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“I wouldn’t wish marriage on my worst enemy, a dog, or my worst enemy’s dog,” Yukio groused as she bit savagely into a waffle cone.

“That’s enough, Yukio, I get it.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Doesn’t make me feel better.”

“You had that whole wedding bells and heirloom lace look in your eyes, even though you said ‘I’m only having fun,” Yukio accused, doing her best, high-pitched, simpering mimic.

“Fuck you,” Ororo spat, stabbing her dish of peanut butter cup ice cream that had seen better days. It was half melted, the thick globs of fudge slopping over the edges of the sundae glass. “I was having fun.”

“Too much fun, too soon, with the wrong guy.”

“He wasn’t the wrong guy!” Ororo slapped their table with the flat of her palm, so hard her glass rattled. Yukio cringed; as she jumped back in her seat, strawberry ice cream dripped from her cone. “He said it was the wrong time…”

“Bullshit.”

“Was it me?”

“Women always ask ‘was it me?’ No, it wasn’t you.” Yukio sighed impatiently. “Did he say he really wanted to end it?”

“He might as well have,” she murmured despondently. “I guess I wanted him too much. It was working, Yukio. We got along so well, and we’ve had such a good time.”

“Even for crap like monster trucks and baseball?”

“Yes!” Ororo insisted. Her voice was louder than she meant it to be; other patrons of the ice cream parlor peered at her furtively before settling back to their treats. “It didn’t matter. I just wanted to spend time with him and make him happy!”

“That’s your first mistake.”

“What, wanting to make him happy?” she snorted back, stirring her ice cream into more of a puddle.

“Basically. Wanting to mold yourself into some image of the perfect girl. Shit, you did this with Vic. With Cameron. With Arkon…” Yukio ticked Ororo’s previous men off on her fingertips. She never called her old beau, Chuck Arkon, by his first name.

“That’s such bullshit; I’m my own person.”

“And you’re a nice person. But you bend over backwards every time you have a new man and then complain that your back hurts! ‘Ro, I hate to break it to you, but you knew Logan had commitment issues going in.”

“That wasn’t the reason why,” she insisted miserably. She shoved her ice cream away and leaned over the table, cradling her forehead in her hand. A lone, silver tear dripped onto the table before her shoulders shook. “He just said he needed more time! He didn’t say he wanted anyone else!”

“Ororo…”

“He…didn’t…want a-any-one-elssssse,” she sobbed. Her plaintive voice broke her best friend’s heart, and she took matters into her own hands, with a more tactile approach. Yukio pushed her red vinyl upholstered chair around the tiny round table to where Ororo sat and embraced her. Ororo’s cries were nearly silent, gasping, shuddering breaths. She didn’t give a damn who was listening now. “I don’ know…why I let myself like him that much.”

“He made it hard not to. He’s one of my oldest, closest friends, sweetie, but so are you. I wanted this to work as much as you did, for his sake and for yours, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to put a boot up his butt.”

“Leave his butt alone.” Ororo was still attached to it; for all intents and purposes, it was once her butt. She sniffled, trying to compose herself, but her eyes were still dripping. She found comfort in Yukio’s slender arms, inhaling the light fragrance of her deodorant and hair gel; she never wore much by way of perfume out of long habit, since it used to give Carol headaches, and because Kenuichio used to drown himself in cologne, duking it out with any hint of scent she used to put on. Yukio rubbed her cheek against her thick, soft hair and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

That’s what best friends were for. Listening. Shopping. Talking you down from the ledge. And breaking up tantrums in public.

“You can’t keep compromising on what you want. Look at you. You’re hot, smart, have a good job and your own place, and lots of great single girlfriends to commiserate with. Me included.”

“Not Emma so much anymore.”

“Her boyfriend’s a doll, but pussywhipped. By the time he’s conscious again, the preacher’ll be telling him ‘you may now kiss the bride.’ Emma defines herself by the kind of man she can catch. She’s human bait. That’s not you, but you DO tend to undervalue yourself when you face a rejection.”

“He did reject me,” she sighed, sitting upright and shaking Yukio off. Yukio nudged her chair back but still held her hand.

“Has he called you?”

“That’s just it. We’ve played phone tag, but I haven’t seen him. It’s hard. I want to talk to him, but I don’t know what to say. I want him back.”

