Hit Hard

Charlene sat at her desk reading celebrity news. She didn’t really have anything to do today which was good because she couldn’t keep her mind off her date. She hadn’t really thought about for the last few days, until the other night when she had realized how boring she was. She always worked. She was never spontaneous. Talking to a random guy on the subway was the most unordinary thing she had done in a while. She promised to let herself have more fun.

“Charlene, Mr. Duncan wants to speak with you.” Charlene’s secretary, Mary, said as she peaked her head in the door waking Charlene from her thoughts.

“Alright.” She sighed. “I’ll be right over.” She straightened out some papers on her desk, then walked out. She followed the hall of the huge office building down to James Duncan’s office. His was all the down the hall with the other executives. He was the owner and CEO’s son. She knocked on the door, and James immediately opened it. “You wanted to see me?”

“Yes.” He said with a hint of excitement in his voice. “Will you sit down?” He sat back in his leather chair behind his desk. Charlene stayed standing as James leaned back and crossed his legs.

“What did you want, Mr. Duncan?” Charlene asked.

“You know you can call me James.”

“No.” She said in an almost annoyed way. “Why did you ask to see me?”

“You know,” he started, “you look really nice today.”

“Did I ever tell you how nice that photo of you and your wife is?” She asked flatly.

“I know.” He smiled. “I just put it up.”

“I have work to do.” Charlene turned to leave.

“Nice chat!” James called as she slammed the door behind her.

Charlene stormed back to her office. She hated dealing with that idiot, but she couldn’t do anything about it but ignore him. His father owned the whole company. Charlene decided to call it day early. She picked up her bag, and logged off of her computer.

“Mary, I’m out.” She said. Mary responded, but Charlene was already too far down the hall to hear, or care.
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Claude walked down the sidewalk on fifth avenue. He walked across the street from Central Park on his way home from the gym. He liked that he could walk pretty much everywhere he needed to go in the city. Everything he needed was close by, but even better than that everything was so nice. Even the gym he found was fancy. He walked while looking down at an email on his phone.

He was looking down when he ran into something. He looked up. Actually, he had run into someone. “Geeze! Why do you always do that?”

“I’m sorry.” Claude laughed. He had literally run into Charlene again. “In my defense, this is only the second time I’ve run into you out of four times we’ve been together.”

“Thats still half.” She replied.

“So what are you doing out and about on a Thursday at three?” He asked. “I thought you had some boring job that you liked doing.” Charlene smiled.

“I left early.” She said. “I’m annoyed with my boss. I’ll work from home tomorrow.”

“Now I know why you like this job.” He said. Charlene rolled her eyes.

“So what about you?” She asked. “What are you doing out now?”

“I don’t really have a job besides staying fit right now.”

“I bet you have good hours.”

“Yeah.” He replied “I just got off work.” He looked at her eyes. They had a sparkle in them that lit up Claude’s own eyes. “Lets go somewhere.”

“Like where?” Charlene asked.

“I don’t know.” Claude said. “Anywhere!” Charlene hesitated.

“Look at what I’m wearing.” She motioned to her pencil skirt and high heels.

“Can you change?” Charlene took a deep breath. She was torn between saying yes or no. She took another deep breath and reminded herself of her promise.

“Yes!” She blurted out before she could change her mind. “My building is on the next block. Come over and I’ll change.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Claude grinned.

Notes