, get in here and meet your coworker slash neighbor for the summer,” Ryan yelled in between bites and sips.

Ryan went on to tell Callie about how much his family liked her. His parents called her witty and funny. Callie thought his family was very nice although it was hard for her to get over the story Ryan told her. How could they just cut off their son because he was going after something he wanted to do?

Callie went to leave; she had emails to get back to and a graduation to flawlessly execute. Ryan left the kitchen and reentered moments later alone. “I really wanted you to meet him but he’s on the phone. Work related. His door is shut.” Callie nodded. After talking to Ryan for a few minutes she headed back to her apartment.

“Thanks
Callie, for breakfast and everything else.”

S
he said it was nothing and went back to her apartment.

Later on that day
Callie heard a text come through on her phone, it was from Connor. The text contained a photo of a car dashboard with the radio displaying the song title and artist; it was Lana Del Rey, Young and Beautiful. After the photo was a text.

This came on the radio twice today. Thought if you.

She smiled and replied.

It is a great song. The only song I really like by her.

It’s a great song to dance to.

I hope you are not texting and driving.

Of course I’m not. I have my blue tooth hooked up in the car. I talk, it types. What are you doing?

Waiting for my neighbor to come over and hang out. His new temp roommate is being a pain. You remember the new adjunct I ranted on about?

Yes, I think I remember you saying something about him.

He is in a bad mood and my neighbor wants no part of it, so he is coming to hang out over here.

Ok. Have fun!

Over the next couple weeks
Connor and Callie talked on the phone at night and sent text messages during the day. The texts contained silly pictures and funny quotes. He flirted a lot and Callie flirted back. She enjoyed their banter. Connor was fun to talk to and she looked forward to their conversations. She had gotten to know a little about him. She wanted to ask Ryan about Connor, wondering if Ryan would know him. She decided it was pointless since Connor was in New York and this wasn’t going to turn into anything.

Chapter 8

It was here, graduation day. Callie had spent so much time making sure the venue, food, students and everything else was in order. The last order of detail was the guest speaker. Callie was running around looking for Ryan who was with Mr. Sterling. She was so consumed with work and Connor that she had yet to meet Mr. Sterling. As she was running around looking for caps and gowns that have been misplaced, she heard her phone go off. It was Connor calling her. She didn’t want to but had to ignore it. Then her text message went off, it was Connor again.

I need to talk to you.

Are you ok?

It’s rather important.

I can call you back in a little bit I just need to find missing gowns for graduation.

Her phone went off again
but she didn’t look, she needed to find the missing caps and gowns. She saw Ryan jogging towards her, “Ok the caps and gowns have been found. Turns out some of the students took them earlier and didn’t sign for them. Also Sterling is in a bad mood so I’m just warning you.” Callie was irritated, “Yea well he needs to put on his big boy panties and get over it. He needs go on stage in two minutes. The students are walking in, like now.”
Pomp and Circumstance started playing,
cuing the students to walk in. Callie rounded the corner and collided with a man. “Jesus, I’m sorry... holy shit! Connor, what are you doing here?” Callie was excited to see him but confused. He was dressed in a nice dark blue suit with a light blue tie. It complimented his eyes nicely. 

“I t
old you I needed to talk to you,” he said in a rush. He looked like he had been running around.

Ryan
walked up to Connor and Callie. “Where the hell have you been?  You are going on stage to speak any minute, damn it Sterling!”

Callie
looked between Ryan and Connor. “Going on stage to speak? YOU’RE Mr. Sterling?!”

Callie
was furious and Connor could see the fire in her eyes. “Yes,” he responded as he stretched his hands and placed them in his pant pockets, “I was trying to tell you that,” he was stating his case.

Callie threw her hands up.
“You picked NOW to tell me? You had weeks to tell me and you want to pick the moment you go on stage, to tell ME who you are?!”

Ryan
was looking out of the loop and interjected, “Wait, you too met before?”

T
hey both looked at him and back at each other. “Yes, we met at the charity event. Clearly he knew who I was but kept who he was a secret,” she was turning to walk away.

