I’ve Got You

“Cameron, right?” Aleshia confirmed his questioning look. “Sorry, I’m Aleshia. I wandered off because I got here earlier than expected.”

“Hey, no problem. No problem at all.” Cameron gave Aleshia a quick once-over as he reached to shake her hand. She noticed the examination in wry amusement, and did one herself. Cameron Lovell displayed a radiant smile on faint bulldog like features, reminding Aleshia of Sean Connery in his younger days. He possessed a grizzled charm and heavy, hooded dark eyes that made him look as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders. Not the sort of features Aleshia imagined she would go for, but they worked well on him. The hint of muscle showed on his arms, in the way his stomach curved from his chest, like a finely sculpted Greek masterpiece.

She had to say it. Her brain already ran through comparisons. “Your eyes.”

Cameron Lovell paused, raising one eyebrow. “Yes? What about them?”

Aleshia let out a small laugh. “Sorry. I was just thinking I’ve never seen eyes like yours before. I was aggressively going over descriptions in my head with how I would describe them if I wrote about it. I write,” she added, as explanation.

Cameron followed her gush of words with interest. Rather than cut the conversation and begin the viewing of the apartment, he said, after watching Aleshia take off her sunglasses, “And how would you describe them? Are you a master poet, too?”

“I try my hand at poetry. I wouldn’t say poems are my thing. Uh… let’s try a simile.”

“Alright.”

“Your eyes are wise like mountains, the peaks ground down with the weight of what you have seen.”

The realtor nodded. “Nice. They seem wise to you?”

“Yes. My mom would describe them as weary eyes, an old soul on a young body. She liked spiritualism.”

“Hmm. I’m liking these descriptions. Maybe you are a writer, after all. I’m suitably impressed.” He gave a little bow to her, before pointing at the condo, silver keys dangling from his hand. “But enough. We’re distracting ourselves.”

“When’s your next client today, then?” Aleshia stepped up behind him as he drove the key into the lock, turning his wrist.

“Not for another three hours. We have some time to kill. I have two other letting properties on the list nearby for us to view – so we can get a taste of what it is you’re looking for.”

Following behind the realtor, Aleshia took the time to examine the inside of the condo, with the gleaming white walls, and security cameras fixed on the ceiling. They headed to an elevator, which rested on the ground floor. Inside, a mirror faced them, and much to Cameron’s amusement, Aleshia took the time to bare her teeth in a fierce smile, and run fingers over her eyes and cheeks.

“Enjoying yourself?”

Finishing the inspection, Aleshia brushed back wayward strands of hair, affording the realtor a sweet smile. “Sure am.” The elevator stopped at floor four. Cameron walked to hold the door open, allowing Aleshia to clop out.

“Any particular reason you decided to preen yourself in front of the mirror?”

“It’s something I like to do. I pull silly faces in my bathroom mirror as well.” Aleshia grinned. She debated, before relenting and giving Cameron a further explanation. “I started doing this in my last apartment. Woke up in the mornings for my job, rode the elevator down, usually empty, so I would either pull faces for the reflection or make sure I hadn’t missed anything. It was kind of my morning and evening ritual. Relaxed me.” She gave a shrug.

“I guess I can understand that. I have a morning ritual, but it generally involves coffee and thumbing through my phone on the toilet.” Cameron answered her grin with a wicked one of his own.

“Oh God, I do that too. Except that’s when I plan to shower but I get distracted by whatever it is that happens to be on the phone.”

Striding up to room 4B, Cameron unlocked this one as well, keys jangling together. The door groaned open, unveiling a room of dazzling white and yellow carpets and walls. Aleshia glanced around as Cameron started the typical introductions, indicating where the lounge, kitchen, bedroom and bathrooms were with a sweep of his arm, explaining that the owners of the whole building were an elderly couple who lived in the Bahamas. At $1500 a month for a two-bedroom place, it wasn’t the cheapest, but certainly not the worst, either.

However, even as Aleshia smiled and nodded, nothing stood out to her. It looked nice, immaculately so, but it felt soulless to her. Cameron Lovell detected the disapproval in her face, saw the way she slowly inspected the rooms.

“Not up your alley, I take it?”

“Not really. It’s nice, but it doesn’t do it for me. I mean. I like the view. I can see it’s kept well. It’s just… missing something. Like I’m not the first person to go running to when it comes to choosing things, but I don’t think this is it.”

“Ah, yes. Vaneese warned me about that,” Cameron said. “She told me you had the worst taste in things anyone could ever comprehend, and she wouldn’t let you touch a box of paints and color in her walls at any point.”

“That sounds like her.”

“Next apartment, then?”

“Sure.” Aleshia smiled as he gently guided her back through the door, closing it behind them.

The journey to the next place took five minutes, with Aleshia being shunted into a classic Chevrolet Impala. “Class of ’71,” Cameron stated. “Rebuilt engine and interior’s had new leather seats, but kept the body the same. My dad’s a mechanic, he loves tinkering with cars.”

Aleshia took the time to admire the dark blue body of the car, the elongated hood, and the black upholstery inside, giving off a distinctive, leathery smell. She liked the way the seats creaked under her, the same sound her leather gloves made when she flexed them or rubbed them against her palms.

The next apartment again offered a similar layout. The views were almost identical, the décor focused instead on greens and oranges. Pictures hung on the walls, of beautiful landscapes from around the world. Again, Aleshia didn’t feel any pull or attachment to it.

“I’m sorry. It could be that I just won’t find anything so amazing. But I can settle for one of them, just so my sister isn’t going to keep kicking me up the ass every second until I’m near her.”

Cameron seemed a little put out by the fact she was showing no interest. “We’ll take you to the next one. However, I fully expect to deliver you something you’ll love. It’s my job to make my clients happy, not just hoist on them something that’s kind of okay and then they throw money at me. Onward to the next property.”

“If you say so,” Aleshia said. “I just don’t find this kind of thing interesting. My sister, now, she can spend hours in a shop. It can be hours hunting down dresses and shoes, or one afternoon picking out the perfect color to decorate her bedroom wall for the fifth time, since she likes shaking things up. I think she uses the excuse that it’s all to do with Feng Shui. Or something.”

“Ah. Is she the type who moves the position of her bed every two weeks as well?”

“She’s exactly that type,” Aleshia laughed, as they walked out of the building to Cameron’s Impala, once again flumping out on the seats. A glare of sunlight forced her to slide her glasses back over her eyes. She didn’t like going to the apartments and staring at them, trying to come up with comments that made her sound like she might be slightly interested in them when nothing grabbed her attention, and she would rather just go home and work on more marketing reports and that new novel she was halfway through editing for a client. However, she did like talking to Cameron. Conversation flowed easy and fresh like a sea breeze between them.