“What does he even say when he calls?” Yukio retrieved the remains of her waffle cone that she’d briefly laid aside on a stack of napkins and munched on it thoughtfully.

“He just plays it safe. ‘Just wanted ta check up on ya and say hi, see how’ve ya been,’” Ororo pantomimed, making Yukio choke on her food and nearly snort it through her nose.

“Gads, that’s so him!”

“I don’t want to just hear his voice. I want him. With me. Period.” She sighed heavily. “It doesn’t help that he’s not really being a dick. Not really. Not like Vic…”

“No one’s a dick like Vic.”

“I don’t even have any of his stuff to give back or get rid of.”

“Well, that’s good…did he leave anything at all?”

“Little stuff. His toothbrush.” Then her expression grew dreamy. “And my baseball cap. That was the first thing he gave me.”

“You could chuck it.”

“No.” Her voice was petulant.

“Stinker. Don’t you pout at me.”

“I need a night out.” Magic words. Yukio brightened.

“Then what are we waiting for? Get dressed! To the nines! Let’s ditch this popsicle stand.” Yukio’s eyes danced and she was already up, tossing her cone into the trash. She snatched the spoon out of Ororo’s hand before she could go back to her ice cream and grabbed both their purses.

“I was just thinking of a movie…”

“No, no, and no,” Yukio barked, dragging her so quickly from the shop that she nearly tripped. “Big poufy hair. Little itty-bitty outfit. Kick-ass shoes. Mani-pedi. Stat!”

“Help,” Ororo yelped. And they were off.


~0~


Logan was eventually as good as his word. Most nights she tripped inside her apartment, darting to the answering machine to check her messages. Zip. Bupkes. Her heart plunged, and she spent the rest of the night kicking herself for her lack of pride. Rejection and questions knotted her stomach.

She had no problem living by herself, but suddenly her apartment felt empty without him. The bed felt too big. Dinner was always for one.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, a tiny, childish voice begged that it wasn’t really over, til it was over. He didn’t not want her. He didn’t have time for her. Big difference…wasn’t it?

Ororo tried to be pragmatic about it all. Work had been a bear all week. The only positive aspect of it all had come from the least expected source.

Cassandra.

She sent Ororo on yet another interview (sigh) while Remy was covering a fashion show in Milan. If anything, it gave her the chance to get out of her stifling cubicle and take the BART downtown. She took a ten-minute walk through Nordstroms, breathing in the scent of crisp, new leather from the exorbitantly priced shoe section. Her favorite pastime with Betsy was walking through the shelves, holding up spangled, overly sequined shoes with three hundred dollar price tags and saying “This is you, this is you; what a bargain!” Any shoe was fair game, from granny loafers to leopard spots.

But back to business. She cruised out of the indoor plaza and emerged in the street, crossing four busy lanes for Forge Steel Industries, Inc., the site of her interview.

Ororo could vaguely remember his real name, Jonathan Silvercloud. All she knew was that he was a hot property in the field, self-made, a minority, and brilliant. Rumor had it that he was the next Howard Hughes, and just as enigmatic.

She breezed into the front lobby of the high-rise building. The entryway was large enough to echo, and her heels sounded loud against the tile. A cruelly coifed, razor-thin secretary looked up and gave her rendition of a smile as she approached the desk.

“Sign in, please.” She shoved a clipboard across the circular counter before she could open her mouth. Ororo perused the columns and the headers at the top of the page.

“Er. Right. I believe Forge was expecting me?”

“Who was expecting you, miss?”

“Oh. Oops. Mr. Silvercloud.”

“All right. Sign in. Sit down. I’ll announce you in a moment.” Ororo scrawled her signature and printed her name, checking her watch for the sign-in time. Her cheeks burned with frustration; she felt confident and on top of it all when she left that morning, but she felt punctured, even paltry beneath this woman’s gaze. She might as well have had B.O. or spinach in her teeth.

It was like her first meeting ever with Cassandra.

The next ten minutes was an equally awkward game of eye tag.

The receptionist, whose name plate introduced her as Charity (*gads*), took roughly five calls, signed in a delivery man carrying a box “ without asking who he was there to see “ and chatted randomly with several people wearing name badges. Ororo would periodically peek at her and turn away when her gaze was returned with the same icy, polite look.

