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"Have a good day now." He continued out the doors without another glance back, his perfect ass seeming to wave goodbye as he disappeared into the parking lot, granting her no further thought.
The second time it happened, she was at the coffee shop. A long line was the norm at the small local roaster, always busy, but she never minded, for the Black Sheep Beanery provided excellent people watching. Her eyes picked out a couple on the side of the counter waiting for their order, a tall satyr with thick dark hair, the same color as his hocked lower legs, a human-looking woman pressed his back with her arms around his waist, a billow of blonde curls behind her. And there, over at the first table on the far wall, a muscle bound human-looking man sat with a sleek woman with wings and wide lion's paws, crossed daintily at the ankle.
See?she told herself.There are other human-looking people here, you're not the only one.The man turned in his seat, laughing at something the woman had said and opening the newspaper on the table before them, and Moriah realized a single eye sat in the center of his broad face. The cyclops laughed again, leaning in to kiss his winged companion, and she looked away, face heating.You've never been self-conscious in all the years you've lived here, don't start acting this way now. Look, the people right in front of you! You fit in just fine.
The couple before her in line were indeed as human-looking as she, sporting matching tans and an exhausted air. The petite woman wore a short sundress, and the unbroken line of her bronzed skin whispered of a sun-soaked vacation as she slumped against her tall companion's mountain-like frame, her eyes closed as if she had fallen asleep standing up.
"I amnotready to go back to work.” The man's voice was a deep, rich scrape of petulance, and Moriah watched in fascination as he ran a hand through the woman's waterfall of sable hair. They seemed to exist in their own little bubble, unaware of anyone around them, and she tried to imagine where they had been.
“What were we thinking, coming home? We should fly back tonight.”
Perhaps trekking through the remains of ancient cultures on southern hemisphere beaches, the theme of several excursion moodboards she’d made for one of her fantasy trips, or maybe riding horses in the surf at some northern fishing town, the corresponding aesthetic board done up in moody marine blues and greens with pops of sun-dappled yellow and gold. Or more likely, she considered, taking in the man’s expensive-looking watch and the diamonds sparkling heavily from the woman’s wrist and earlobes, some private island resort, with all-inclusive everything and a swim-up bar. She was able to see the crystal blue water and pink-hued sunset in her mind’s eye, having watched more travel videos than she could count for the exact type of place.And you’ve still never been anywhere. This is the stuff you ought to be doing before you get pregnant.
“Oh yeah? What are we going to do, convince the locals to sue the sharks so we each have someone to represent?”
The woman’s smile warmed her voice, her eyes never opening as the man’s huge hand continued down her spine, coming to rest at the small of her back before answering decisively.
“I can be a fisherman, and you can make shell art."
Moriah ducked her head to hide her smile as the woman lifted her face from the man's chest with outraged laughter, pushing against him.
“Wow, am I supposed to pay for your beachfront massages with my shell art business? Youdounderstand that being a fisherman doesn't actually mean someone serves you lobster and champagne every day at 3 PM, right? Because you got pretty used to that.”
"But that's what itshouldmean. We can explain that once we get there. I don’t think I can ever be happy with one of your terrible blow jobs again if there’s not a school of fish watching us from the floor."
Moriah knew she had turned as red as a tomato from eavesdropping on the couple’s conversation, but the woman continued to laugh, scraping her nails down the front of the man's chest until he turned to acknowledge a passerby who called out to him in greeting.
He had a striking profile — a sharp, square jaw and a strong chin, straight nose, his eyes fringed in a thick fan of soot-black lashes. It was a profile she knew well, even if this stranger’s was a bit more chiseled and severe. When he glanced swiftly back over his shoulder, as the other patron moved on, his eyes met hers briefly, a lightning fast up and down followed by a flare of his nostrils, before the dark-haired woman tugged his hand and the couple shuffled forward in line. He was handsome but hard, his familiar features holding an icy edge. Even still, she was unsurprised by the quicksilver gleam she saw in the dark depths of his eyes. He didn't possess the same air of energetic mischief as Lowell and he was at least a decade older, but the resemblance was uncanny.
