Lexie hesitated, staring up at the huge building. She didn't know there were apartments in this building. Her heart raced. She looked around, feeling conspicuous standing still like that. She rubbed a palm down her thigh, feeling the smooth velvet of her green dress. It was tight, clinging to her body, hugging her but for once, she felt good in it. She looked around and found a bench in the city square that was unoccupied and sat there. She was trembling.
"I'm excited. It's nerves. Adrenaline." She spoke softly, aloud, then glanced around to see if any one could hear. No one paid her any mind, well, except for the guy staring at her, at her chest, she thought and unconsciously arched her back. He looked away. She smiled to herself. Then the enormity of what she was about to do bubbled up inside her again.
Walton Chambers, Walt to his friends, had met her in the rain, at a grocery store of all things. She'd decided to carry the groceries to the car, thinking it would be faster but disaster rained on that decision. First, she dropped her keys, then one of the sacks broke and cans of corn and green beans rolled under her car. She got flustered and dropped her purse, bent to pick that up and dropped another sack.
It was just too much. She leaned against the car and wept, tears mixing with the rain as it soaked through her green dress, making it cling to her, then, in places, turning invisible. She didn't become aware until his voice fluttered through the pelting rain.
"Excuse me, Miss, having troubles? Let me help."
Lexie lifted her eyes, looked around and found the most gorgeous man she'd ever set eyes on. Well, not the most gorgeous, no he was the most gorgeous man she'd ever seen standing before her, in the flesh. It wasn't her usual taste, either. He was older, dressed in an dark but brilliant shade of blue suit, with short cropped gray hair and a tanned face with lines in it, like fault lines in a granite cliff. His blue eyes twinkled with interest and his brow knit; he seemed unaware that he was getting soaked, unconcerned about his expensive suit. He was utterly soaked and had surrendered to the rain, seeming to blend with it so the water on his face didn't detract from his expression or affect it.
"Oh no, please, you're getting soaked. I'm just, I just..." Lexie felt the surge of emotion clog her throat again. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to turn away. She felt him move, didn't see him but then she felt his hand on her elbow, stopping her turn away from him.
"No, please. Get in the car, I'll gather up your groceries and then sit with you for a while. It hurts so much more to cry alone and if you let someone listen, it heals instead of remaining raw inside you."
When he smiled, Lexie's heart fluttered in her chest. Her mind wasn't working but her body was.
"I, thank you, kind sir, but you really, you're getting soaked."
"I am soaked. Soaked is soaked, more water won't matter now. Besides, you don't even have a coat. Get in. Let me do this for you." He smiled again.
His eyes glittered, seeming to twinkle in the midday gloom under the lowered, weeping clouds. Suddenly, a bit of sunlight escaped the clouds and all the colors around her lit up, like they were incandescent or suffused with some magical, inner light. Then the sun vanished and the rain pelted on.
"Yes, okay." She said.
She climbed into the car. After closing the door, she realized her purse was still on the ground. As if he read her mind, the man opened her door and handed it to her.
"Your purse. You'll need that." He said and closed the door. She wanted to twist but used the side mirror but then he disappeared out of her vision. She turned around to the left and peered down for him. He was lying flat on his chest, reaching under her car, straining, and wriggling on the asphalt. She noticed something funny. He had on expensive shoes but his socks were white, visible on one leg where his pants pulled up.
Lexie twisted around, a little horrified but something else, too, something she didn't name until later, thinking about it. She turned back to stare out the windshield, her neck tickling with his presence, even outside the car. He opened the back door of her sedan and put the groceries on her back seat. Later, she called that feeling skittering along the skin of her body, being charmed. Maybe it was what the old use referred to when it was the stock and trade of witches and mystics. Now it was the savoir faire of the modern world, displayed without arrogance. Her mind had wandered so when her door opened and he climbed into the passenger seat beside her, it startled her. His pants were pulled up his legs so both white socks glowed in the footboards of her car. It was ridiculous but it seemed like they shone, with actual light.
He adjusted his pant legs, pulling them down and the light went out. When he was comfortable and the fidget was gone from his fit, angular body, he turned to her and extended a hand.
"I'm Walton Chambers, but my friends call me Walt." That smile appeared again and the colors in her car seemed to get brighter, reminding her of something, something recent.
"I'm Lexie Harcourt," she whispered. She cleared her throat. "Let me try that again. I'm Lexie Harcourt." She said, her voice made stronger by sheer will and determination. Her eyes brushed over his rumpled suit, now fouled with the detritus of the parking lot and dark, ugly smudges of oil from the asphalt. "Oh mercy, your suit is ruined!"
"It was ruined already. My car broke down and I didn't want to be left there, so I walked and walked, and then the rain came."
"Do you want me to take you somewhere, or back to your car? Surely you don't want to leave it there?"
"No. My driver's taking care of that."
