Free In The Moment by Vallory Vance

Kevin slowed the truck to a crawl in
the late afternoon traffic jam that was downtown Fort Worth, Texas.
He looked from his left to his right mirror. There was no place to
move. He could only wait and fume. He reached for the cigarettes
that were no longer there.
    “Why would anyone want to meet at five
on a Friday?” Ronald, Kevin’s foreman, groaned and banged his hand
against the window.
    Kevin breathed in heavily through his
nose and exhaled loudly through his mouth. “This woman is off her
fucking rocker.” Though his only interaction with Amber Grayson was
a series of telephone meetings, she had managed to make him
consider smoking after two years.
    Paul Bingham, senior partner of Bingham
and Pratt Law Offices, had hired Kevin and his renovation company,
Another Time, to turn a crumbling turn of the century estate into
the headquarters for the old man’s pet project. Paul Bingham wanted
to gift art and music education to the underprivileged children of
the DFW metroplex.
    The bid had been a lark. Kevin was sure
that the project would go to one of the more well-connected and
larger companies. When Amber Grayson had called saying that their
bid had been accepted, he and Ronald had been ecstatic. This would
be their largest project in the company’s two year
history.
    Then he had had to deal with endless
pre-meetings to discuss wall color and landscaping. When Kevin
reminded Amber that Another Time renovated properties and that he
was neither an interior designer nor a landscaper, she had laughed.
She insisted that he attend every call so that everyone was “on the
same page”.
    Ronald had calmed him down saying that
once they got these big projects they would have to put up with
more crap. She had really pissed him off when she was a no show for
the first face to face meeting and then scheduled this walk-through
on a Friday afternoon.
    He and Ronald had decided that either
Bingham was banging or wanted to bang his pushy office manager and
given her the title of project manager as a lover’s
gift.
    They finally pulled into the driveway
of the estate. A very tall Black woman in a black suit and a
shorter blonde in a blue suit stood on the front steps. They both
smiled and waved at the sight of the oncoming truck. Kevin looked
at the petite blonde and glanced at Ronald. “He’s fucking
her.”
    They laughed and walked up the steps to
greet the women.
    The tall Black woman extended
her hand, “I’m Amber Grayson. Thank you so much for meeting us
today.” Kevin shook her hand and looked in Ronald’s direction to
see if he was surprised. As Ronald shook her hand, Kevin saw his
mouth hang slightly open. Yep, he was
surprised too .
    “This is Lilly Williams, my
assistant.”
    “I’ve talked to y’all on the phone.”
The southern voice was familiar to Kevin as the one that
rescheduled the meeting. He nodded his head and snuck another
glance at Ronald with a grin.
    “Well, let’s get going ladies.” He held
his hands up for Amber to lead the way, which she did
immediately.
    As the group ambled up the three steps
to the porch, Amber rattled off details and Lily held up the artist
renderings on her e-tablet for them to see. They moved through each
room of the house like that, Amber talking, Lilly holding up
drawings and Kevin and Ronald following and
half-listening.
    When they reached the front porch
again, Kevin was tired of hearing Amber talk but he could have
followed her anywhere. She had taken her jacket off inside the hot
house to reveal a sleeveless top that hugged her breasts. Without
the jacket, her plump ass could be seen clearly, pressing against
the pants of her suit.
    “So can it be done, Mr. Miller?” She
looked at him, flipping her long brown hair over her
shoulder.
    “Yeah, we can do it.” He wasn’t exactly
sure what he was agreeing to and slapped Ronald on the arm for
support.
    Ronald nodded his round head. “We can
do it.”
    Because of his short stature, Ronald’s
eyes were level with