Page 9 of Peaches

My head turns in its direction and I finally notice a light on at the end of the left hallway. I hear voices. Two voices. One deep, raw, and captivating. The other, slightly muted, but female no doubt.

Well, holy hell, finally! Maybe whoever is there will have the answers as to where everyone is, why this place looks like it closed for business thirty years ago, and just where I can find my publisher and get this meeting over with so I can get back to more important things, like the story that has finally broken free in my brain.

That is, thanks to my sexy morning interruption.

One I’m still waiting to find self-gratifying indulgence in later.

Quickly walking down the hallway, I catch my reflection in the floor to ceiling mirrored glass of the conference rooms as I pass. My long blonde hair is pulled back into a low ponytail while loose strands frame my face. A face which has only this morning’s scarce amount of makeup on it because, let’s be honest, it’s June - in Georgia! My black pencil skirt falls just below my knees and my white sleeveless blouse is tucked perfectly into its high waist making me look like I have some edge, but still business and wholesome enough to hopefully make someone want to take me seriously.

Which is exactly what I need if I’m going to sell this story. I have to look the part. I’ve already been given an advance forsaidstory, the one which I told them two weeks ago I had all plotted out.

You dirty liar, Ms. Grace Presley.

I smile to myself knowingly as I walk a little further down the hallway.

The advance paid the back rent on my condo and only half of Archer’s medical bills. Archie, my twin brother. The only person in this world who means more to me than I even mean to myself. Life played a mean trick on the two of us in the womb. I was granted all the normal things in life, like barely ever having a cavity, going to school and easily getting straight A’s, hardly ever coming down with the flu, and being crowned Prom Queen not once, not twice, but three damn times.

Yes, you read that right. Three!

To say it goes to your head when you’re a Sophomore and you’re voted Prom Queen is an understatement. Although, over time, I think it had a reverse reaction on my mental state compared to what most may think. My boyfriend at the time,ex-husband at this current time, was the quarterback for the state’s highest ranking football team. I guess you could say dating him came with perks. Like three plastic crowns I couldn’t give a shit about. Not then, not now, not ever really while I always felt guilty that I was blessed with more than Archie ever could be. A curse, a guilty atonement I’ll carry to the grave knowing my body must have robbed him from what he needed while we were nestled close together for those nine months.

Deep down, I really know that isn’t true, but I still can’t help and feel this way, and know I always will.

Archie is autistic. Diagnosed at eighteen months. He’s ASD level three. The highest level there is. I grew up thinking my best friend was completely normal, until I went to school and found out the hard way how cruel others could be. A fact that got me in a fight on more occasions than my mother would like to admit. Not me though, I wear that badge proudly and would still fight until the end for my best friend.My Archie. Kinda like I am about to do now. Grovel to my publisher for another advance on what I’m hoping is one hell of a perfect pitch for a story that is only a fourth of the way written.

Passing another set of glass mirrors, I release a silent prayer into the universe and attempt to concentrate on the voices coming from the room I’m approaching.Head in the game if you plan to get what you want out of life, Grace,my new silent mantra whispers again.

As I come to the large entrance to the room, a massive door is the only thing separating me from the voices on the other side, and I can’t help and think one sounds oddly familiar, and the other there is no denying is Samantha’s, my publisher. But as I politely knock before pushing open the slightly ajar door in front of me, nothing could prepare me for the stranger I suddenly come face to face with. Someone who is not such a stranger after all, standing next to the glass windows overlooking downtown Savannah, irritated and slightly fuming as both his large hands are shoved deep in his expensive suit pockets. My eyes grow wide as I take in his clenched jaw and profile before his face slightly turns and his green eyes lock on mine.

Romeo?

No way in hell!

But as I attempt to understand what alternative universe I just stepped into, by briefly turning and looking behind me like an idiot and checking to make sure this isn’t some sick joke, Samantha rises from her seat and distressfully says, “you’re late!”

I turn back around as my eyes stay trained and locked on his green ones. My mouth falls open as his pupils dilate before he attempts to hide any effect our encounter may have just had on him. I shift on my feet, my mouth still hanging wide open, my gaze suddenly dropping to the floor before rising once more and meeting his. I close my mouth and cock my head to the side, examining him and asking myself one simple thing.

Is this for fucking real?

Okay, maybe that question isn’t so simple after all.

I look behind me again, as if the hallway can answer my sudden inner turmoil, and then quickly glance back his way as my chin drops and my mouth annoyingly opens once more in shock.

“Anne Marie, say something, for heaven’s sake,” my publisher demands, calling me by my pen name as she’s always insisted when her clients are in the office. I think I see the outline of a grin on his handsome face, but the second it appears it’s gone as an “all business” like attitude replaces the playful one I found myself falling for earlier in the coffee shop.

I look at my publisher and close my mouth. Her eyes grow wide in horror, in embarrassment. Why? I’m not sure, because for the life of me I wouldn’t be able to figure out if I was asked and why on God’s green earthheis here, again, I have no damn idea.

“I, pluufffff, errrr, ya know,” I stammer.

Yeah! Exactly like that. Embarrassing as all hell, just like that, as I go to take a step forward and trip over my own two damn feet and quickly feel myself falling to the floor.

But I don’t quite get there.

No, not quite at all as two large arms come out of nowhere and grab my shoulders righting me and somehow managing to also grab the papers in my arms to keep them from spilling all over the floor for the second time since I walked into my publishing house.

“Anne Marie, meet Brett Beckett,” I hear Samantha say in an irritated tone.

I look up and meet his green irises once again and see his playful side show through for only a moment as he tries and hides the grin that keeps threatening to break out on his stone-cold face.

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