Just when Ororo was ready to nod off in her chair, Charity piped up, “I’ll escort you back now. Mr. Silvercloud is out of his meeting.” Both sets of their heels clop-clopped down the hall after she was buzzed in with a swipe of Charity’s badge. The interior had that gluey, leather-and-tweed scent of a newly remodeled room. They walked past long rows of cubicles and turned left toward an office with glass panes that reached the ceiling. Mini-blinds were pulled, and Ororo heard a deep, masculine voice with a tinge of a Texan accent that sounded like the man was on the phone. She sighed, resigned.

“One moment.” Charity knocked briskly and ducked her head inside before being acknowledged. From around the back of her head, Ororo only saw the edge of the chair that faced his desk and a tall potted plant. The man himself was obscured from her gaze. Charity ducked back out and nearly collided with Ororo’s nose before she jumped back.

“In you go,” she tossed before she turned on her heel to leave. Ororo hedged for a moment, and then she rapped lightly on the pane of the door. Gold letters had his name and title printed as “Director and CEO”.

“I’m finished. Come in,” he beckoned. His voice was slightly impatient, feeding her annoyance with his staff, and now, with him. She threw back her shoulders, smoothed her skirt with her palm, and strode inside. He was just setting down the handset of his phone and closing out the teleconference screen on his PC when he looked up and met her eyes.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Silvercloud.”

…was that her voice, really, sounding that squeaky and shocked?

“Er…good, ah, afternoon.”

She cleared her throat. “I’m…hmmm.”

She forgot her own damn name.

“Charity said Cassandra was sending you over today. Miss Munroe, was it?” Obsidian eyes raked over her from head to toe, pausing on her lips.

“Ororo Munroe. Call me Ororo,” she corrected, ending on a stammer. She remembered her manners and approached his desk to shake his hand. He stood in tandem to come around the desk…

She tripped over a tiny rug laid out in front of the desk and went sprawling.

She released a small “ooph” as she landed against him, incongruously wrapped, as it seemed, in his arms. Which were very nice arms. Her mind took her in directions she didn’t want, automatically comparing him to Logan.

He was taller than Ororo by perhaps in inch, in her stocking feet. He was clean shaven except for a neat mustache, and his hair was glossy black, clipped cruelly short in a Julius Caesar cap that emphasized sharp bone structure and a slightly high forehead. He smelled expensive; he was wearing Burberry, both the scent and the suit, or her name was mud.

His lips twitched. “It would be moot to tell you ‘I didn’t expect to bump into you today,’ except you’re on my day planner, thanks to Charity.”

She licked her lips. His eyes tracked the movement and burned into her face. Her fingers tightened around his arm, stroking the rich texture of his raw silk suit.

He set her back on her feet and let go. She reached up to brush her hair back behind her ear before she could stop the impulse to groom. Belatedly she extended her hand. His felt warm.

“It’s nice to meet you.”

“What do you need to know about me?” All trace of the trance that held her dissipated as he got back to business. “We’ll need to make this short. I have another meeting in a half an hour.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” She sat down and fished quickly in her purse for her Blackberry. “This will run in next month’s issue if we set it on time…”

“What do you mean, ‘if’?” He sat back in his chair, still allowing his desk to separate them. “Cassandra assured me the item would run once it was received; I assumed that meant next month.” She was taken aback, feeling slapped.

“We’re planning several features for that issue, and typically we might get different items to print over the course of about three to four issues before they see the light of day.” She pictured the article spreadsheet with a small shudder.

“Isn’t that flattering,” he chided her, shaking his head. “And educational.” Her cheeks burned, and Ororo felt her hand clenching into a fist in her lap. “I wanted to give you an interview that would be worth Cassandra’s while…” And hers, Ororo wondered? What about her own busy day, and having to run across town to talk to his uppity butt?

“You can. I don’t expect any less. Cassandra’s very interested in this piece. About how you built this company, and a few of the things inquiring women’s minds want to know.”

“Ah. Like a favorite ice cream flavor or what side of the bed I sleep on?” He wasn’t looking at her now, instead picking up his mouse and clicking away at something on his desktop. Ororo fumed, hearing a ringing and the beginnings of Psycho fiddles in her ear. “Rye or white? Boxers or briefs? My Zodiac sign?”

“We won’t need that,” she decided. “The moon’s rising in the house of Conceited Jackass.” She stood abruptly, forcing him to look at her again as she loomed over his desk, lightning sparking in her blue eyes.

