Marry me

Chapter Two.

"Uh, hi. I'm Isabelle. Isabelle Greene. I'm here for an interview?"

She reached out to the paper cup on her desk and brought it to her lips, sipping what I guessed as coffee or tea. Her eyes examined me over the rim of the cup and I swear I saw her smirk. She brought the cup down and pursed her lips, turning to the computer beside her. "Oh," she drawled out, her pretty eyes, illuminated by the light that emanated from the computer screen, sliding to me, and her over-straight button nose jiggling unnaturally. "I thought you were the janitor's daughter or you just lost your way or some shit like that," she said almost lazily, infinitesimally arching a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

I smiled sardonically. "Well, you thought wrong, then."

Tomato Lady raised wrist to her face and let out a frustrated sigh. She rolled her eyes wearily and muttered something under her breath, that I couldn't catch seeing as we were a few feet apart, and outstretched her fingers, palm facing downward, inspecting her acrylic nails with tired eyes. "The interview said eight AM and it's clearly still seven."

"I know that, thank you very much," I started and she mumbled something undoubtedly demeaning under her breath. My fists clenched and unclenched, and my jaw flexed. I swallowed and closed my eyes momentarily.

Control, Isabelle, control. Be nice.

I opened my eyes and found the tomato woman staring at me, amusement twinkling in her hazel eyes. At that point, I knew we both were never going to get along. Silence lingered in the air as we stared each other down. All of a sudden, she blinked and her eyes bulged out wide, as she tore her eyes off me and transfixed it somewhere over my shoulder, behind me.

"Holy shit!" she shrieked in a very, very high-pitched voice. I jumped at the suddenness, and threw a death glare at her. I was just about to pry my lips open to ask what that was all about when she yelled again, her voice about three octaves higher than before, "Oh, my God, He's here! Holy headbanging Jesus Christ, he's here!" Then, she turned to me, thrusting a tag that read 'Visitor' to me. "Look here, blondie, go over to the couch over there-" she pointed to the couch that sat somewhere across the lobby "-and sit. Do not make a sound, please. He despises noise-"

Just as I was about to object and ask who this 'he' was, the opaque glass door opened with a low whirr, and I felt cold air swoosh in and seep into the lobby. Without even turning my head there, I could feel the power radiating from there. The hairs on my neck stood on end and I felt my skin prick with goose pimples. Beautiful smelling cologne wafted around my nostrils and my heart danced a few rounds of tango smack dab against my ribs. I was suddenly aware of every single pulse in my body, throbbing a staccato, as I heard them loudly in my ears. What the hell? I looked over to the tomato lady. I saw her stand rigid, still, and as frozen as a frosty block of ice in a 25/8 working freezer settled right in the middle of Antarctica in early December. Her eyes were fixated over my shoulder and I swear I heard the sound of a clump of bundled saliva descending her throat. Hard.

She could feel it too.

As slowly as a normal, curious human being could muster, I turned a complete one-eighty degree for what seemed like decades but, in reality, was just seconds. When I turned fully, my eyes met grey ones, and my knees buckled. I immediately went diving straight to the ground with a strangled yelp, successfully managing to sound like a screaming camel with a couple dozen of sinus infections.