Part Two: Making Plans For Nigel

Words For Smooth by Santana and Rob Thompson
Oh, and my apologies to XTC, lol.

Sydney didn’t know what to think. He certainly didn’t say a word about it to her, and now she was beginning to understand why… Karen had been a little too chipper, too happy-go-lucky, she thought. And when she asked to borrow a suitcase for some trip she was taking, the girl had an absolute GLOW. Sydney was sure that it could only be over some guy, but never in a million years did she ever think it could be over her Nigel!

She sat in her car with the top down just fuming, her jet black hair flying wildly in the hot summer breeze as she drove home and flicked on the radio… Smooth…

…well I'll tell you one thing. If you would leave it be a crying shame. In every breath and every word I hear you name calling me out. Out from the barrio, you hear my rhythm on the radio. You feel the turning of the world so soft and slow, turning you round and round…

Perfectly suitable, she thought, for her current love life, or lack there-of. She had seen to that in no uncertain terms! Good job Sydney, give yourself a big pat on the back! Difficult at the best of times, Sydney rarely recognised her failings to anyone, and Nigel would just have to understand that. He balked big time when she told him he had to keep quiet about their loss to everyone and anyone at the college. He had already told Karen, too late for that, but she made him promise on his mother’s grave to not tell another living soul.

Her unreasonable demands were what created the current rift between them in the first place, and she wasn’t going to back down no matter how much he caterwauled. It hurt her too much to think about it, let alone talk about it. Nothing ever effected her like losing Sophie did, and maybe she did handle it all the wrong way, but that was the only way she knew how to cope. She had been taught from an early age to deny what you were feeling if it got in the way of your life.

She’d set him free… told him that they could never go back. Hell, she already broken his heart twice, once more wouldn’t be that bad, right? He was a big boy, he would certainly recover. How many times did he come to her to try and get her to open up, only to have her turn him away? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

This truly was all her fault, she literally drove him off, what else was he supposed to do, she asked herself. Wait for her all his life and hope she would come to her senses sometime this century? Sydney knew then and there what a huge mistake she had made, and now there was another woman zeroing in on what she considered her personal property. Far be it for Sydney to get territorial at this stage of the game, but man, this was Nigel they were talking about!

Catalina was gorgeous this time of year, and when Nigel mentioned in passing that he was going she almost asked to join him, but thankfully she stopped herself. Karen’s appearance into this folly only confirmed that Syd had been right to keep her cool and say nothing. After all, it wasn't Karen who pushed him away he needed someone willing to listen.

The sexy, blonde and beautiful Karen Petrusky had been only too willing to let him cry on her shoulder, and whatever else he might have bumped into… He was a man with all the normal appetites, and she knew them well. They were carved into her memory with the precision of a laser. Irremovable. Karen and Nigel had been spending a lot of their down time in one another’s company, Sydney wasn’t blind, but to be going on vacation together?

Sighing, she had to hand it to her love savvy secretary, she wasn’t just a pretty face, she had a brain to go along with it! And who could blame her? When someone like Nigel Bailey comes along and wants to pour his heart out, irresistible did come to mind. He was the kind of guy you wanted to mother, and when he whined about it you think he’s being cute. Sydney made it clear she was finished with him, she was so sure…or was she?

Sydney, in an unusual pattern of behavoir, grabbed her cell phone and dialed. "Hello, I need a ticket out to LA. Today."

Karen wasn’t the only one making plans for Nigel…

Go to Part Three.


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