We Meet Again

   Peach Salinger

   It’s 4am in the morning and I’m naked in bed, staring blankly at the face of this hot stranger who’s asleep next to me. My head is spinning and I can’t seem to think of anything other than how freakin’ fantastic the sex was. My lady parts tingle from just thinking about it.

My fingers trace lazy patterns over his arm, not enough to wake him up. He has a little scar on his arm. It’s hard to make sense of the scar because of the dim light in the room. I soon realize it’s a burn scar, but his eyes eventually snaps open, and I still.

My heart jumps, and I have to pretend I wasn’t trying to invade his personal space moments ago. He smiles, and asks me with I’m doing.

“Nothing.” I say, trying to hide the awkwardness in my voice.

He leans further towards me, places one hand on my hot hip, then takes my lips in his in one breath. And everything...just...stops. I part my lips for him and his tongue moves over mine in one smooth stroke.

His hand slides up my back and we devour each other as if we’ve done this so many times before that we’ve already learned to anticipate each other’s next move.

After God know how long, we come up for air.

“Peach…” he whispers my name for the first time tonight, panting against my lips.

I can’t say his name, he never told me and I never asked. And I can’t call him Rhxxy02 can I? It’ll just kill the mood.

“Yeah?” I touch my forehead to his.

We still for a moment until he takes me into his arms and cuddles, giving me the kind of warm comfort I’ve never experienced before.

We fall asleep again and two hours later, it’s 6am. My eyes snap open and I try to wriggle myself out of his grip. The desire to continue to be in his arm and the need to get out of this bed because my internship starts today and I have to get there before 7am, rages a furious battle in me.

In the end, the latter wins and I’m already slipping into my dress before I know it. My bun is messy but I don’t make an effort to redo it. I grab my bag after managing to put my heels back on.

As I turn around, I realize my date has been watching me the whole time. My skin prickles with goosebumps. The things his piercing gaze does to me. I clear my throat and try my best not to make the situation more awkward than it needs to be.

“I need to leave now. I have to…get to work.” I lie.

I can’t tell him about the internship. If I do, he’ll sum two plus two together and realize I’m not twenty-nine years old like I claim to be.

He sits up. “I can drop you off, if you want?”

I nod immediately. “No, no, no. You don’t have to. We’re merely strangers to each other.”

I don’t know why I said that but I just think we have to make things clear. I don’t intend to meet him again. As great as the sex was, I don’t think I want to meet again, this man who took my virginity. Since they say most girls get crazy attached to whoever they lose their V-Card to.

I head towards the door but his voice stops me again.

“We should meet again some other time, Peaches.” he says, leaning against the headboard.

‘Peaches’. My heart soars. Is that a nickname for me? If yes, then it’s cute.

It takes me a moment to snap out if it. I force a smile and turn to look at him.

“We will….” I trail off.

“Rhys.” he says.

“Yes, Rhys.” Remind me to delete the app as soon as I walk out this door.

***

  The only reason I chose Acker Investments for my internship, is because I want to land a permanent job with them after graduation. But as I get out of the cab and realize I’m almost thirty minutes late, I see that dream dying.

I walk swiftly into the huge compound of the company in my white shirt and dark slacks. The sound of an engine revving loudly approach from afar before a black Lamborghini zooms past me, almost knocking me off my balance when I jump to get out of the way.

Shit! It’s a miracle I’m not on the floor.

“Fuck you!” I shout after the car, raising my middle finger.

I sigh and shake off the bad mojo as I walked into the building with some other interns.

My phone beeps again with the  message in the “Crazies Group chat.”

[Marienne: The orientation is about to end.]

[Adrian: Are you leaving our text unread on purpose? Don’t even try to back out of this internship now. We promised to do this together.]

I shove my phone into my pocket and take the elevator. My friends can be dramatic sometimes. I have to put up with them since they’re the only two people that want to be friends with a book maniac like me.

Marienne, my cousin. Her parents practically raised me in Manhattan after both my parents died in a car accident when I was just ten years old. Then Marienne and I moved to Brooklyn for college. We’ve been roommates for four years and my grandparents also live in Brooklyn.

We met Adrian in sophomore year and we became the three crazies.

Ding!

The elevator opens and I can see some interns gushing out of the conference room. I’ve been to this place once for the internship interview and it was held in the conference room.

I sight Marienne and Adrian and I call out to them. Their faces lights up and Marienne rushes to my side, taking my left arm while Adrian takes my right.

“You missed the best part!” Marienne squeals.

“The orientation was perfect…” Adrian adds, his slender fingers twitching around my arm. “But we didn’t get to meet the president of the company. He just arrived, I think.”

“Did you see the president arrive?” Marienne quickly adds. “They say he drives a black Lamborghini.”

My heart leaps. Ah, shit! No way, it couldn’t have been his car that tried to hit me. Shit! I threw a middle finger at his car. Could he have seen it? Am I fired? Fuck, no!

“Peach?” Adrian statles me.

“I’m fine.” I say, then give them a blow-by-blow of the encounter, with all the details I can recall.

Right now, their faces reads, ‘oh shit!’

A shapely woman walks towards us and Marienne immediately leans in and whispers to me that she’s the CFO, Amerie Barnes.

“Peach Salinger?” she says as she stops in front of me.

“Yes?”

“The president would like to see you.”

My heart squeezes and I follow her. I can feel Marienne and Adrian’s eyes following me too until we turn a corner in the hall.

I’m now standing at the door of the president’s office with Mrs Barnes. My mind is reeling with possibilities. Maybe it’s not about the encounter. Maybe the president just likes my name and wonders what face lies behind it.

Or maybe it’s about the proposal I submitted about how to optimize the cost of some shares. I doubt the proposal even got to him since I left it with his secretary and most times, ideas from nobodies like me hardly gets to the higher ups.

My palms are sweating and I barely register the door opening. I step inside with Mrs Barnes and I immediately sight a man sitting behind a huge mahogany desk with a pile of documents in front of him.

He’s signing the documents without looking up. My first instinct is to plead the fifth. Or maybe I should just beg for forgiveness?

“I didn’t mean to, sir!” I blurt desperately, my voice echoing in the room as I bow my head. “Your car almost hit me and I was pissed.”

Silence. I’m sure he can hear my thumping heart.

“So it was you that gave me a middle finger?” his deep voice comes out calm.

So calm that I’m so sure I’ve heard it before. I raise my head to look at him. Shivers run through my body as he holds my gaze. This man in front of me, is the same man I slept with, stayed in his arms all night. The world cannot be so small.

 My heart sinks to my stomach and all I can think of at this moment is “oh, shit!”