Sugar McKenzie and August Wakefield couldn't be more different - Sugar, a meticulous, caring, but lonely paramedic and August, a charming former reality star still chasing his dream. But they've both closed themselves off emotionally from others...t...
"The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future."
- Oscar Wilde
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My charcoal dress pants clung to my thighs, my hands rubbed over the fabric to ease the tightness. Dark closed shoes were tied, black strings held together in a double knot. I leaned back into the gray soft leather chair.
In front of me, there was a rectangular table where three piles stacked in a horizontal frame wire container. A golden-glass plate screamed CEO Anthony Dalton of Hazel Inc. in the middle of the table.The silver Mac computer glared from sunshine coming in from behind me. Two skinny, cylinder windows offset the enormous rectangular window outside the office.
Mr. Dalton's office doors were clear, thumb and fingerprints were visible around the long, gray doorknob. The doors were behind me. Every minute or so, I twisted around to catch a glimpse if anyone entered the room.
Where is he?
I ran my hands through my hair, fingernails scratched at my scalp. I turned around facing the table. Mr. Dalton called me a week ago to schedule a meeting to dwell and converse over the show.
"The news seemed to settle down," I told Mr. Dalton over the phone. A small hope. A reason.
Articles and social media posts declined after the first two weeks. Algorithms seemed to pop up the articles less, as fewer and fewer people clicked, liked, or commented on the news. The magazines searched for their new victim.
"We'll talk more at the meeting." There was something hidden in Mr. Dalton's statement.
A clear tone, my hands shook.
For a week, I was radio-silent. I messaged tons of ladies on all of my dating apps. Flirting, sending cute statements. Once I received, "Let's hang out," "Want to meet?" or sometimes "Go away," I moved on to the next woman. The game was over – the distraction vanished. Seven and a half billion people in the entire world. Half were women. And then half would be a good age range. The number was around 187 million hundred or something . . . I wasn't privileged in the math area. The number declined if I factored in our romantic relationship status . . . still I estimated there to be 100 million or so. How can there be one right person for me when there's that many out in the world?
The "what if" factor happened.
Especially since Penelope.
I questioned and doubted my decisions.
I texted Sugar twice. Well, I wrote fifty times – but I always deleted the characters and retype. Then delete again.
