“Then it’s time Dick moved.”

My body went completely still but somehow I managed to get my mouth to force out, “What?”

“It’s time… Dick… moved.”

His smooth deep voice was not firm.

It was steel.

“Knight –” I whispered.

Knight cut me off, “I’ll send a boy today to share with Dick his new relocation plans. I’ll also call you later. When’s your last client leave?”

I blinked repeatedly at the tall, square counter where I did my filing and didn’t speak.

“Anya, babe, someone needs me. When’s your last client leave?”

“Nine, she doesn’t feel chatty,” I said breathily. “Nine thirty more regularly after she shares a glass of wine with me.”

“I’ll call you after nine thirty. Later, baby.”

Then he was gone.

I dropped my hand with the phone to the counter I was still staring at.

Dick had relocation plans because Knight didn’t like me living across the hall from someone creepy.

“Holy crap,” I whispered.

“What?” Beth, one of the front desk ladies asked, walking in.

I looked to her and whispered, “Nothing.”

She stared at me then moved to me and peered closer. “Jeez, Anya. Is everything okay?”

And to that, in the throes of understandable temporary insanity, I blurted, “I have a new boyfriend. He’s awesome. Protective. And scary. And he regularly freaks me out by being all of those at once.”

Her face spread in a huge grin. “You have a new boyfriend?”

“A new boyfriend who’s awesome, protective and scary. A lot of the time mostly the last.”

“Cool,” she said like she didn’t hear me, or, I should say, she selectively heard me.

“Beth, I said he’s scary,” I reminded her.

“Girlfriend,” she said, flipping her hand in the air, “count your blessings. Any dude hooked to you has got to have more than his fair share of scary. He doesn’t, new scary, awesome, protective guy will steal you right out from under his nose. So, my advice, ride the awesome and protective and ignore the scary.” Her eyes narrowed. “Unless… does he do scary shit to you?”

I decided to quit sharing and start lying. “No.”

Her smile came back. “Right on. Tell him he needs to come and take you to lunch. Give me a head’s up. That way, I can amass all the girls up front to give him a once-over and when you get back, we’ll deliver our verdict.”

Unfortunately, my mouth decided to start sharing again so it said, “He’s sheer, raw, aggressive masculine beauty from head-to-toe.”

She blinked. Then she smiled big again.

Then she announced, “I am not surprised. And now, knowing that, his behind better be here soon so you better get on that since I’m walking out, passing this juicy morsel around therefore peer pressure is about to go extreme.”

Me and my big mouth.

Beth dumped some papers in my in tray with a farewell of, “Later, gorgeous.”

Then she hurried out to share the juicy morsel I volunteered very, very stupidly.

I stared at the papers thinking that filing was getting old. It was boring. It was mindless. And it was never ending.

Then I thought about how nice it would be to live without the constant possible disquiet of running into Dick somewhere in the building and then having to find a way politely to get the heck out of his presence.

Then I wondered how Knight’s “boy” would convince Dick to go.

Then I decided not to think about it.

After I did that, I wondered about myself that I wouldn’t think about it when I knew I should. And not only that, I should wonder about a man who could and would do the stuff Knight clearly had no problem doing.

Then someone else came in and dumped a bunch of stuff in my in tray so I quit thinking about all of that since I had to get to work.

* * * * *

After work, I successfully made it to my apartment without a run-in with Dick. This didn’t happen often. Not even regularly since Dick was dedicated to whatever creepy shit he did in his apartment and less dedicated to creeping out his neighbors by lurking in the halls or creeping out the general population of Denver by joining their numbers. But still, I counted myself lucky and again buried the urge to turn over in my head the fact that my new boyfriend was going to remove him from my life. How he was going to do that. How that was morally probably not okay. And the fact my new boyfriend was clearly my new boyfriend and he hadn’t even kissed me.

All these thoughts flew from my head after I locked all three (two new) locks on my door and wandered into my apartment looking for the “shit” Charlie put in there that Knight’s boy delivered.

Then I froze as I got abreast to my couch and saw the plethora of glossy bags on it.

Incidentally, my couch was awesome. It was flower print, girlie but it was a cool print and since it was the only thing in the room that was flowery, it worked (even though the rest was pretty girlie). As usual, I bought it on sale and since it had a small rip in one of the cushions, the price was seriously reduced. But I just flipped it over and, voila! Perfect couch.

And right then, it was even more perfect when I saw the names on the bags that were on my couch.

My shoulder slumped, so deep, my bag fell right to the floor. Then I hustled to the couch, dropped my keys on my vintage, oval, white, awesomely chipped, quirky coffee table (that yes, was totally girlie) I bought for three dollars at a yard sale and reached into the first bag.

I pulled out an expertly tissue wrapped parcel, carefully tore the tissue away and shook out a black dress, it’s fabric so far away from polyester or any synthetic fiber it was… not… funny.

It felt like what I thought heaven would feel like.

When I held it up I saw it looked like what an angel would wear too, if she had her own personal Italian designer, showed serious skin, wore black and not white and had whopping, mega style.

Holding it to me, I smoothed it down my front as I felt my nose start to sting.

I’d never seen anything so exquisite, touched it, held it and certainly never, ever owned it.

Then I carefully laid it out across the back of the couch and went back to the bag.

Dress two, a metallic platinum. Sublime.

Dress three, red. Flawless. Awe-inspiring.

After smoothing the red out on the couch, I went to the next bag.