“I see.” He peered over her shoulder at his wall clock. “Twenty-eight minutes.” She bit the inside of her cheek.

“I come for an interview, and I get a countdown instead. And the bum’s rush. Fine.” She clapped her Blackberry shut and shoved it into her purse. “You’re busy. Or you can’t be bothered. Either way, I’ll leave you to whatever you’re doing. Which you can’t seem bothered to tell me for the sake of an interview.”

“There’s a lot you can learn about me in twenty-seven minutes,” he challenged, but his lips curled.

“Only if I feel like putting on a pair of hip-waders.” She felt her face betray her, now burning and flushed.

“You might look nice in hip-waders. If BCBG made a pair?” She snorted in disgust.

“Maybe Armani designed that stick wedged up your ass!” Her eyes flashed. Her heart pounded while blood raced in her ears. His breathing quickened to match hers, even though he sat back in his chair, hand resting completely still on his mouse.

His chiseled lips moved. “Twenty-six minutes.” It infuriated her.

This’ll shut your lying mouth. “I see I’ve caught you indisposed, Mr. Silvercloud.”

“Forge,” he corrected her quietly.

“That’s fine.” She never planned to say his name out loud ever again. Wounded pride made her taste sour bile. She reached back into her purse and flicked a small business card onto his desk. “I don’t run a company. I’m an editor with ten thousand deadlines and a staff of writers and interns to beat into shape, if not submission, every month to put out a quality product. You’ve been in the business of letting people work for you for a long time, so perhaps you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be the peon instead of the one pissing on everybody!”

“Spoken like a true martyr.” He looked nonplussed. His smile hesitated a moment but didn’t drop.

“Why did you agree to an interview, then? Why balk at it now?”

“Cassandra and I go back a bit, and I owed her a favor. She said she was sending someone very capable to interview me today whom she trusts to get a relevant story without pandering to your magazine’s taste for pulp.”

“PULP?”

“I’ve been on the cover of Forbes’,” he shrugged.

“We’ve sold three times the ad space,” she snarled. It didn’t matter that she, personally, didn’t sell it.

“I’ll remember that the next time I pick up a copy and smell the perfume samples.” The way he cocked his brow…his elegantly, arched eyebrow, black as a crow’s wing…infuriated her. And made her tingle. He appeared to be enjoying her discomfiture.

“I don’t even know what I think I have to prove to you right now.” She straightened up and headed for the door.

“Twenty-four minutes.”

“Time’s up. You have a meeting. I have to go back to Cassandra to try to convince her that the article we have on Ten Most Embarrassing Hygiene Problems is more compelling reading than a one-on-one piece with the owner of a multimillion dollar-“

“Multibillion,” he sighed.

“…CORPORATION,” she emphasized sharply, spinning on him. Her chest was rising and falling within the snug confines of her blazer.

“Bully for you. I wish you the best with that.” He went back to his PC and resumed typing and clicking. “Could you close the door on your way out and sign off at Charity’s desk? Security likes to track when people exit and leave. Here, feel free to have a mint.” She stiffened and paused, hand clenching around the knob. Slowly she turned back around to face him, wishing that her breathing didn’t sound so heavy and harsh. He’d winded her. That bastard actually made her lose her breath, arguing with him! He nodded to the tiny gilt-edged, marble-enameled black dish sitting on a shelf. “Give Cassandra my best.”

“I’ll do that.” She took one of the proffered mints and bit down on it savagely. “But you can close the door yourself.” With that, she left.

Forge watched her walk out, spine ramrod-straight, her slender, tapered calves flashing in that skirt. Her long, thick waves of hair, bright and fair as platinum, rippled behind her with her quick strides. He stared after her in a mixture of masculine appreciation and amusement. Belatedly, he picked up her business card, noting her email address and desk extension. He tucked it into the breast pocket of his charcoal gray suit before he resumed getting ready for his meeting.


~0~

She was still pissed off by the time she returned to her office and signed back into her computer.

She dreaded the inevitable take-down from Cassandra when she went to look in her inbox.

The red-flagged emails were conspicuously absent, making Ororo feel like she’d missed something. She hit “Receive new messages.” Nada.

