Vampires and Sexy Romance (69 page)

I reached down to the floor and finally found where I’d knocked my alarm clock.  I pressed a button and it stopped squawking.  Peace at last.  I rolled back over out of the light and let go of the pillow over my head.

“Alcohol is BAD!”  I told my teddy bear, Mr. Muggles.

May have tasted good last night, but this morning I’d give all that good taste and good feeling for just my head to stop bleating.  Somehow the sound of the alarm clock was still echoing in my skull.

And then came a clamoring of pans from the kitchen.  The sound was like a gun shot through my brain, and I suddenly jumped up in bed, scared shitless by the thought that someone was in my apartment...in broad daylight!

I stumbled from my warm bed and grabbed my trusty metal baseball bat from under the bed--you never knew what could happen at night in the city, but I just couldn’t bring myself to buy a gun.  I crept out of my room and down the hall to the kitchen.  There stood Bess, showered and changed into a fresh suit, a cup of coffee in one hand as she hummed by the sink.

“Hey slugger, forget I slept over?”  Her eyes made fun of me as she sipped her coffee.

“The cocksucker milkshakes!”  I drew my hand up to my head as my own voice ricocheted through my head, joining the pots and pans and the remnants of the alarm.  It was getting really loud in my head.  “I was wondering where the hangover came from.”

“Coffee?”  Bess tapped a manicured fingernail against the steaming pot nestled in the coffee maker.

“Nah.  I think I’m going back to bed and sleeping off this hangover.”

“Cupcake, it’s Monday.”

I drooped all over, from my head to my naked little toes.  I had to go back to work today?

“Shit ...” 

“Shit, shower, brush your teeth...at least you don’t have to do all the other stuff women have to do to get ready for work.”

This made my head snap upright and my gaze dug right into her.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”  

Bess shrugged and took a last gulp of coffee.  “Doesn’t mean anything.  I just wish I could work somewhere that didn’t have a dress code...and that let me look however I wanted.”  Bess dropped her cup in the dish washer and then brushed her hands, a job well done.  “Well,” she continued.  “I still can’t imagine not doing my hair and makeup, but it would be nice to have the option.”

She pecked me on the cheek then sashayed out the front door of my apartment and was gone.

I stood there, Bess’ words replaying in my mind.  “The stuff other women have to do...somewhere that let me look however I wanted.”

How bad does she think I look?

I shuffled wearily to the bathroom and peered into the mirror over the sink.  Okay, I looked pretty rough today...but I hadn’t had a shower and I had a hangover.

I padded into my bedroom and started pulling my undies, bra and work clothes out of their drawers.  Suddenly my alarm clock sprang to life again, its bleating even louder, pulverizing my brain with every shell shocked squawk.

I dropped to my knees and scrambled to turn the damn thing off.  My hands fumbled so much, and my head ached so bad that I finally had to grab the chord and yank it out of the wall. 

This isn’t going to be a good day.

*****

Chapter
5

After a pack of crackers and a cup of black coffee, I started out into the glaring sunlight, stopping long enough to by a pair of shades from the corner news stand.  I always thought the rack of sunglasses to be a strange addition to the stands stock, but now, looking over the Pepto-Bismol and the Aspirin and the shades--all strategically clumped right together--I saw the shrewd brilliance.

I bought one of the overpriced bottles of aspirin too.

I trudged the rest of the four blocks to the hospital, only taking the shades off when I was securely in the elevator and no light could possibly get me.  But when the elevator opened, there was all the light again.  It had found me, regardless.  No escape.

I donned the glasses again and swept past the windows, down the hall to the physical therapy department.

To my utter horror the room exploded into caterwauling applause and frat boy hooting.  This dazed me--the aspirin hadn’t taken effect yet--and I staggered a little as I stumbled into the well lit, and completely window filled room.

“Way to go, Lucy!”

“You really showed him, huh?”

“I laughed so freaking hard!”

Some one clapped me on the back; another hugged his arm around my neck and kissed the top of my head. 
Had I won an award?

“Yeah,” said Danny Crammer, pretend punching me in the arm.  “When I got that first picture I was sure we’d never see you again.”

“Picture?”  And suddenly I remembered the beauty salon, the rain, the mascara and Thomas taking the grizzly picture with his cell phone.  I felt the blood surge to my face. 

I was about to slit my wrists when Danny continued. “Then you turned the tables on the asshole!  When I saw how dinky that guy’s equipment was, and that fucking look on his face...I about pissed myself laughing!”

Suddenly I remembered Bess’ embarrassing picture of Thomas, and what she’d done in retaliation.

God bless Bess...

“Yeah, remind me never to piss you off again!”  Danny said, this time throwing a pretend punch to my jaw.”

The guys congratulated me again on my revenge text, and by the time I stowed my book bag and went to call my first patient in for rehab, I was feeling a lot better.

*****

Twenty minutes later a gorgeous blonde woman appeared at the door to physical therapy.  Her hair was done, her makeup was flawless--as were her nails--she had on designer high heel shoes, a silk blouse with a plunging neckline and the shortest shirt I’d ever seen not worn by a hooker.  And the rack on this chick--one hundred percent fictitious.

For a moment I thought she was a pop princess in search of therapeutic relief for her aching back, for new implants can easily put a back out of alignment.

I was about to trudge over and ask if I could help her, but suddenly she was surrounded by men--not only my fellow coworkers but the three male patients that were rehabbing.

I heard them ask in chorus, “May I help you?”

She smiled and effortlessly mesmerized them all with a little laugh.  “Aren’t you the sweetest things?  I’m looking for the physical therapy department.  I’m supposed to start today.”

