Short Story ~ Chapter 5

Chapter 5

After what feels like the longest meeting of all time we are dismissed and head back to our desks. When I get back I check my calendar for the day, luckily I only have two client meetings and three calls to make and that itself is n0ot for at least two hours. I could use this time to catch up on my clients files but I’ve already hit the point where I won’t be able to focus on anything but figuring out who the Mystery Man is.

Now there are several things in my life I’m a perfectionist at and this is one of my favorites. I find the latest employee phone list and use it to create an excel worksheet to help narrow down the field. One column lists the departments they are in, the next column is their names, the third lists their marital status, the fourth column lists how long they have been with NS Turner & Associates and the last column notes if they are wearing Hawaiian shirts since the Mystery Man said he would be in ‘his best Hawaiian Shirt”.

So first is the Debt Counseling team, luckily they only have four guys: Tyler, Anthony, Tristan and Parker. I know Tyler and Parker are married so they are out, even if they were my mystery guy I refuse to be crushed on by a married man. Anthony is new to the company and besides that he is very young, I think maybe only twenty-one or twenty-two. He is very charming and cute which I think helps him acquire new clients but he is still fresh in the world. So that leaves Tristan, he and I have been friends for as long as I can remember. I know he is on of the first guys in the company from what I remember Tristan was the one who insisted that debt counseling was just as important as retirement planning. He is about six feet tall and has the most amazing long brown hair, it is just to his shoulders but it always looks so healthy. He keeps it in a very low manly ponytail, sometimes in the light it looks like it has naturally red undertones, personally I am not a fan of long hair on guys but Tristan can pull it off. He looks like he could be a model for shampoo commercials.

Okay, so I have Tristan on the potential list, not too bad so far so I move on to the Real Estate team. Their function is to try to help our clients avoid foreclosure, let them know when it is a good time to refinance, assist is finding investment properties and a whole multitude of other services that I can’t seem to care about right now. Again this team only has four guys: William, Cameron, Samuel and Logan. As I am narrowing down these guys it strikes me as off that none of them go by obvious nicknames. This department is really easy, Cameron has been with his partner for three years now and they have been actively taking about adoption so I’m pretty confident it is not him. Logan and Samuel are married and William is engaged to his fellow team member Lucy. The company is pretty flexible on interoffice romance; the only requirement is that you notify HR of any budding relationships. Somehow now that seems rather convenient. 

My group is next, the Financial Advisors. Even though every client in the company is assigned to one of us there are only eleven people on my team. Of the eleven of us five are guys, of course there is Stephen, and all I can think is “Please GOD NO!” he is too much, he is nice enough and fairly attractive but it would never and could never, I can’t even think about that one…yuck! That leaves John, Max, Daniel and Evan. Well right off the bat John and Evan are out being married and such. Max is more like a dad to the rest of us and he only been here a few years but he does retire next year and I’m pretty sure Margot his wife wouldn’t appreciate him sending me flowers and a bottle of the beach.

That leaves Daniel, now that’s an interesting prospect. He has been here longer than me so that one, he is single so that’s two and since he is nothing like Stephen its three points in his columns. He is just slightly taller than me but not by much, he is nice, a little quiet and yet has the most clients in our department. He has blonde hair, bright blue eyes and has the whole high school quarterback thing going for him. He has a muscular build and is usually dressed to impress. Today he happens to be wearing a nice pair of dark blue jeans, a silk Hawaiian shirt and a pair of tan topsiders, he looks like he could have just stepped off of his yacht, he doesn’t actually have one I think but he looks like he could.

So far I have only narrowed it down to two guys Daniel and Tristan. Next is the obvious department, IT, they are all guys and there are six of them: Owen, Justin, Jason, Isaiah, Christopher and Greg. So Jason and Christopher are married leaving them incompatible to my search. Justin just started dating some new girl in his apartment complex “gosh, why do I know all of this meaningless stuff about everyone”. Greg and his wife just finalized their divorce so I doubt he is the Mystery Man, no actually I hope he isn’t that would be a little too creepy for me. That leaves Owen and Isaiah as potential Mystery men. I don’t think it is Isaiah mostly because he is the newest one here and I can’t say that I ever see him yet alone talk to him. Owen on the other hand is starting to seem like the guy more and more.

