C2 Chapter 2

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A few weeks later, Adrienne rushed through a deadline Monday evening. Part of her job was to write reviews about establishments around the city. Today, she needed to write an article about a newly-opened restaurant on Fifth Avenue. The food wasn’t so great, the prices not so cheap, and the service a bit unorganized. She ordered a Piña Colada, and twice she received a Margarita.

She didn’t want to be known around the block as the bitch who could shut down a decent restaurant, but she didn’t want to compromise her professional point of view, either.

She couldn’t concentrate on her work. The music from her neighbor’s residence was far too loud. Moreover, the fact that she knew he sat on the balcony, playing poker with his friends, and that she could hear him laugh made it even harder for her.

She went out to the balcony to light a cigarette. She badly needed a smoke and she didn’t want to light up inside her apartment. The minute she stepped out, she noticed that the guys in the other balcony all fell silent. She suddenly felt self-conscious.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

She needed to calm herself. She’s a confident woman and she has a boyfriend. Her knees shouldn’t turn to jelly just because she thought that Manhattan’s playboys had started to survey her long legs.

Just then, her phone rang.

Thank God!

She needed a distraction. She craved thinking about anything other than her devilishly handsome neighbor.

“Hi honey, how are you? It’s Troy.”

“I’m grood…” She replied, unable to decide whether to say ‘good’ or ‘great’.

“What?”

Damn it!

“I’m good. I meant I’m good. How about you? How are you?”

“Not too bad. I was out with Kim last night. She’s my designated tutor now,” he said with a chuckle.

“She’ll be happy to help you. Our mom likes you.”

“And I’m a lucky guy, aren’t I?”

“Hmmm…”

Troy went on about his study date with Kimberly and she couldn’t quite concentrate on what he was saying. She’s hearing medical terms that she didn’t need to know. She’s got too much in her head… the awful food, the restaurant whose existence she was about to end in a few hours, and damn! She can’t seem to get a certain dark-haired devil out of her mind.

Absent-mindedly, she let out a groan.

“What?” Troy asked. Apparently, he didn’t think that his monologue on chlamydia deserved a groan. “What are you doing? Are you with someone?”

“I’m alone!” she replied. She must have sounded too defensive because Troy didn’t believe her…but she hadn’t even lied. She was alone. Yet the closest living, breathing human beings sat about ten feet away from her.

“You sound distracted. It didn’t seem like you were listening to me at all.”

“Troy, please, give me a break. I just remembered this restaurant I likely will close down in a few hours because of an awful review I’m thinking of writing and I don’t want to do it. That’s why I groaned.”

Troy fell silent for a few seconds. Then he added, “Are you sure?”

She let out a frustrated sigh. Then she put out her cigarette and managed to walk back to her living room. By putting herself beyond anyone who could see her, she found her focus.

“Yes, I’m sure. Come on. You’re my first ever boyfriend. I didn’t even date anybody seriously before I met you. When did I ever give you a reason to doubt me?”

She always felt that Troy didn’t trust her enough. Like she had this reputation of being a slut that everybody knew about except for him.

Whenever she went out with her friends and he could hear the background music, he would ask her who she was with, short of asking Jill and Yuan as well to swear on their dead relatives’ graves that only the three of them were together. No one else.

At first, she considered it rather sweet that he felt possessive or jealous. After all, that could signal just how much he didn’t want to lose her. Recently, however, she decided that it had become too much for her to handle. She needed to tell him where she was at all times, and do headcounts of the friends. It had started getting under her skin.

“It’s not that…I just…I miss you. And you’re beautiful, Adrienne. I’m sure plenty of guys would be hitting on you.”

“And that means, I would sleep with every guy who actually shows interest in me?”

“No. I know you’re not like that. And that’s what I liked about you. You’re…old-fashioned,” Then he went on with his medical monologue again. She thought she actually fell asleep on the couch after thirty seconds. Then, finally, he said goodbye.

“Love you, sweetheart,” he said.

“Love you, too.”

After she hung up the phone, she thought, “Troy is good for me. He’s going to make a good husband someday. We’re going to be happy. We’ve been together for three years, he’s not getting any, but he didn’t cheat on me and didn’t break up with me.”

By the end of the night, she managed to write a not-so-bad review of the restaurant. She highlighted their strengths, the great ambiance and the expensive china. However, she had no choice but to mention that they could do better to lay low on soy sauce and a smile from the waiters would go a long way. She finished the one-thousand-word article amidst Collective Soul’s music blasting from Justin Adams’s bedroom, like he didn’t know he had any neighbors.

The next day, she had lunch with her best friends. Yuan worked at the building next to hers and Jill’s, and all of them worked flexible hours that they could get together for lunch and coffee breaks quite easily.

