Page 15 of To Love Jason Thorn

“By telling me I’m a river?”

“Yes. Now, shut up and imagine that you’rea river. You are flowing; no one and nothing can stop you. You feel thesunlight on your…whatever and it makes you happy. You are a twinkle of laughterin the air. Then, you turn into a small waterfall, no, you turn into a majesticwaterfall and then yo—”

“Ok, ok, Lucy.” I cut her short before shecould sputter more bullshit. “I’m calm. You calmed me down. I’m a cold riverthat hears twinkles of laughter in the air and then turns into a majesticwaterfall thing.”

“Great, good for you. Now, I saw Jameson’s hotass walk by me so I gotta go and take a bite out of that.” I tried to cut in,but she shushed me. “Make me proud and I’ll meet you at the house. Byeeeeee!”

I opened my mouth, but she had already hungup on me. I lowered my phone and smiled to myself. She hadn’t come anywherenear calming me down, but she always had a way of making me smile.

I looked around the black and white office.Everything looked so expensive: the art on the walls, the furniture, the carpet,even the damn windows looked all expensive and shiny. Feeling naked, nervous,scared, excited—did I mention naked?—I took a step forward to go sit down nextto the clicker happy chick, but when I saw her take a selfie stick out of herbag, I decided against it.

Pacing it was.

My gaze landed on the women that sat behindthe huge, crescent-shaped reception desk. They all looked like models, notsecretaries. Not a single hair on their head was out of place while mine was acrazy wavy mess. I glanced down at my clothes… Well, obviously I didn’t fit inwith their pencil skirt, blouse, and high-heeled office attire, but I lookedgood. Just a few hours before, Lucy had forced me to wear a black bandeau skirtwith a simple white shirt and a thin leather jacket. Of course, she had triedto force me to wear high heels, but I had gotten away with wearing my luckycombat boots. I liked to think I looked chic and relaxed in a fashionable sortof way. However, it wasn’t helping me not feel out of place at all.

I focused on the brunette that had told methat I needed to wait a few minutes because the execs were running late. Thatfew minutes had turned into forty minutes exactly one minute ago.

Please, don’t judge me. Normally I’m coolwith waiting. Hell, any other time, I would’ve loved to sit down next to thephoto chick and take pictures of her taking pictures of herself and have alaugh about it with Lucy and Charlotte when I got back home. But, minutes had areally slow way of moving when you were about to lose your cool and throw up infront of a handful of strangers. I couldn’t be held responsible for all thedaggers I was throwing at the model-secretaries.

Hell, shame on them. What kind of cruelpeople were they that they were playing with my emotions like this? As far as Iwas concerned, they deserved all the imaginary sharp little daggers.

Finally the brunette met my eyes, held herfinger to her ear to listen to whoever was talking on the other the end of herbluetooth thingy, then nodded once.

“Miss Taylor,” she called to me.

I closed my eyes, took a deep, shaky breath,and walked over to her.

She was already up from her seat andwalking toward me. We met in the middle.

“I’m a river. I can flow peacefully,” Imuttered to myself.

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, nothing. Sorry.” I gave her a shakysmile.

“I’ll walk you to Mr. Thomas’ office. Theyare ready for you.”

“Thank you,” I said, trying very, very hardto keep my hands at my sides instead of doing something crazy like slipping myhand into hers to steal some of her cool.

That wouldn’t be weird, right?

She gave me a sincere smile, the first oneactually, and led the way down the long hallway.

We turned right, passing more expensivepaintings, and some movie posters, then we took a left turn, this time passinga whole bunch of small offices. Each time we passed an open door, I was readyto jump out of my skin with nervousness. When we made yet another turn, I wasstarting to feel like a hamster trying to get to its treat. Then there was onlya big door in front of us.

I came to a halt. Was I really doing this?Was this really happening?

Shit!

Who was I kidding, this was going to be acomplete disaster!

I was no majestic waterfall. Not even close.

The brunette stood next to the door and herhand paused on the handle before she pulled it open. Clearly, she was waitingfor me to come closer, but I was having none of that. I lifted my eyes up to hers.

Fight or flight?

I was seconds away from flight.

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