Owen is always the one who comes to help when my computer is acting up, he even helped me reprogram my phone after Ben somehow managed to switch everything to Chinese and permanently cause my screens to read upside down, rest assured that was the last time he ever touched my phone. It took nearly four hours but Owen was able to restore everything, even my old and last few text messages from Adam. Sometimes he will just come by to chat so it is possible he is the one, we have shared a lot about each other and we have lunch together on occasion. He is tall, at least six foot two or three, but he isn’t lanky by any standards. He has broad shoulders and a lean waist. I know he likes to work out, he told me once he likes to enter marathons as often as he can. The very idea of running for no real reason seems silly to me, my exercise is keeping up with Ben and Philip. Owen has straight longish brown hair that he always wears to the side, it not really long just average length, why is men’s hair so complicated? Mine is easy, long mahogany brown, at least that’s what the box says. It goes to my lower back and is naturally straight, no layers, no bangs just long boring hair. I’ve thought about changing it but I can’t think of anything else I’d want to do with it.

Back to Owen, I think he is from South Carolina or is it North, I can never remember. Although he has been in California for a long time he still has a slight southern drawl to his voice, more like south adjacent not the full on ‘Howdy Ma’am’ you’d expect. I think he has been here since he was a kid, after his mom and dad spilt up she decided she wanted to be an actress so them came out to California, for some reason they were in San Francisco and she fell in love with the city, I must admit it is no hard to do. So after that they just stayed in the area. So obviously I ‘know’ Owen but I am sure I would have picked up on something by now, right?

The last team are the stock brokers, I’m not sure about them because this is a fairly new group to the company. A few of them have been here for a while just in other areas. The guys in this group are Noah, Connor, Jack, Cole, Brandon and Thomas. First off Jack and Cole are married, and Noah works from an office in San Francisco so he wouldn’t be able to see me do anything like lose weight or storm out of the office. Brandon is gay so that ones pretty simple. That leaved Connor and Thomas. It could really be either one of them, they both stared before me under a general advisor title, I think they actually have been with the company since the beginning.

My phone rings pulling me out of my current task, its Carla letting me know I have a delivery, with no return address like yesterday. She seems to be a little too excited about my incoming mail, I know I can’t keep doing this with her, she is going to ask and I’m not ready to spill the beans just yet. I go to her desk and luckily she is on the phone so I sign for my box and head back to my desk. On the box in bold red letters it says ‘OPEN IMMEDIATELY – PERISHABLE’ so I open the box to find the most luxurious looking lei I have ever seen. It is made with tons of pink hibiscus flowers and smells wonderful. The card on top says:

‘You are far too beautiful to be wearing a plastic lei’

Instead of looking around to hope I catch a glimpse someone a little too interested in my delivery I just slip it over my head and continue my investigation. Where was I, oh yeah Connor and Thomas the last two on my list. Connor is fun, every time we have a company function whether it is a meeting, a birthday, a dinner or lunch he is the life of the party. He is so friendly and I’d bet he doesn’t have an enemy in the world. He is just barely six feet tall, he has short auburn hair that looks brown but in the right light you can see lots of red. He is very tan, but not from a bottle or a tanning booth, he likes to surf a lot. He said he likes to go out every weekend, he even brags how he once competed in the Mavericks competition but I’m not too sure about that one. But I DO know he has the physique of a surfer, but I only found out this morning when we all saw a bit more of him than usual. He decided to come in wearing a grass skirt, sandals, a puka shell necklace and nothing else. He did get everyone’s attention, including mine. With that confidence though I seriously doubt he would be hesitant to introduce himself to me as the Mystery Man.

That leaves Thomas, funny enough he is sort of a mystery himself. Like I said he has been here long enough to fit the criteria and we do talk but it mostly about the stock market. I usually try to steer away from that particular topic, its not that it isn’t fascinating but it just really bores me, I can’t help it. He on the other hand keeps to himself and never goes to company events other than meetings. He is on the shorter side, but not shorter than me. He looks like he could be a spy, his eyes are dark and his hair is dark too almost black. He is one of the only guys with facial hair at the company and it is what I can only describe as overgrown five o’clock shadow, no mustache, no beard or goatee or whatever you want to call it, and its not very long…like I said overgrown five o’clock shadow. Although I am not a fan of facial hair it really suits him very well. He wears modern looking black frame eyeglasses, the plastic looking type. He also always wears a suit and from what Carla has says they are the expensive ones. He has a muscular build but doesn’t look bulked up but aside from how he looks I don’t know much about him, as I said he keeps to himself.

