Free She's No Angel by Janine A. Morris Page A

time. There was one time after she first got with Isaac, that she had had a run-in with Rich and she slipped up and slept with him. She just couldn’t resist his smile and swagger. He had that magnetism they say Billie Dee Williams has. Charlene knew Rich definitely had something. Luckily, she felt so bad on that one occasion that she refrained from any other run-ins.
    However, here she was running in to him again. The chances weren’t that unlikely, because White Plains, where Rich lived, and Mount Vernon both had only so many businesses and things to do. It was just ironic that it was so soon after the answering machine incident.
    â€œWhere are you coming from?” she asked him.
    â€œI was at a meeting on Central Avenue.”
    â€œDressed like that?”
    â€œIt was just something informal, nothing big.”
    â€œOh, OK. Well, I’m on my lunch break, about to head back in a few.”
    â€œHow much longer you got?”
    â€œAbout twenty-five minutes probably.”
    â€œOK, I’ll drive you back.”
    Her initial thought was to say sure, but then she worried about what it would look like if someone saw them together. She knew that as a newly engaged woman, it wasn’t going to look good for her to be seen on her lunch break sharing a car with a guy she used to share a bed with. Who would believe that they had just bumped into each other? Isaac especially wouldn’t, not after he had just heard that message and found out that they had never broke contact completely.
    â€œNo, it’s OK. I’ll walk back, it’s not that far,” she spit out.
    â€œIt’s at least eight blocks, and it is windy out there ... It’s nothing for me. I’m going back that way, anyway.”
    Charlene wasn’t sure how she could turn down his offer, especially when it seemed so logical and she seemed so silly to say she’d rather walk back. She wasn’t sure if Rich could read what the real reason was and didn’t care, or if he really was sincere.
    â€œOK, let me just grab a drink and we can go.”
    She walked to the coolers in the back of the deli, picked up a cold Lipton Green Tea and headed to the counter. She thought about the odds of her being seen with Rich, and she decided it would be almost impossible for it to get back to Isaac. It was less than a five-minute drive, it really wasn’t that big of a deal. By the time she finished paying for her lunch, she hadn’t thought of another excuse to turn down his offer, and so she headed out the door with him to his car.
    A 2007 S-Class beeped and the lights blinked on and off. She looked over at Rich and he was the one aiming a remote at that beautiful car, parked a few feet from the store entrance. She had no idea he had gotten a new car, or that he had stepped it up quite so nicely. She was happy to see it, though, not just because it was a nice car but because it had very dark tints and now she wasn’t as worried about being seen with him.
    He pulled out and without saying a word began driving down the street. Charlene was happy to see Rich, and although nervous, she enjoyed being in his presence even if only for a moment. Rich was one of the good catches from around her way. He was one of the guys who made the girls in her old neighborhood jealous that she had him, too. He and everyone else knew he was fine, and he was always looking and acting like fresh money. Even if she did have a chance to get Rich to settle down with her, and hadn’t wanted Isaac anymore, there was still that one issue: that with Rich came her past. And that wasn’t a package deal she was willing to accept.
    After a few moments down the road, he started talking about a mutual friend that had just got out of jail and how he was doing. She pretended to be very interested, even though she only cared slightly. It seemed that he didn’t realize how detached she was from that world, or at least how she tried to be.