A Life More Complete(5)

“Damn it! Don’t you have any t-shirts that aren’t plastered with girly shit?” I laugh out loud and join him at my dresser wrapped in a towel. I reach into the drawer and pull from the bottom a t-shirt that I got from one of the many swag bags that my work receives daily. It’s from an organic shampoo company and it will have to do. He tosses the princess t-shirt on the bed and grabs me around the waist in one rapid movement. “I love starting my morning with you,” he whispers into my wet hair. “It’s better than coffee and you know how much I love coffee.” He makes me smile for the umpteenth time this morning.

“Me too, but not that whole coffee thing, you know I hate coffee.” I wrinkle my nose at him and he kisses my forehead before he rushes away.

Hurrying in the opposite direction, I quickly slip on a bra and underwear. I have to be at the office in an hour, which will be cutting it close and I know he’s already late. It’s 7:15 and Ben’s workday begins far too early even for me. Standing in front of the mirror, I whip my hair into a bun, I add bronzer, blush and mascara to my luckily flawless skin and brush my teeth all in record time. I apply my usual cherry chapstick and it’s a moment like this that I’m glad I have never been high maintenance.

I take a deep breath, gather my laptop bag and slip my feet into a pair of butter yellow open toed sling backs. I shuffle out of my room pinning a yellow flower that matches my camisole and shoes to the lapel of my pale blue and white seersucker suit jacket.

Stumbling through the kitchen, I try to accomplish more tasks than necessary for one person. Ben is waiting for me at the door to the garage, grinning as Roxy anxiously awaits her car ride at his feet. “It’s like sleeping with two different women,” he says. “I get the messy, sweaty girl and now I get the hot, sexy business women.”

I shake my head and shove him out the door as he reaches for me. “We’re both going to be late if you don’t get moving,” I respond sternly.

“I know. I’m already late and I still need to swing by my place and pick up my work truck.” Yet he moves slowly encircling me in his arms pulling me against his firm chest.

Glancing up at him, I say, “You’d better hurry, I heard your boss is a real *. A stickler for punctuality.”

Ben owns a landscaping and pool company in El Segundo, but the majority of his customers are wealthy business owners or high profile celebrities out in L.A. and in the nearby beach communities. He places his hand under my chin and tips my face up until my lips are level with his. He plants a soft, lingering kiss on my mouth and I feel my lips swell. “What am I going to do with you?” Shaking his head, eyes closed. “Have a good day, baby. See you tonight?” he asks releasing me.

“Yeah. Dinner, after work?” I mumble, breathless from his kiss.

“Good, I’ll see you then,” he says as he climbs into the 4Runner.

I hop into my little Volkswagen Cabrio and put the top down, since my hair is held firmly in place. I swing through the drive thru of McDonald’s picking up the usual, two coffees, one black, the other with two creams and a Splenda and this morning, a chocolate shake. The lady at the drive thru gives me that disgusted look I always get when I order a chocolate shake at 7:30 in the morning. I want to respond to her sour, repulsed face with, “Piss off, bitch. How’s it any different than ordering a hot chocolate? No one seems to frown upon that.” But I don’t. I plaster a fake ass smile on my face and hand her the money.

My car flies into the parking garage at record speed barely missing the arm of the security gate at its entrance. Being late makes me anxious, but no matter how hard I try I can’t get it together to be on time. Here I am over thirty minutes late and aimlessly looking for a parking spot. By now I have inhaled three-quarters of the chocolate shake and my mood has changed drastically. Being late and combined with traffic makes for serious road rage, which translates to just plain old rage. Suddenly I feel like I want to kick someone in the teeth.

I finally come across a spot. “Thank God,” I mutter as I put the car in park. I throw my laptop bag over my shoulder; grab the coffee and what’s left of the shake. I head toward the elevator as quickly as I can manage. The coffee is bouncing around as I carry it close to my body, menacingly sloshing out of that little hole you’re supposed to drink out of. Suddenly I hate coffee more than usual.

I punch the elevator button with my elbow as I grip the cups tightly just waiting for the moment when the coffee finally falls in love with my jacket and jumps out of the cup. I hear the gears turn and the lurch of the wire as the elevator makes it way up from the ground floor. The doors slide open and it’s practically filled, with clean-shaven-suit-wearing men with vacant stares. The smell of cigarettes, cologne and coffee overwhelm the small space and I want to gag. I wriggle my way into the small spot available directly in front and no one moves to make room. Who said chivalry is dead? When the doors close, I zone out.