I finally got to sleep around 4:00 AM and that left me with 3 hours to dream about the possibilities. I woke up thinking that he was there with me. I lifted the sheet off of my naked body half expecting to see his smiling face nestled between my thighs, but there was nobody there. It felt so real that I could almost reach out and touch him.
I kept drifting in and out of that fantasy. I finally gave up around 5:30 AM. I had a sheen of sweat glistening on my skin. I looked at myself in the mirror and knew deep down that what I did was the right thing for everybody concerned. Office romances didn’t work and I couldn’t in good conscience drive a wedge between us because we couldn’t keep it in our pants.
I was pretty much a zombie in desperate need of caffeine which I found in his office waiting for me. The steam from the cup had me grabbing it and bringing it up to my lips without thinking about the scalding contents. I managed to avoid burning myself.
“I’m glad to see you. I don’t know about you, but I had a very productive evening. I want to show you what I came up with. It would not surprise me in the very least that you came up with your own additions. Let’s see if we are truly on the same wavelength. It could’ve been just one of those things and this way we can prove to one another that we can work together. It doesn’t have to be anything physical, no matter how much a certain party wants there to be something like that. There I go again making assumptions. I really do have a one-track mind.” August had reined himself in, but I did feel that there was more to what he had to say.
“I’ll show you mine…if you show me yours.” I was playing a dangerous game with that comment, but he took it in stride. He motioned for me to go first and I was tempted to start undressing to see that shocked look on his face, but I didn’t take it that far.
I opened up my portfolio and I put them alongside his and amazingly, they matched up almost perfectly. It was as if we were thinking the same thoughts. I wanted to believe that we could see each other out of the office, but I didn’t trust him to keep things friendly.
“I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it for myself. It’s as if we were both standing in front of each other, as we made these designs. I thought that you would make the perfect addition to my little family, but I didn’t think that we would be this much in sync. I was only playing last night when I said that Lionel was not going to know what hit him. I didn’t know how truthful that statement was until I saw this.” He gathered all of it up and we left there together about to go to war. There was no way to know how this was going to end.
Lionel was already in the conference room waiting for us to enter to give him what he wanted. He probably didn’t understand why he had to come in to personally oversee the designs. It probably made him nervous and leaving him to wait was a good way to keep him on edge.
“Lionel, it’s good to see you again and I do hope that everything has been well. I want you to meet my soon to be partner, Amanda Cochran. I know your feelings about women in general. I want to assure you that Amanda has some interesting ideas. There’s no reason to squirm. Take a look at what we have for you. If we can’t change your mind, then we will go back to the old favorite.” August was an artist just like me, but it didn’t matter how much he wanted this to happen. We thought that we had come up with something that he would be a damn fool to resist. The only way that we were going to know for sure was to see his reaction up close and personal.
“You’ve taken a real risk by bringing me something that I have no interest in seeing. I’m this close to awarding you the contract for three more buildings. I hope for your sake that you know what you’re doing, August. I’ve been married five times and you’d think after the third that I would know better than to stick my head in the Lions’ den again. The only thing that a woman is good for is to…” August put his hand up to stop Lionel from saying something that was going to make me want to punch him square in the face.
“I would ask respectively that you don’t finish that statement. Just take a look and see if this is something that makes you want to change your mind. I want the contract for the next three buildings, but I still feel that we can do better than what was acceptable back in the day. Judge it on the design itself and not who came up with it.” August was trying to wean him into it, but Lionel was fighting him every step of the way.
The worst thing of all was the silence. The clock was ticking and the tension that was in the air was making both I and August anxious. They say that no news is good news, but in this case, that wasn’t going to cut it.