Page 35 of Agony

“Well aren’t you awfully sexual all of a sudden,” she replied with a smirk.

I shrugged. The truth was that I felt incredibly comfortable around Arsen. To a certain extent anyway.

Addie looked past my shoulder and grinned. I turned around and saw Arsen leaning against the doorway in his underwear, watching us curiously.

“Bad timing, Adesynne. Bad timing,” he said, shaking his head.

“Perfect timing if you ask me,” she replied, giving him a pointed look.

He chuckled and came over to me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders.

The phone in the kitchen rang and I sighed.

“Now what,” I muttered under my breath as I pulled away from Arsen.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Dutton? This is Jareth Vance again. I really hate to be disturbing you so early in the morning, but the movie has been pushed up and we’re going to be shooting next week. I was calling to see if we could get that business lunch in today.”

“Um, sure! What time and where?” I asked, scouring the kitchen drawers for a pen and pad.

“How about noon at DiMarco’s? We can eat outside while we talk,” he suggested.

“Alright, I’ll see you then, Mr. Vance,” I replied.

“Jareth,” he said.

“Jareth,” I echoed with a smile.

We hung up and I went into the bedroom. Noon was an hour away and I looked like a mess. I turned on the water and hopped right in. I washed myself especially carefully today, only because I didn’t know if I would smell like Arsen so to speak or what the hell I would smell like if I didn’t get everything twice over.

I ran back into the bedroom and threw on a pair of fitted black jeans, a loose soft pink top that came off the shoulders, and ran into the living room to find my pink flip flops.

“Where are you going?” Addie asked curiously.

“That was Jareth on the phone,” I explained, getting to my knees and looking under the couch. “The movie got pushed up to next week so he wants to meet today to discuss what I’ll be doing. Ah! Got ‘em!”

I slid my flip flops on, ran over to Arsen who was still sitting in his underwear on the couch and kissed him quickly on the lips. Then I ran over to Addie and gave her an even quicker hug. I grabbed my cell phone off of the coffee table, and my purse from its usual spot by the door, and ran out of the apartment.

DiMarco’s was a beautiful and expensive restaurant that I had never been too. I had walked past it plenty of times, envious of the people who would sit around with their glasses of wine.

It was about a ten block walk from where I lived. Normally, I would’ve taken a cab, but I didn’t walk to risk being late and it was a beautiful day out so I didn’t mind the walk.

When I rounded the corner, I saw DiMarco’s sitting in the middle of the block. I picked up speed when I checked my phone and saw that I was five minutes late.

Figures, I thought rolling my eyes.

I walked up to the host who was standing outside with his little stand. I smiled as I tried to catch my breath and looked at me with slight disapproval.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Um, I’m meeting someone here. Jareth Vance,” I replied, pushing my hair behind my ears.

He ran his finger down his list and nodded, “Follow me please.”

I walked with this snotty host through the old style, packed restaurant, through the side door and out into a bevy of round glass tables and iron wrought chairs. I didn’t know what Jareth looked like so I just followed the host until we stopped in front of an empty table and he pulled out the chair for me.

“Thanks,” I said with a smile.

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