TAG! Storyline1, part 7
Previous Installations of the story
A car horn brought his attention away from the mysterious woman and back to the road he was driving down. After saying goodbye to Terri, he had sat in his car, trying not to giggle. He waved at her as she pulled out of the lot, a small part of him feeling bad for taking her away from her family, but another small part of him understanding that she had a wonderful man at home who just got what a good woman she was, and how wonderful she had been with him. He was not sure he would be able to do the same, and respected Rich for it all the more.
Shaking his head and concentrating on driving, he managed to make it home all in one piece. Locking his car and jogging up the few steps to his front door, he unlocked it and went inside. The grandfather clock chimed softly as he walked in, he glanced at the clock and noticed it was 11pm. Hanging up his jacket and dropping his keys into a dish on a dresser in the hallway, he stepped out of his shoes and into his apartment.
“UGH!” he said out loud. There was a pizza box on the coffee table, soda cans and coffee mugs on the side table, and the carpet hadn’t looked like it had seen a vacuum in months. He nodded determinedly, “Change changes things” he thought to himself, referring to his whole outlook. Picking up the pizza box, he walked into the kitchen and took the trashbag out of the garbage can threw it inside the bag, pushing down the garbage to make more room.
Walking back out into the living room, he filled his hands with empty and half-empty cans, bringing them into the kitchen and upending them into the sink to drain. He pulled the back into the living room and swept the worst of the crumbs from the coffee and side tables, stopping briefly to examine a stain on the side table that looked an awful lot like dried up mayo. “Oh Eww” he exclaimed disgustedly.
Wiping the rest of the smaller crumbs into the bag, not really caring if they made it in, he cleared off the tables and put the garbage bag by the front door. The dining room was fairly clean except for the dust he could physically see on the mantle, chandelier and table. Running a hand across the table, he kicked up enough dust to cause him to cough and sneeze. Shaking his head and laughing to himself, he stripped off the hoodie and tshirt he was wearing, went into the kitchen to grab the oxyclean and a roll of paper towels, he murmured”Look out house, we’ll see what you’re really made of.”
Three and a half hours later, he stood in his front hall, holding the handle of a long broom that he had used to get dust and spiderwebs from the corners of the vaulted ceiling in his dining room. He was physically exhausted, his eyes stung, and his hands hurt. But the whole house smelled like the one back home. His mother, an un-denying neat freak, couldn’t have done better. Well, maybe a little. Looking at the clock, seeing it was 2:30am, he put the cleaning products away, took the trash outside, and went upstairs to take a shower.
He took a step into his bathroom before he retreated back into his bedroom. The indicator light on his blackberry was red. “Great, another process failed” he sighed, referring to the work he had done to migrate some data for accounting. Pulling it out and scrolling it up to the current messages, he saw it wasn’t the generic system email, but something from ladyfae@hotmail.com.
He opened it and waited for Outlook to display the message before realizing it was a message from her. It read:
Matt,
Turned out to be a chore after all, they’re drunk and I’m sober. Don’t feel like dancing, would rather talk to you.
Wish I had gone to B&N with ya!
Fae
He looked at the time stamp and realized it had only been sent 15 minutes ago. He quickly replied:
Fae,
I hear you, I usually get designated to be the driver. B&N wasn’t the same without you. Up for brunch tomorrow?
M@
He held his breath as he hit send. He was so glad he had given her his card and she had thought to reach out using his email from work. He hit refresh 10 or 11 times before he realized that she had either put it away or turned it off.
“Oh well” he said, sighing, but happily. He put the phone on his dresser and grabbed a towel from the closet in the hall. As he walked into his bathroom, he checked the indicator light and it was green, no messages. He wiggled his eyebrows and brought the phone in the bathroom, putting it on a shelf by the shower door. He turned on the water, got in, closed the sliding glass door and checked the light again. Still green. Soaping up his now sweaty and cleaning product soaked skin, he washed quickly and rinsed even more so. He rinsed the last of the soap from his back and shoulders and turned the water off.
As he slid the door open and grabbed his towel, he noticed the light had turned red again.