Connor
grabbed her arm, “now wait a minute. I had my reasons.” Callie turned to face him, “I’m sorry and those reasons are?” Callie asked challenging him. Connor spoke without missing a beat. “We danced Ryan, and called it a night. Relax, it wasn’t a big deal. I’m not stealing your girlfriend. Since she is
your
friend, and I have to work and live near her this summer, I wanted Callie to see me as Connor since she clearly has it out for Mr. Sterling; someone she seems to hate before she even met him. Oh and to clear of few things up, Caitlyn. I’m not a billionaire, the industry is and I do well for myself but I’m not flying around on my personal jet and if I was, it’s my business. You can keep your comments to yourself. I get money and ‘fancy’ makes you uncomfortable because you have this whole ‘poor me’ persona going on and life seems ‘oh so hard’ for you but suck it up. Life is hard. Also, I get that I don’t have a degree but what I do have is something books can’t teach you. I have real world experience. Something other teachers, even those who have degrees, may lack. There is a reason I got called to do these lectures. I’m not a professor and I wouldn’t claim to be one, this isn’t my dream job. I have my career and I love it.” Callie had told Connor about her frustrations with Mr. Sterling. She spent weeks talking to Connor; they couldn’t be the Masone person. She liked Connor but Mr. Sterling wasn’t what she wanted. She pulled her arm away from his grasp. “It’s time for you to go on stage,
Mr. Sterling
,” she said to Connor as she balled her hands into a fist and walked away.

Connor
stood there giving his speech, talking about life lessons and quoting some people Callie never heard of. She watched Connor, he kept his eyes on everyone, scanning the crowd but never looking over in her direction. Ryan came by after Connor’s speech trying to apologize on his cousin’s behalf but Callie wasn’t accepting it, Ryan did nothing wrong. She told Ryan how she and Connor have been texting for a couple weeks. Ryan said it ‘made sense to him’, whatever that meant.

Graduation went over smoothly
, if you don’t count the whole situation with Connor being Mr. Sterling. She couldn’t believe it but it was done. Connor left after the graduation ceremony and she hadn’t seen or heard from him after, honestly she didn’t expect to. There was the fact that she might see him around, he was living in her apartment building for the summer and he was also lecturing at the college, so there was a good chance she could run into him. She prayed she didn’t.

She remembered to G
oogle Mr. Sterling, Connor Sterling. She put on her glasses and started up her computer.

What she found out was he was a big name in the technology ind
ustry as well as in New York. His company designed different software programs among other projects he was working on. There was no talking about his personal life other than he was a “most eligible bachelor”. Callie couldn’t find him on any social media sites which she found strange. He was on the cover of tons of magazines from technology to business, but nothing she ever read. Reading the articles she knew he was smart and good at what he did. There was talk of big name customers not only in the US but also overseas. Customers ranged from production studios to hospitals and colleges.

She looked up images and saw him pictured with guys and girls. Friends, coworkers
, maybe girlfriends, the captions didn’t offer much information but he did attend quite a few social events. She started to feel like she invading his privacy and shut the computer off. Lost in her thoughts she didn’t hear the knock at the door. She knew it wasn’t Ryan. She looked in the peephole and saw Connor standing on the other side.

She tried to ignore him. “I know you’re in there Callie, I can see your shadow under the door,” he said with annoyance.

“What do you want?” She asked from behind the closed door.

“Can you open the door for a minute?”
He asked politely.

“No
,” she didn’t feel like talking to him or rather him scolding her.

“Oh come on. I’m asking nicely
,” now he sounded like he was pleading.

She opened the door
and figured she should get this conversation over with. “Look you said what you had to say earlier and I got it.” He let himself in the apartment and walked past her.

As he walked past her she could smell his cologne, the
Masone cologne that he wore at the charity event. He walked around her apartment, looking at her bookcase and reading her quotes she had on her wall. He had his hands in the pockets of his dark wash jeans; they looked plain but fit him in all the right places. She hadn’t seen him in anything other than a suit or tux, so seeing him in a dark blue polo shirt that revealed his muscles and a pair of gray converse sneakers was new. She felt less intimated when he wasn’t in a suit.

“Your apartment is nice
.” He could have been bullshitting but Callie loved her apartment. She had a lot of birds, trees and owls as décor. The colors were soft. She had pillows on the big comfy green couch and chair. She had a small faux fireplace and throw blankets all around. Her colors matched but her furniture pieces were unique. She had built her coffee table using a staple gun, wheels and a few crates from a hardware store. Her favorite part of her apartment were the bookcases she had going along one wall, she only owned a few books since it wasn’t in her budget to buy all the books she wanted. She read what was available at the local library. 

“I like those glasses too. You look scholarly,” he smiled and slightly licked his lips. She didn’t know if he was serious or just being an ass.
“Yea thanks.” She wanted him to leave.

“Listen I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said; well I should have maybe worded it differently. In my defense you did verbally attack me without even knowing me. You don’t know what it’s like being me and you have no idea the distance I have to keep from people. It’s hard to trust anyone.
Everyone thinks they know all about me and they don’t. I know how you felt about Mr. Sterling so I thought if you knew me as Connor for a bit you might, I don’t know,” he trailed off in silence.