This Can't be Life Read Free Page A

patronizing smile.
    “I’m Darryl Withers,” he announced, with an air of arrogance, making sure he wouldn’t be ignored. We shook his hand as Deon kept his stare on Simone, who had yet to say one word.
    “What’s up, Simone? You can’t speak?” Deon asked, with a smile on his face. Simone never came off as rude. It seemed to be more of a shy thing when, in actuality, that was the furthest from the truth. Simone was aloof and didn’t get excited about much, especially a man.
    “Hi, Deon. Nice to meet you, Darryl Withers. I’m Simone Johnson.” She put the emphasis on their last names as Darryl had when he introduced himself. I kicked her under the table and tried to hold in my laughter. It was funny how this guy was throwing around his last name like we didn’t already know who he was. He said it like he thought we should get excited or something.
    “You still not dating, Simone? Or what is it tonight? Not interested or not in the mood to meet new people?” Deon asked, shining his beautiful smile on our table.
    “Actually, Deon, tonight’s your night. You ready to go?” she asked, with a smile on her face and her hand on her Rasta L.A.M.B. clutch.
    “Yup. Sure am.” He grabbed her hand and helped her up from the table.
    “Are you good, Talise? Stacey should be here in a few.” Simone asked.
    “Um, yeah, I’m cool,” I said, shaking my head up and down with my mouth hung slightly open. I was beyond surprised as I watched them walk out the side door of the bar.
    As if on cue, Darryl sat directly across from me and immediately began to get on my last damned nerve with his arrogance. He continually talked about himself for at least five minutes, never once taking a break to even take a sip of his drink. He didn’t ask me one question and had the nerve to ask if I was going home with him. As I saw Stacey walking in and heading toward the table, I decided to get a couple of things straight with Mr. Feeling-Himself-Too-Much.
    “Why would I go home with you? First of all, you don’t even know my name. Didn’t even bother to ask. Secondly, you don’t know one thing about me, so I see how you get down. I wouldn’t touch your dick with my toe. Now, if you’d excuse me, I’d appreciate it. I’m expecting someone and you’re in his seat.” I smiled sweetly, never once breaking our eye contact. He got up and walked off without another word, right in time for Stacey to slide into his seat. I couldn’t hold my laughter any longer as I recounted the events of the past 20 minutes to Stacey.
    A knock on my office door jolted me from my reverie. I looked up to see Jose Ramirez, the VP of the company I work for, standing in my doorway holding his briefcase. Most of the time, he wasn’t a bad guy to work for. He has a bad reputation for being flirty with the women in the office, but he’d never been inappropriate with me. Therefore, we had no problems.
    “Good morning, Talise. How’re you feeling today?” Jose asked.
    “Fine, thanks. How are you, Jose?” I asked, trying to sound like I really gave a damn, because I didn’t.
    “Pretty good, thanks.”
    “So today is the big day. Are you excited?” I got up, grabbed my briefcase, and passed him heading out of my office into the hallway.
    “Well, it’s not everyday that you close on a $20,000,000 project. We’ve put a lot of long hours into getting this contract, so I guess I can say I’m excited! It is well overdue. But, you know, Talise,” he reflected, “I can honestly say that without all the effort and overtime that you put into this project, we wouldn’t have gotten this far. You have really represented our firm well. With your face being the only one that they’ve really seen throughout these past few months, I’m sure they’ve taken a real liking to you. Especially that…what’s his name?” he asked, snapping his fingers, pretending to jog his memory. We walked side by side down the hall toward the conference room where the meeting