Watch Me Walk Away by Jill Prand Read Free Book Online Page B

opens in the lobby. I look at my phone and see that it is nine-thirty. Well so much for walking to Starbucks. I ask the doorman to call me a cab. I get a text as I am waiting.
    Beautiful girl please come back.
    He is sweet when he wants to be.
    I will call you soon XO
    I get into the cab and thank the doorman. “Seventy-second and Park,” I tell the driver sitting back and wondering what Debbie needs to talk to me about. We used to be really close in high school. In fact she is the reason I met Bobby in the first place. She got me into the theatre program after my parents split. I was depressed and she decided I needed something new to focus on.
    She had said they needed extras for a Christmas caroling scene in the play she was in and all I would have to do is sing We Wish You a Merry Christmas while standing in front of the door. Also she said that they needed help on the crew with set design and props. So one day I went with her to rehearsal and the teacher said I could be an extra. It was that easy and that life changing at the same time. After I agreed to come to rehearsals on Tuesdays and Thursdays Deb took me backstage. She introduced me to Jimmy who was the stage manager. She had obviously already told him about me because he just took me by the hand, walked me to a flat that needed painting and handed me a brush.
    That was it. I was part of the crew and the cast. I went to every rehearsal even when I didn’t need to. I hung around back stage with the crew in the back room called “The Swamp” and that is where I met Bobby. I didn’t meet him the first day because he was hanging lights. But the second day I went straight back to find Jimmy and find out what he needed me to do and I ran into Bobby, literally. I was walking into the swamp as he was backing out. He nearly knocked me over and when I looked up at him I was speechless. Why wasn’t this guy part of the cast, he would draw a crowd. Six-three, almost black hair with blue eyes so deep you could almost drown in them. And he was built, not an ounce of fat on his body which I could see through his tight black t-shirt. Then he smiled at me and I was lost. For the first time in my life my body reacted to a guy and it seems nothing has changed if last night was any indicator.
    The cab pulls up to the curb disturbing my walk down memory lane. I pay him and get out glancing at the time nine-fifty, I have ten minutes to spare. The Starbucks is a street over but I had the cab drop me off on the corner of the Dakota. I still can’t believe Bobby lives here. He was always a Beatles fan. His mom got him into them and we used to sing their songs driving in his old truck. I can just imagine that when he was looking for a place and found there was an opening here he would have jumped on it!
    I look up at the building and wonder which floor Bobby is on. Maybe I’ll ask Debbie. I start to turn away and head toward Starbucks when I hear, “Now who’s stalking who?”
    Damn, damn, double damn! I turn back around, “Not stalking, just looking at a landmark. I am meeting Deb for coffee down the block.”
    Shit! I should have just kept walking and ignored him. He looks like he is just getting back from the gym, all sweaty and hot. Looking at him my temperature just shot up a few degrees. I need to get out of here fast!
    “Deb didn’t tell me you were meeting. When did the two of you decide this?” he asks.
    So Deb didn’t tell him, so what? Does she have to clear everything she does with him? “We discussed it last night and finalized it this morning,” I say. “We didn’t get to catch up much and I know they’re leaving soon.” I make it sound like it was my idea, why I’m not sure but Deb obviously doesn’t want him to know. “Stuart’s place is right across the park so this was convenient before I head home.”
    He lifts an eyebrow and looks like he is trying to figure this out. I know he is wondering if I am pumping Deb for info on him.
    “We haven’t