Free Like You Read About by Mela Remington

opens to the dining room.  Most of the furniture I’ve bought so far is Mission style (according to the lady at the furniture store). Okay, I’ve bought that style for two of the rooms so far, a dining room set and a king sized bed with matching dressers and stuff; it was a package deal. For the living room, I bought a really_comfortable_sofa.  The back of the house has this amazingly sunny kitchen, it’s the one room I’m not doing any work in, the cabinetry is all original white bead board and the walls are yellow; my sister called it buttercup.  It isn’t a manly kitchen, but the fridge keeps beer cold and the microwave works just fine.  Out behind the kitchen is a small deck, where I’ll put a grill and a small fenced in yard, nothing too big, but enough to have some friends over on a nice summer night.
    Wow, could I sound any more like a girl waxing poetic about my house . I need to go scratch my nuts or spit or watch some sports on TV and burp really loudly before all testosterone drains from my system.
    Enjoy your day and make sure to smile, and if you aren’t smiling, know that someone on the fourth floor is enjoying learning about you and maybe that will make you smile.
    Dan
     
    O kay, back to work for him, not sure what possessed him to gush about his house, but he was proud of it, it was a find and it was currently his most prized possession.  Hadn’t Raj joked that owning a home, and a cat made him a catch?  He was starting to think he might want to be caught.

Chapter 11
    Kaelyn had a doctor’s appointment at lunch so Cora decided to eat at her desk, watch a little TV online and maybe check her email, you know, in case something important was there that required attention.  He emailed her during the workday, he sat in his office and used company property and resources to chat her up, and somehow that was a heady feeling.  After reading and re-reading the email, she couldn’t get the bed out of her mind, it was just like the one in her fantasy at the DoubleTree in Norwalk.
    To: [email protected]
    From: [email protected]
    Date: January 17 , 2008 12:36 p.m.
    Subject: Would you rather play $64k Pyramid?
    Dan,
    First kiss: Edward Brooks, we were 14, totally in love and he had braces. It was awkward at best.
    F avorite childhood memory: Going to stay with my grandparents in Rhode Island between wherever we were stationed. They had a yellow house with a lot of rooms and a really big dining room table and my grandpa always bought the biggest Christmas tree he could find, even if he had to saw three feet off the top.
    W hat would you do if you weren’t doing what you do: I’d be a librarian, or own a little book store.
    W hat is your guilty pleasure: Currently it’s emailing this IT guy, but the other is my Kindle, you can read any kind of book you want on there and no one knows what you’re reading. ;-)
    W hat would people be surprised to know about you: I failed math in high school—twice.
    My favorite color is green and my most prized possession is my emerald ring ; it was my grandmother’s. When she started to show signs of Alzheimer’s, she gave it to me, she wanted to make sure she remembered giving it to me and that she could remember the story behind it before she forgot the story, and the ring, and me… Okay, now I’m crying at my desk, thank god for the hidden cube.
    I live in a small second floor apartment . I have a sunny living room with a giant chair and a half with an ottoman and two other wing chairs I’ve picked up at yard sales and reupholstered. I have a TV that would make most men jealous.  I, too, have a sunny yellow eat in kitchen with lots and lots of counter space. I decided to become more adventurous in my cooking endeavors over the last two years and some days, even cooking for one, I use every square inch.  I’ve got a small bedroom with slanted walls and ceilings painted a calming blue, heavy blue drapes and a brass double bed which is currently