Well I take a look at my spreadsheet and realized I’ve narrowed it down to just four guys: Daniel, Tristan, Owen and Thomas. I just hope I am right about these guys. Once I finish my list I check my work email, after all I am being paid to be here. There is Carla’s meeting recap, which I am glad to say I didn’t ‘miss’ much, Stephen’s joke, today it’s Hawaiian themed and after skimming through I see the punch line ‘Because it’s spam’ – DELETE. One of my regular clients is asking about our appointment next week and a few gossipy ones from Carla about her weekend and Jake, and can I believe what Connor did today. Just as I am about to lock up my computer I get a new email from Mystery Man, the subject reads: Hawaiian Lei

Abigail,

I hope you liked the lei I had sent for you, it was a crazy coincidence that you happen to be wearing the flower in your hair to match, I swear! You look absolutely breathtaking today, it took all of my strength to not come up to you this morning after the meeting but you practically ran from the conference room. I did however see you poke your head over your cubicle more than once this morning, you’re not trying to figure out who I am, are you? Not that I wouldn’t be surprised, you have never been the type to just let life happen, at least not on your terms. I am curious to know if you have figured out who I am yet. Surely you have at least narrowed down your choices. So, will you enlighten me and tell me who I am? I’d love to know.   

Forever yours,

Mystery Man

Haha, tell him who he is, not a chance in hell! I reply to him right away.

M.M.

First thank you for the flowers, all of the flowers; the roses are exquisite and I am still trying to figure out how you managed to drop one with me while I was at lunch. The lei smells so wonderful it reminds me of being in Hawaii, and the beach in a bottle is so thoughtful. I think I like the starfish the most. I did try to email you last night to thank you for everything but I couldn’t find the words I wanted to say, to be honest I still can’t. Your letter made me think about who I was before Adam passed away and I know I have changed, but to be fair, who wouldn’t under those circumstances. I have closed myself off to most of the people in my life and then you came along, I hadn’t realized how much I have been missing, each day the same as before and I had no reason to change. Your attention over the last few days has felt like a wake up call to life. I don’t know how long you plan on being a mystery but thank you just the same. I do hope you don’t wait for too long but I now sort of understand why you are keeping your distance. And yes, obviously I am interested.

Nervously waiting,

Abigail

I can hardly believe I sent that, maybe it was the exactly right thing to say. I still love Adam very much and I have been afraid that if I even open myself to the possibility of another man in my life I would forget him and everything we had. I would forget his laugh or the way he tried to look like he was paying attention when his team was playing. Forget how the boys would break into a deep belly laugh at the very though of the tickle monster being woken up. Forget how he would get the boys up early on Sunday mornings to go to the park so I could sleep in. Forget our lives together, it’s to scary to think about so I haven’t, I just shoved those feelings deep down inside and pushed though my life, one day at a time. I didn’t think I would need to have another man in my life, ever and then MM enters and my whole mindset has changed. If what he says is true and he does really know me as he claims maybe I could walk down that path, maybe one day I could open my heart to the love it deserves and accept the love from another. Maybe the boys would be accepting too. The boys are another reason I’ve shut down, they are so young they will probably forget Adam, they didn’t have a lot of time with him and all I have are memories, lots of photo’s and a few videos to share.

I wonder how it will be for them as they enter school, kids don’t really understand why some kids have a mommy and not a daddy. Sure they get the whole I have two daddies or two mommies but the whole single parent thing might be troublesome. Will they feel left out? Will they grow to resent the fact they do not have a dad to teach them about cars, sports and of course boys biggest mystery ‘girls’! It feels like only now these questions linger in my head, maybe I’ve been trying to be so strong for all of us and never gave a thought to the future, well I most certainly am now.

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There will be more very soon, I have to find a better method for typing out the story as I write it. For now, I only get to type after Myles & Ollie go to bed. I will post again by this Sunday! Have a great week.