Page 10 of A Night To Remember

“Plaza Hotel, this is Kelly speaking. How may I help you?”

“Yes, I was wondering if there might have been a message left by a Miss Charlie Brown for Jake Fox?” he asked, trying to calm the erratic pounding of his heart.

“I would be happy to check for you, Mr. Fox. Please hold.”

The few minutes he waited for the receptionist to come back on the phone was pure torture. Please let there be a message. If there weren’t, he didn’t know what he’d do.

“Mr. Fox?”

“Yes. Was there anything?”

“I’m sorry sir, but there were no messages. Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No, thank you.” He hung up, dejected.

His first reaction was dismay. She was gone, and with her so was the magic they had created together. Anger was his next reaction. What kind of woman would allow him to make love to her and then just disappear without a word or even a simple note? She had used him to assuage her loneliness and like a fool he had given in to her.

What kind of man was he to fall for a woman he barely knew? His father once told him, when you met that someone special Jake would know right away. For the first time in his life, he had begun to believe in that theory as well. Obviously he’d been terribly wrong.

There he was fantasizing in the shower about a future with her, even contemplating asking her to move to the D.C. area to live with him. He thought about how happy his parents would be that he was finally settling down, but it had all just been a fantasy. Jake cursed his naiveté.

Charlie obviously didn’t feel the same way. He would have to forget her. He tried to convince himself there were other fish in the sea, but his cock wasn’t convinced and neither was he.

Damn you, Charlie.

Three weeks later, Charlie found herself in a clinic waiting for her test results. She shifted nervously in her chair, taking a peek at her watch every minute or so. What was taking the doctor so long? How could she have been so stupid? For once in a very long time, she wasn’t obsessing over Paul, but the subject prevalent in her mind wasn’t very pleasant. Actually, she hadn’t really given her husband much thought in the past three weeks. A wave of guilt washed over her.

Charlie replayed that night in her head several times and wondered what had compelled her to do what she had done. Jake Fox’s image floated in her mind. She still couldn’t believe she had begged him to make love to her. No, she had begged him to fuck her. The most surprising part was how much she had actually enjoyed it. He had made her body sing. She could still feel the thrust of his cock as she remembered the taste of her juices on his lips. He had touched and licked her in all the right places.

She stood up to pace, unable to sit any longer. A young girl shot her an annoyed look, but Charlie wasn’t in the mood to be polite to prissy little girls. All she could think about was how a one-night stand could possibly change her life forever.

Charlie was slowly losing her mind due to thoughts of Jake Fox. She was better off forgetting Jake because she would never see him again. The last thing she needed was the complication of him in her life especially when she didn’t know what it was about him that consumed her thoughts. Yes, Jake was fine as hell, but it wasn’t his looks that had drawn her to him. Whatever it was, it simply would not do to dwell on it.

In the past few weeks, two huge bombshells had been dropped on her. The largest of those was her parent’s decision to retire, sell their home and travel the country in an RV. Neither of them had ever ventured outside the state of North Carolina and this sudden wanderlust they had developed puzzled Charlie. They offered to take her with them, but she declined. They had been such a huge support to her for the past year that she often felt like a burden. As dearly as she loved her parents, she couldn’t imagine being cooped up in a traveling house on wheels for such a long period of time.

On top of her parents deciding to pack up, her best friend Laura Tombaga met some man on a dating app and decided to move to Washington, D.C., to be with him. Charlie had warned her friend about the danger of leaving everything she knew for someone she’d only known for such a short time, but Laura claimed she was following her heart. Charlie would not have been so worried if Laura wasn’t the type to “follow her heart” so often. Charlie thought her friend was nuts, but Laura was a grown woman. The only thing Charlie could do was wish Laura luck and hope for the best.

With Laura’s decision to leave Raleigh and her parents deciding to sell, Charlie wondered if maybe she too should move. Her support system had splintered. The house she and Paul had picked out so lovingly no longer gave her pleasure. Her job was going nowhere. Charlie’s boss was a card-carrying member of the old boy’s club. He promoted very few minorities and even fewer women. She’d been with her firm for five years and knew she wasn’t going to get any further unless she found another job.

Charlie had lost contact with a lot of friends because she hadn’t socialized much in the past year. Now, there was really nothing stopping her from moving to some other place. While she was deep in thought her name was called.

“Mrs. Brown, Dr. Greene will see you now.” Charlie nearly jumped when the nurse spoke to her.

She took a deep breath and followed the nurse down the long hallway of the doctor’s office. This was it. She would finally find out what price, if any, she would have to pay for her stupidity.

“Hello, Charlie, how are you feeling today?” Dr. Greene asked as she entered his office.

“I’m okay, considering why I’m here.”

“It’s understandable, my dear. Please, have a seat.”

“No. I couldn’t possibly sit down. I’m too full of nervous energy.”

Dr. Greene frowned, but didn’t argue. He must have realized he would be fighting a losing battle if he did.

“Okay, suit yourself. The test results just came up from the lab it took me a minute to figure out how to pull them up on my computer. We’ve moved to a new system recently. That’s what took me so long.”

“Please tell me everything is okay, Dr. Greene.”

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