“How did it go?” Betsy murmured, sidling up to Ororo and setting a bite-sized Snickers on her desk blotter. Ororo turned and gave her friend a long-suffering scowl. “Bloody hell. That bad, Duckie?”

“Just shoot me now. An elephant tranquilizer might be nice. Or more of these. Lots more,” she decided, waving the candy at her before tearing off the wrapper and scarfing it down. She savored it like water after a week-long drought.

“Was he boring? Stuffy?”

“That was the best that I could hope for. I went in. Said hi. Got the nasty, bitchy treatment from his admin. Then he raked me over the coals.”

“WHY?”

“Because he could. I felt bullied. And like a flea. A bullied flea.”

“Ouch,” Betsy tsked, wincing. Before they could say anything else, a breathless Val showed up.

“I just wanted you to know,” she informed Ororo, “that the hygiene feature is going to be a week late.” With a degree of control she never knew herself capable of, Ororo pursed her hands in her lap to prevent herself from grabbing the letter opener and stabbing her in the eye.

~0~

The day was thankless. She ducked Cassandra all day long, avoiding the inevitable report that her interview crashed and burned. The nubby carpet felt comforting against her stocking-clad toes beneath her desk; she’d already kicked off her pumps and was just wrapping up the rest of her unanswered email.

“Day like this makes a woman feel like Hope Diggin’ Potatoes,” she muttered, hitting delete on a row of fifty read messages that were a month old.

A new message popped up before she could close the program. “Gads, people, can you just save it til tomorrow?” she whined petulantly, tilting back in her chair as she opened it.


Sender: jsilvercloud@forgesteel.net
Subject: Interview

Miss Munroe,

I’m done with meetings today. I have more time to talk to you, if you could spare me any out of your busy, busy schedule. Perhaps you think I don’t deserve it after today.

For the record, I’m an Aries. Briefs. And toffee crunch. That may cover some of the easier questions you had for me. I’d be glad to give you more reader-friendly material to print in your feature.

And to the best of my memory, Armani doesn’t design sticks…? Although I’m not infallible, I could be wrong.

If you choose not to hit reply, then I can have my PR team send over some materials to help with the feature. I had discussed this with Cassandra before, but she wanted something that would bring readers in touch with what my company is, and how I got here. Now, however, I’m afraid the truth might bore them to tears. I hope it doesn’t bore you.

For the record, I feel the need to point out three things.

One. You weren’t what I expected. Two. I’d like it if you could change my mind. Three. I’m sorry for being so abrupt.

And you’re not a peon.

F.


“For cryin’ out fuck’s sake,” she muttered, shaking her head.

Ororo mulled the message for several more seconds, rereading it twice before she closed it and saved to one of her Outlook folders for safekeeping. She pasted his contact information into a contact file and logged off, mentally planning a night in. Alone. Again.


Sometimes a smell, a taste, or the feel of something familiar can evoke memories that plunge you back into the moment of their conception.

Ororo keyed her way into her home and sniffed the air; it had that distinctive “lived in” smell that told her that it was time to vacuum, do laundry and clean out the refrigerator.

Finishing one sinkload of dishes led her to the garbage. Emptying that made her notice the scuff marks on the kitchen floor. Mopping that made her feel guilty that her dining room hadn’t been Swiffered in longer than could be called decent. Her newly buffed floor reminded her that the plants needed watering, the tables needed dusting and that she needed to pack away her summer clothes in Rubbermaid boxes.

She was just stuffing a stack of folded halter tops and tanks into the bin when something stiff fell off the top shelf and beaned her on the head, nearly putting her eye out as she looked up.

“Shit!” she hissed, retrieving the fallen object as she rubbed her head.

Logan’s cap.

She fingered the bill gingerly and dusted it off. She suddenly lost interest in cleaning, curled up in a ball and cried into her folded knees.

Each tear that dripped from her face brought with it a new question.

Did she want too much? Why did she let herself become so attached? When did it stop just being “We’re having fun together” to “We have a relationship?” Was he just tired of her? Didn’t she give him enough space? Did he sense how crappy things were with Vic, and did it leak into what they had now? Did she have “damaged goods” stamped on her forehead???

One sobbing fit turned into hiccupping gulps until she picked up the hat to put it away. That triggered another and she slumped back down against the wall.

“Wasn’t…s’posed to fall for you, Logan!” she grated aloud. Her houseplants and tank tops didn’t have an answer for her.

