chapter 46

Zaphrina stared at her reflection in the giant restroom mirror, eyes focused on a completely different image the mirror reflected of her. What she saw was a depressed and frustrated version. She realized the unwanted masks showed up from the latter event.

That wasn't a life she was living anymore, it was more of a hellhole. Her eyes slowly teared up both as a result of an unblinking stare and reminiscent of her life. 

Zaphrina fought to stop herself from breaking down but her emotions got the best of her and her lips convulsed resulting in a pair of colorless warm liquid run down her chestnut cheeks.

She sniffed a couple of times, dabbed the almost dried and cold tears off her face only to give more room to fresh and warmer teardrops.

As time elapsed, Zaphrina knew more than just sulk in a restroom all day.

What more could make her feel better on an awful Saturday morning but a hot cup of coffee, the only beverage worth comparing to an analgesic, a stimulant, and which would clear her mind at that point in time. 

Zaphrina exited the restroom for her favorite coffee shop at barely five minutes walk from the spyce building, not wanting to talk over a cup of coffee with her ancestors, she quickly delved her handbag for her phone while walking down the lobby. She thought about her closest friend, Carmen, who was the only person she could think of to pour her transgressions and the only person who could offer her a listening ear.

Gloss?...eye contact?...comb?...nail polish?... Just where is that damn phone?!

Finally in the hold of the rectangular piece of gadget...and in contact with a hard surface, hard enough to have the contents of her bag falling in all directions. 

"Sorry," she quickly muttered with sobriety whilst helter-skeltering her belongings into her bag not looking up at the owner of the hard surface she had just bumped into. 

"Watch it next time will you?" the voice hovered over her. 

Furiousness getting the best of her already chafed feeling, Zaphrina elevated her glare to see an irritated face frowning at her direction. 

Handsome he was, Coffee brown and hazel defined his touseled fringes and tired eyes respectively. 

His body screamed wealth even in a crumpled cotton button-down shirt. If she wasn't caught up in one of the worst situations of her life, she would've unconsciously been drooling over him, though he totally wasn't her kind of man in personality.

"Excuse me? You watch it next time." She fired back regretting the stupid act of courtesy she had just exhibited to the uncivilized piece of creature.

She zipped her bag and rushed for the exit deterring the urge to do or say something crazy to him.

"Are you offering me these contacts? I think you need it more than I do." 

She heard the voice which had managed to give her an irritating first impression say behind her, with closed eyes and gentle breaths--breaths she had been trying to control for quite a while in order not to practically shatter out of insanity- she tried as much as possible to control the rising temper within her. This man didn't only have a courtesy deficiency, brains and respect added to it too.

She pivoted on her white pair of trainers which squeaked on the polished wooden lobby floor she had come to loathe more than anything else, took snappy steps towards the deficient stranger and snatched her contact case away from his perfectly manicured fingers with a growl. 

"Remind me to stab you when next you cross my path." she hissed.

"Is that the way you thank somene who just saved your life?" he quizzed with a mocking chuckle.

She stopped once more at his sarcasm. "Believe me, you've done worse than save my life." she spat between clenched teeth before exiting.

Great!!! Just what she needed to make her day gloomier than it already was as if she hadn't enough in seven hours. The worst hours of her life she must add. She shoved her hand in her bag for her phone once more, careful this time not to bump onto the next nincompoop. 

Zaphrina fell on answering machine several times before the parading image of her friend drowning in her bed halted in her mind. She let out a sigh of disappointment and decided to head home.

***

Marley arrived home exhausted, ready not to entertain the nearest form of distraction which came his way while he walked to his room.

"Where are you from?" the familiar voice questioned when he was about thanking the gods for an almost save and distraction-free trip.

He cleared his sandy throat, "From the office," he answered. 

Louisa, the family Benjamin leaned forward scrutinizing his messed up entirety. Knowing her too well, he knew she wouldn't let him go until she got what she wanted from him. 

"Liar! There are lipstick smudgees on your shirt and you smell of..."

He shushed her with a hand above her mouth before it was too late.

"You're not gonna tell her are you?"

He felt a grin spread across her lips from beneath his palm. It wasn't going to be good news streaming out of her mouth once he relieved his palms off of it, but he let go anyways,

"On one tiny condition." 

He sighed, "What do you want, Louisa?"

"I want your car for a week. I'm talking about the latest car you bought."

"Oh no! Not that one Louisa, you can get the-"

"Fine then, Muuu..." his hands clasped her lips again. 

"Fine, Crazy brat, here are the keys." he fished the keys from his pant pocket and dangled it before her.

Louisa flashed her thirty twos in a grin, gladly reached for her brother's cheeks for a peck after grabbing the bunch consisting of three silver keys but stopped midway.

"Urgh com'n go get a shower." she grimaced, looking disgusted.

"Return it scratch-free," he yelled to the retreating figure of his ginger haired sister.

With an immaculate white MW marked towel firmly engulfing his waist, Marley stood in the middle of his professionally decorated room left hand on his hip reminiscing the previous night and the early morning event. His right hand reached for his wet hair gently shoving it backward letting the warm water dripping out of it do same in the opposite direction.

He let out a series of curses, hit, and kicked the wall, but neither of those made him feel any better. 

Maybe it was just a dream, he thought but he remembered collecting the check he had written to her last night, to confirm it, he ran to the hip of dresses on his neatly vacuumed gunmetal blue woolen carpet, dug into his pocket for the check and there it was, between his fingers with the sum of money he had written and his signature on it. 

Had she forgotten to collect it or had she purposely left it? He sighed and plopped on his bed. Eyes staring at the chandelier and mind reminiscing every move he did with the pink-haired stripper, her tantalizing body, the flame she ignited in him, one he never knew existed for the past years. Her hands over his body fitted right in. 

He suddenly realized himself wanting to see her, not just once nor twice but as often as he lived, but why was this so? Someone he barely knew. He let out another heavy sigh then his mind drifted to the chestnut skin-toned lady he bumped into earlier that day. 

He didn't know why, but something in him-for the first time in his existence- found her banality intriguing