“How’s Troy?” Jill asked.

She shrugged. “Having study dates with Kim.”

Jill raised her brow at her.

“They deserve each other, you know,” Yuan said blatantly.

“Yuan!” Jill hissed.

“What?” he asked nonchalantly. “Come on, Yen. It’s not that I want you to be jealous. I just think you deserve a more exciting love life than dating a guy who spends more time with your sister. How long are you going to keep this up?”

“Yuan has a point, Yen. I think you deserve better, too. And you are in dire need of a makeover! You could use some makeup and better fitting clothes. And for God’s sake, haven’t you heard of contact lenses? Or lasik?” Jill flicked on her eyeglasses.

“Ouch!” Adrienne gave Jill an annoyed look. She had started to get annoyed with them telling her that she’s beautiful, but she could be way prettier if she only put more effort in her looks.

She thought she wasn’t butt-ugly, but she wasn’t supermodel-pretty, either. She had dark brown hair with some reddish highlights. She looked like those girls who went to the salon to get red highlights, only hers were natural. She had expressive green eyes. She didn’t diet or exercise regularly, but she possessed curves in the right places. She was all right, and that’s how she wanted it.

She gave up hope trying to look pretty. After puberty, she did make some effort, but according to her mother, “Adrienne is not really ugly, but Kimberly has the real beauty and brains in the family.”

Well, if your own mother didn’t think you’re pretty, who else would?

In fact, the only person who ever made her feel beautiful at all was Troy, when her mother introduced him to Kimberly, hoping they’d hit it off. Yet he asked for Adrienne’s number because, he said, he couldn’t get her beautiful face out of his mind. When she started dating Troy, she made her mother proud – for the first and last time.

Maybe Adrienne couldn’t break up with Troy for this very reason, no matter how many times her friends told her to do so. No matter how many times she felt that they may actually be right. Troy seemed like the only achievement she’d ever had, as far as her mother believed.

“By the way, guys, I saw Justin Adams in the office this morning. What a snob that guy is! I tried to look him in the eye as we passed each other in the hallway, and it was like he didn’t see me at all. But God! Did he look delish!” Jill said dreamily.

“How could you ever look him in the eye? Doesn’t he always have that pair of shades on?” Adrienne asked her matter-of-factly.

Yuan laughed and Jill glared at him. Adrienne smiled at her guiltily. “I’m sorry. Go on with your story.”

“Well, there’s nothing more to it. I’m just saying that I saw him this morning. That’s it.”

“Well, I’m sure, you can faint in front of him, and he still wouldn’t look at you,” Adrienne said. “Gods don’t mingle with us mere mortals. And Justin Adams thinks he’s a god.”

“Well, he’s not the only one who thinks that,” Yuan grinned proudly. “There’s many of us who wouldn’t disagree.”

Adrienne rolled her eyes and groaned. She wanted to tell her friends about her new next-door neighbor. But after hearing how obsessed they were with him, she decided not to inform them. At least not yet. She knew the minute she told them, they would have a stakeout in her apartment. Not that she minded having them over. She didn’t want Justin Adams to realize that his neighbor and her friends watched him in his own private refuge like he was a goldfish in a fish tank.

She didn’t want him to be aware of her presence, the way that she had become so aware of his. And she hated feeling this way. She had a boyfriend. He loves her. Their relationship was safe and smooth-sailing. The last thing she wanted was to fall prey into a player’s web and risk him breaking her heart in the process.

But somehow she found herself watching him whenever they’re both home. Even if she hated to admit it, she found it exciting. She reminded herself that there was a thin line between watching and stalking…curious versus crazy.

Within a few weeks, she realized that Justin slept until twelve noon on weekends. On weekdays, he’d be busy on his cellphone long before she’d be up, and he’d return home by seven in the evening. Sometimes he would have friends over, playing poker or drinking on his balcony. Other times, he would be out by nine p.m. and return at around one a.m. Either way, he would take a shower and then go to bed. Justin probably showered three times a day and Adrienne found that too adorable. She wondered what he smelled like.

After her lunch with Yuan and Jill, she returned to her desk feeling inspired. She started typing on her laptop and found herself composing a plot. She drew a picture with words. She created a dark-haired rebel with a gorgeous body, well-sculpted like a marble statue masterpiece. She made her heroine a green-eyed, copper brown-haired princess with an evil queen stepmother and a charming but vile stepsister.

Adrienne felt excited about her new project. It had been a while since she wrote a story. When she was younger, she’d written several romance novels. That’s how she knew she would be a writer and make a career out of it.