So she got up. She rummaged through her refrigerator and found nothing even remotely appealing. She changed into snug, tapered jeans so broken-in they were almost velvety and a black sweater to match her mood. Just for posterity, she added her lucky pendant. A glance in her kitchen mirror told her that her eyes still looked like hell, puffy, bloodshot and despondent, but she scraped her hair into a ponytail.

Then she topped off her look with the baseball cap. She lied to herself that she didn’t look like a woman taking one last gamble as she locked up and climbed into her car.

Frustration made her stomach tumble and roll as she drove up the hill toward Logan’s house. It was almost liberating, once again following the groove she’d worn in the road when they were still together, blissful in their ignorance “ rather, hers “ when she didn’t have to worry about crowding him. He was the one who frequently called her. He was the one who came to her place for a change of scenery over his own four walls. It felt good to follow that familiar path. She buzzed with the anticipation that she had when she was going home.

Her heart fluttered and tripped all the way up his front walk, and her toes felt like ice. At his front porch, she bowed her head in silent prayer and picked at her fingernails before working up the nerve to knock on his door.

She heard him flick on the light in the hall; it illuminated his silhouette, casting it against the glass pane before he turned the knob. She licked dry lips as he met her eyes. His brow crumpled at the sad hope etched on her face.

“Ro? Darlin’? What’re ya doin’ here, I wasn’t expecting ya.” He crossed the threshold and reached for her hand out of long habit; she noticed that he still wore his work boots, telling her that he’d barely gotten home. She picked up the aroma of his sweat and a hint of cigar smoke trapped in his clothes and hair. He’d just started trying to kick back and relax. Shit. Guilt suddenly replaced everything else, but she had to talk to him. Reason with him. She squeezed his hand that felt so strong, thick and warm in hers, clutching it.

“Logan.” Seeing him, touching him made it so damned hard. She didn’t waste time on preamble or greetings. “Just tell me why.” Her lips worked around his name again, then quivered. Her voice seemed to clog her throat. “I…” With her free hand she fanned away fresh tears and tried to duck her face before he could see them fall. The hat had its uses…

“Damn it,” he cursed; his sigh was almost a growl, but whether he was annoyed with her or himself, she couldn’t tell.

She didn’t want to let him go when he opened his arms for her.

“We talked about this. I thought ya were okay with it, darlin’. An’ I’m sorry, but this is what I was afraid of,” he soothed, stroking her while she shook. “I didn’t wanna start anything with ya that we couldn’t finish. And I meant it, sweetheart. This is what I didn’t want.”

“You didn’t want me?” Ice trickled through her veins at the thought.

“Ya know that ain’t it.” She smothered a sob in his shirt, well-worn and soft as he rubbed her back.

“We could make this work. I don’t know what I can do to make you see that! What we had…what we have is great! Logan, you just don’t know how I feel about you!”

“That’s just it. I think I do.” He gently unwrapped her arms from around his neck and uncurled her fists, turning them face up. He stroked her palms with his thumbs and kissed them; his eyes never left hers. “Whatever ya do,” he murmured low, “please don’t tell me that ya love me, cuz I don’t deserve ya, ‘Ro.” Panic gripped her and she buckled.

“No. No. Nonono. No. Don’t say that. Don’t tell me how I’m supposed to feel!”

“I know yer hurt.”

“Big surprise, genius,” she carped, tugging her hands away and backing up a step.

“Damn it.” He plowed a hand through his hair helplessly. “Whaddya want me ta tell ya, darlin’? That this has a happily ever after over the horizon?”

“I don’t believe in fairy tales,” she sniffed. “I just know how I feel. And how I felt about you, how I feel about you is one hundred percent real, Logan! We could be together. Start over if you want. Just tell me what you want!”

“What do you want, darlin’? Tell me, ‘Ro.” She shook her head.

“Only if it will make a difference. Only if you tell me you want me back.” She was laying herself bare, but he was shrinking away from her by degrees. It tore her apart. Left her bleeding.