“That’s great!”  the boys cried in unison again.

This is sad, I told myself.  Sure she was pretty, but most of it was smoke and mirrors.  Make up and plastic surgery, and shopping wherever Julia Roberts got her outfits for the first half of
Pretty Woman
.  

“Can I show you around?”  Danny said, jumping forward first like a dog begging for a treat.

“Wish I could, sugar.”  She looked around the room and then laid one of those rather affective smiles on me.  “But I’m supposed to work with Lucy there for my first few days.” 

Her heels clicked across the tile flooring until she was right in front of me, her hand extended and her smile so bright I felt like I needed to put those sunglasses back on.

“I’m Nicole.”  She took my hand in hers and her breasts swayed as she shook my hand.  I was still in shock--they looked real!--when she gave me a sly wink.  “The head of physical therapy said you were his best therapist, so I should work with you first, seeing I just graduated two weeks ago.”

“Oh, yeah ... sure.”

“And he said the guys might short circuit on contact--” she peered back and waved at the still mesmerized group of men.  “And he was right.”

I laughed.  This girl was a trip.

I started by taking her on a quick tour of the hospital, showing her where the bathrooms were, the cafeteria and the break rooms, where radiology was and where to find extra smocks incase a patient threw-up on you.

And every step of the way I noticed that men were all staring at us.  They spun around and smiled when we walked by, they absently ran into each other, into walls, into closed doors.  Roger, the little twerp in radiology who’d tried feeling me up at last year‘s Christmas party, his voice even cracked when he tried to say hello.  He also couldn’t get his eyes to rise above Nicole’s neckline. 

At first I thought my coworkers were just a bunch of goons, but later when I took her across the street to my favorite sandwich shop for lunch, the guys there acted the same way.  Their usual playful bantering morphed into not only heavy flirting but fighting over you would grill up her order.  They even started flipping their spatulas and knives in the air.

I just couldn’t get over it.  How men--men I’m around all the time--seemed so different just being around Nicole?

And suddenly I realized, incredulously, that deep down I wanted those guys to act like that for me.

Really?
I thought.  You’d really want all those guys falling over themselves and acting like fools?

No ... not
all
of them.

*****

At home I went to water Ozzie and was surprised that not only had he grown almost an inch in just a couple days, but he’d grown a third shoot.  It curved in the light.  And he seemed greener today.  I watered him exactly the amount the guy from the botanical store told me.  Then I looked out my window and thought, maybe I should get Ozzie a friend?

Next thing I knew I was walking into the botanical store and the guy behind the counter suddenly got that terrified look on his face again, but he shook it off before I even got a chance to comment on it.

“So how’s Ozzie doing?”  he asked, scratching his thick fingers across the back of his neck.

“He’s doing great,” I said coming closer, my eyes intent on his hands--didn’t know why I was staring so hard.  “Actually, he’s doing so well I thought I’d get him a friend.  He looks kind of lonely all by himself hanging in my window.”

He seemed to be considering me, taking me in like he was diagnosing an ailment.  “Well,” he scratched the back of his neck again.  “You’ll want a young plant or something small, so the new plant doesn’t overwhelm the other one.”  I followed him as he paced through the shop, making a slow zigzagging pattering through the lush greens and the aromatic flowers.

Finally he stopped in front of all these purple and pink and blue potted flowers.  “African Violets are not only easy to care for, but they’re always in bloom.”  He turned and I suddenly noticed he had really pretty eyes--frosted blue, like looking into a spring sky.

“So ...”  he shrank back from me, suddenly noticing how close I was to him.  “Just pick what color you want.”

I looked over the flats of violets.  I finally picked up one with small leaves and blue blossoms--I suddenly noticed they matched his eyes.

He took the violet from my hands, went back behind his work station and repotted it into a plastic pot just like the one he’d put Ozzie in.  Then he laced a sling around the bottom and handed me another small hook to turn into my windowsill.

“Just like Ozzie, water this one once a week...you might want to turn it around every couple of weeks.  They grow fast, and sometimes unevenly.”

“Sure ... thanks.”   I waited a beat, and then asked.  “So how much do I owe you?”

“Nothing.”  He shrugged.

“No, I have to pay you this time.  It’s only right.”

He got that terrified look on his face again.  “It’s really no--”

“I insist.”  I cut across him.  He scratched the back of his neck again.

“Umm, five bucks?”  He suddenly noticed that I was watching his hands.  He shoved them in his pockets and blushed.

I didn’t know why he was embarrassed!  I was the one ogling his hands--but why?  Why was I suddenly staring at his hands?  I took a five out of my purse and then picked up my new plant.  I was turning away to walk out of the shop when I realized I didn’t know his name.  Three visits, he’d saved Ozzie from perishing, and I still didn’t know his name.

“I’m Lucy, by the way.”  I extended my free hand and tried giving him a Nicole like smile.  He slowly pulled his hand from his pocket and after a long moment of contemplation he took my hand.  His hands were rough and strong, and I felt the back of my neck start to itch.

He gulped.  “I’m Gus.”

*****

My Mother was late for lunch.

I’m always late, still pulling on my clothes when she knocks on the door.  So when I suddenly found myself completely dressed, with my purse slung over my shoulder, I suddenly realized it was ten minutes past twelve. 

I stared at the front door to my apartment and waited for a few beats, there had to be a knock.

I tossed my purse down on the couch and grabbed the phone, my thumbs beating out Mother’s number in record time.  Four rings and then her voice mail picked up.   I tried her cell phone then.  She picked up on the second ring.

“Where are you?”  I asked, relieved that she wasn’t dead.