She juggled between writing her novel and meeting her deadlines for Blush. She skipped coffee breaks with Jill and other girls in the office. All they talked about was Justin Adams anyway. And she didn’t need to hear about him. All the information she needed at that time could be found next door to her.

“Come on, Yen. Let’s go out for lunch. We’re celebrating!”

“Why?”

“Jada’s sick! And that lady’s endured flu, cough, fever and all sorts of things. She’s a tough one. And now, finally, she filed for a sick leave.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t like Jada as much as you do, but no, I don’t feel like having a party just because she’s under the weather. But you girls have fun, okay?”

Jill rolled her eyes. “You’re no fun,” she said. “All right. I’ll bring you back a waffle.”

As soon as Jill left, Adrienne started working on her novel once again. There was a scene in her head she couldn’t wait to put into words.

Soon, her eyes fell tired of staring too long at her screen. She stood up from her seat to stretch her arms. Just then, she caught a figure walking from the graphic artists’ room towards the corridor in front of her. He was wearing a pair of shades and a leather jacket over a white shirt. He turned towards her and an eyebrow shot up. Then the corner of his lips slightly turned up. Adrienne blinked. When she opened her eyes again, he was gone.

Did he actually smile at her?

Adrienne looked around her once again. She seemed pretty sure she was alone. No one occupied any of the other cubicles around her.

His mouth turned up when he looked at her. That’s a smile, right?

She groaned.

So, what if he smiled?

The last thing she wanted was to be obsessed with a guy half of Manhattan already fawned over. She’s already writing a character inspired by him, for Christ’s sake!

Later that night, she met Yuan and Jill for dinner. She needed a break from writing and waited for more ideas to come into her head and the inspiration to write to strike again.

“How come Justin Adams doesn’t have a girlfriend?” She popped the question during dessert.

Jill shrugged. “He’s playing the field?”

“He’s too snobby,” Yuan suggested. “Nobody’s worth committing to—unless she’s royalty, of course.”

“Then what is he doing in New York? He must go to Europe if he wanted to meet some noble girl.” Adrienne said.

“Well, we know he makes himself constantly available. He’s dating around. He has been rumored to date models, and some members of the elite class. But his name won’t be linked with these girls for more than two weeks. After that, he walks away. Gone. Then after a few weeks of being single, he’ll be seen hanging out with another woman, usually prettier or richer, and the cycle starts all over again,” Yuan said.

“He’s a playboy,” Jill began. “He can’t commit. Like he would dump these women after two or three dates. Then he would move on to higher mortals.”

Adrienne paid attention to what they said. She wanted to pick up some ideas to use in her novel.

“What if he’s not really a player?” Adrienne asked, thinking out loud. “What if he doesn’t commit because…he can’t commit.”

She cannot make her male character sleep with everything that walks in a skirt because he couldn’t control his urges. One, because, hello herpes! And two, what woman would actually fall in love with a guy who sleeps with a woman and then forget about her after a few humps? And who would buy a book if the male protagonist feels like a hopeless case? If there is no hope for him to ever fall in love, the plot cannot lead anywhere good, can it?

“You know, maybe you’re right,” Yuan reflected. “Maybe it’s not Justin’s fault he didn’t have a steady relationship. Maybe he’s secretly engaged to an heiress. You know those business arrangements. I think the rich and powerful still do that.”

An idea popped in Adrienne’s head. What if her male character had already been previously engaged via a marriage arranged by his parents? A marriage for convenience designed to merge two empires and keep the fortune within their families.

Adrienne’s smile went wider. She couldn’t wait to go home and start writing again.

She went home at midnight. She went inside the elevator and pressed her floor. The door closed but after a split second, it opened again. Then a dark-haired guy entered the elevator. Her breath caught in her throat.

He smelled of aftershave. Masculine and fresh. He wore a pair of stylish yellow-tinted glasses. Justin always wore shades even at night time, like he intended to keep his eyes a secret to the world. The ones he donned tonight appeared lightly yellow-tinted, designed to reduce glare during night driving. Still, they successfully hid his eye color.

Adrienne desperately wanted to know what his eye color was. She had drawn out her rebel after Justin’s physical appearance. She left out her character’s eye color because she had no idea what color his eyes were. Even now, she couldn’t see what’s under those tinted shades.

As the elevator ascended to their floor, Justin didn’t even turn towards her or acknowledge her presence in any way. He stared ahead like he was alone the whole time. She must have imagined that he smiled at her at Blush earlier that day.

When the elevator door opened though, he held it and motioned for her to go before him, but she doubted he was even aware of her presence.

Well, at least he is a gentleman.

Adrienne walked fast ahead of him and never looked back.