“We could go back ta seein’ each other.” Her flare of hope was dashed as he held up his hand. “But that won’t change everything else that’s goin’ on in my life. We’ll both still be busy. Yer still gonna want ta spend time with yer friends doin’ some of the things ya enjoy, like gettin’ dressed up and goin’ out with yer girlfriends. Fancy parties like Emma’s. Stuff like book launches and rubbing elbows with important people and showing up in the society pages of the Chronicle.” Earlier that week, she glowed when Logan clipped a photo of her with Cassandra and the author of a bestselling novel they’d launched and hung it on the fridge with a Giants magnet. “If this hurts ya now, what happens if we ever break up again?” She folded her arms protectively over her stomach and leaned against the porch post.

“I like doing things with you. Whatever you like to do. I thought you knew that about me. Do I look like someone who just likes fancy parties? Is that what you think of me?” Hurt pricked at her. “Am I too shallow?”

“Hell, no, baby! I never said that, so don’t put friggin’ words into my mouth! Yer fuckin’ perfect! Yer hot, and smart, fun ta be with and ya make me feel…God, darlin’, I don’t even know how ta explain it. All I’m gonna say is that this is my fault. All my fault.”

“It’s not you, it’s me,” Ororo quipped miserably, repeating her words from the night when he told her he was putting things on hold.

Now he was ending it.

“I won’t see you anymore, will I?”

“That ain’t how it is, darlin’. I wanna see ya again, but…just not like it was. And only after things have cooled off. We can still talk. Ya can still call me.”

“Look how that turned out,” she accused sharply. “You’re right. If I stand here and fight with you, all I’ll do is make this worse. I never should have come here.”

“It ain’t that I didn’t wanna see ya tonight, ‘Ro…darlin’, don’t just take off, I’m sorry!” His voice was suddenly more plaintive than gruff, but she didn’t want to hear it. Her footsteps were swift and long as she stalked back to her car.

“I won’t bother you anymore,” she called over her shoulder. She didn’t look back toward the porch as she turned back into the street and dug out. When she opened the window for some air, her wet cheeks felt numb.


~0~

The next day she felt hollow.

She clicked open her email and instantly received a pop-up reminder for a status meeting that she’d forgotten she facilitated. She blandly made her introductions to everyone on the line. Cassandra was taking the call from her desk in lieu of booking a conference room. Ororo knew half the staff attending would be playing solitaire on their Blackberries while she was taking the minutes.

Fifteen minutes into the meeting she broke down and was heartily grateful she had the phone on mute.

She heard Val’s voice break through. “Ororo? I said I have that article finished and it just needs to be set? Ororo, are you there?” She shook her head mutely, knowing she couldn’t see the gesture over the phone.

Just let me die in peace… And just like any other time in her life when her whole world fell apart at the seams, she began to hyperventilate.

She didn’t even look up at the sound of footsteps coming up behind her. She had her face bowed into her palms, and she was trying to draw in longer, slower breaths until the dizziness stopped. The cubicle walls felt claustrophobic, and her heart pounded in her ears.

“Ororo?” Val’s voice wasn’t supposed to be hovering over her shoulder. Her Chanel perfume wasn’t as overpowering as usual as she plucked up a tissue from Ororo’s box and handed it to her, thought better of it, then handed her a whole folded clump. Dimly she heard Cassandra wondering aloud if Ororo stepped away from her desk.

“It’s all right.” Val’s voice was strangely soothing in her ear as she rubbed her back in wide circles.

I’m supposed to hate you. It’s the eighth sign of the Apocalypse. Don’t be nice to me.

Val held up her hand to halt Ororo’s protests when she reached for her phone’s mute button. “Cassandra, could we postpone this for later today, or even tomorrow morning? I have some edits and another source I need checked before this goes into the queue, and I don’t want to heap more work onto anyone’s desk.” Ororo sat mute in disbelief when Cassandra spoke up.

“All right, Valerie. Ororo, you can send us the reminder for tomorrow morning, same time.” She heard several voices saying goodbye as they rang off. That left her alone with Valerie.

“Maybe you don’t want to talk about this right now.” Ororo nodded in agreement. “It’s okay. Just take a minute to get yourself together.”

“It’s not okay. I’m not okay.”

“Got dumped?” Ororo managed a wobbly smile.

“That obvious, huh?”

“I’m impressed you came in to work at all. I would have had the covers pulled up to my chin at home, chocolate on one side and a pair of scissors and his pictures in another, making paper dolls.” A strangled giggle escaped Ororo’s lips.

“Paper dolls,” she huffed. “Gads.”

