by Julie Gawain

Created on: December 22, 2009

It was all ridiculously cliché. 

I pulled my coat tighter around me as I walked down the dark alley.  My breath was visible in the chill night air, and it escaped my mouth regularly in small puffs of white, the cadence of which matched the clicking of my heels on the pavement.  I was taking a shortcut home, having left my friends to their drunken conquests at the bar.  After ascertaining that their guys of the night weren’t creeps, I’d waved my figurative white flag and left alone, determined to end the night on a good note, preferably with fleecy pajamas and a cup of tea.    

My watch beeped, and I checked it, curious as to what the hour was.  I groaned.  1 A.M.  I mentally scratched off the cup of tea—it was just too late for caffeine. 

I continued my trek down the narrow alley, avoiding the trash bags that lined the sides of the buildings surrounding me.  Tonight had been a pretty large disappointment.  The girls and I had dressed up and gone out to celebrate my promotion.  After two years of grunt work and kissing ass, I was finally management at Luna Publishing.  The girls, in a show of anti-feminist feminism, were convinced that I needed a man to celebrate, and for a while they’d had me convinced.  Well, until I was the only one left alone.  I hadn’t even managed to get a guy to buy me a drink. 

Under the scratched-out tea, I mentally wrote ice cream.  And Kahlua.  Self-medication at its best.  If I wasn’t going to get laid tonight, I was at least going to be drunk. 

A sour smell invaded my nostrils, and I wrinkled my nose.  Maybe I should’ve stuck to the main streets, I thought.  Goosebumps rose on my arms, and I took my hands out of my pockets to try to rub them warm.  I felt a prickling on the back of my neck. 

Look on the bright side, I thought.  We have comfy pajamas, ice cream with Kahlua, and a new job on Monday.  Could be worse.

“Mr. Williams!”  My hand flew to my chest in surprise.  “What are you doing here?”

He gave me a half-smile, and I resisted the urge to swoon.  He was a beautiful jerk, but the worst part was he knew it.  He was all Armani and angles and lips and artfully messy brown hair.  He drove a sleek and sexy car—foreign—that I couldn’t even pronounce the name of.  His piercing

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