“I’d also block ESPN on my cable package,” she shrugged. “You’ll never have to watch extreme sports, competitive eating or Ultimate Fighting Challenge ever again. You’re better off.”

“I love him.”

“That’s fine. Just change that to past tense. You’ve just gotta do what you can to make it through the day. Then make it through the night.” She studied Ororo and smiled. The expression wasn’t cajoling like it normally was when she expected Ororo to bend over backward with her deadlines. “Come on.” She reached for Ororo’s purse and dangled it out by the strap.

“Where?” She was already rising from her seat and fishing in her desk drawer for Motrin and her eye drops.

“Lunch. Out. And we’re having something big, decadent and obscenely chocolate. Woe to the man, woman, child or canine who gets in the way.” She was heedless of the fact that it was only ten AM. Val’s voice was devoid of its perky cheer and she spoke like a woman on a mission. As they cruised toward the elevator, Ororo felt her heart lift.


~0~

One heaping slice of Godiva chocolate, black forest gateau later found Ororo feeling human (for the moment).

“Eeerrrggh. Much better. I needed that,” she groaned, patting her stomach as Val hailed the server for their bill.

“It’s therapeutic,” Val shrugged simply. “I ate myself sick after I broke up with my last boyfriend.”

“How long were you together?”

“Five years.” Ororo winced.

“Ouch.”

“Tell me about it. Look up noncommittal in Webster’s and you’ll see his mug shot,” she grinned, shaking her head. “He kept waffling back and forth after we moved in together. He wouldn’t set a date.” Then she dropped the bomb. “He had kids. He kept saying he didn’t want to get married again after he left his first wife. Then I found out that he never finalized his divorce. He used that as his get out of jail free card when I gave him an ultimatum about a ring.”

“Oooh. Damn, Val.”

“The night he moved out, I climbed into a half-gallon of Ben and Jerry’s Wavy Gravy and didn’t come out for three days. It wasn’t pretty.” Val was pencil-slim and never ate anything for her lunches at work that wasn’t organic and cruelty-free.

“He was an idiot.” Ororo meant it.

“I thought he was my idiot,” she sighed, waving it away with her hand. Val’s light blue eyes were solemn. “So where do you go from here?”

“I’m done. No more men.”

“They aren’t all assholes.”

“He wasn’t even an asshole. I was stupid about this. I walked right into it. I don’t want any guy who isn’t for real and who won’t commit. None of this ‘just seeing each other’ crap. I don’t want a friend with benefits. Or one without. I want a real man who’s in love with me and my dirty drawers.” Val snorted. “Warts and all.”

“Dirty drawers and warts. That’s scary.”

“Damn skippy.” Ororo continued to scrape her dessert plate with her fork for the last smudge of icing.

“Then you go out and get that man. When you find one, set me up with this twin brother. And tell him I make a mean chicken picata.” Val dampened her thumb and plucked up the last shaving of chocolate from her dish, licking it off.

~0~

The rest of the day was unremarkable, but Ororo dutifully reset her calendar and finished updating her logs. She lost a boyfriend, but at least she found an ally, even if she and Val didn’t have much in common. It just helped.

She checked the last of her email and noticed that the one Forge sent her had a return receipt flag on it. She drummed her fingertips on her mouse for a moment and considered it.

Her mouse guided the little white arrow to the ‘Reply’ button and clicked it.


Sender: omunroe@ultimatewoman.net
Subject: RE: Interview

You mentioned a possible reschedule of our interview. I can make time for it…it might help if you’re direct about what time and where so we don’t get our wires crossed, Mr. Silvercloud.

And perhaps I was a bit hasty.

I look forward to talking with you. Again.



She sighed. Now she could finally shake that guilty feeling that tightened the skin across her nape ever since she opened his original message.

She was shocked when a new message popped up not even twenty seconds later.

Subject: RE: RE: Interview time and place?

Lunch?

Tomorrow?

Whatever tickles your fancy?

Let me make it up to you?



Ororo didn’t know if it was just the last of her chocolate buzz or the prospect of a lunch out with someone who could easily afford not to argue with meeting somewhere nice. That made up her mind. She’d get that interview. She’d be civil and friendly and dressed to kill. And she’d keep herself busy enough to take her mind off of Logan.

Subject:RE: RE: RE: Yes.

Tomorrow. Noon. Somewhere with a view. See you then.





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