“You know, I'm not sure they would let us stay, you would force them to overfish the reef," the woman continued, unerred by their conversation’s brief disruption. "You ate an entire lobster every day for a snack.”
"What exactly are you trying to say? I'm playing racquetball with my brother in forty minutes and then I'm going to the gym, so it’s unclear what your point is, counselor."
“The point is we had to come home, becauseIhave a trial to prepare for, Mr. Hemming.”
“I can’t fucking stand you,” the man grumbled against the top of her head, but the woman only continued to laugh, dropping against the man's chest again as his hand settled over her hip. Moriah swallowed at the sight of his dark hair, the back of his head even seeming familiar.That’s too big of a coincidence.
The final straw came maybe a week later, when she'd been coming out of a meeting with a client. The tiefling and her partner had recently purchased a second home on the coast, hiring Moriah to give the outdated bungalow a serene, beachy wash. She had explained that it was necessary tofeelthe difference in the several jute samples she'd picked out for the sun medallion-shaped area rug they’d chosen, and had no problem meeting the tiefling at her office.
The elevator doors were already sliding shut when a large hand cut through the narrow space, the doors reversing instantly. Moriah was glad that she had already been leaning against the railing at the back wall, as she likely would have fallen over otherwise. The young man never paused his phone conversation, reaching out a long finger to jab at the numbers. The same long fingers that had moved over her body and stroked into her heat, curling into her, his wrist thrusting until she had bucked against his hand, leaving the long digits coated in her slick, which he had sucked clean before kneeing open her thighs and settling himself between them. The same lips that had kissed her, the same tongue that had brought her so much pleasure, now engaged in a one-sided phone conversation, paying her no mind, as if she were a stranger.
It was distressing to see him there before her, toseehim and be utterly invisible. The air in her lungs seemed to freeze and expand, pushing against her chest until she was practically left gasping as he laughed, that too feeling overly intimate in this unfamiliar space. She could still feel the silken weight of his hair between her fingers as she gripped the back of his head for support, his hand loose at her throat, his breath hot at her face as she moved against him, gaining extra bounce from where her knees pressed into the pillow-top mattress. The stretch of his thick shaft was a delicious pressure, and after every upward roll of her hips, she came down on the swollen protuberance of his knot, pressing determindley against the mouth of her sex, begging entrance, promising a pain-pricked pleasure that would turn the world white and gold, shimmering with sparks as she lost herself against him.
To be ignored so utterly by him after they had done what they had done together, after sharing what they had shared, was not an experience by which she could abide.
The shots administered by the clinic made her irrational, made every emotion feel fraught and closer to the surface, and her face was hot when she spun towards him, fully prepared to give him a piece of her mind as quickly as she could before the tears begin to fall, but he never turned in her direction, and in facing his profile, she was able to see the subtle differences she had missed initially. This man's hair was shorter and neater, his smooth jawline absent the five o’clock shadow that had scraped against her thighs, his nose possessing a slight upturn. His voice, while similar in tone, had a different timber and flow, and his laugh wasn’t as infectious. He didn't jiggle his foot impatiently as he waited for the elevator to arrive at the eighth floor, nor were his hands fidgeting at his side. He didn't sparkle, she decided, despite being equally as handsome.
The elevator bounced to a soft stop and the man exited when the doors rolled open without even glancing back to where she stood, her mouth still hanging open but her tears, thankfully, tamped down.
"Mr. Hemming, just who I wanted to speak with."
She watched as another body fell into step beside him, moving away from the elevator, and the familiar man’s unfamiliar voice was the last thing she heard as the doors slid closed
“I'm on my way over to dev, so if you can walk with me, I'm all ears."
Mr. Hemming.She jolted. The couple from the coffee shop. The same name was bestowed onthatman who also bore more than just a passing resemblance to Lowell, and she had a feeling if she’d been able to read the writing on the front of the navy blue polo shirt straining over the bulging pectorals of the gorgeous man with the brilliant smile in the grocery store, the white stitching would have spelled out the same name. As the elevator arrived at her floor, she remembered with a gasp that he had a twin, the reason why she'd almost not chosen him.And you just rode up with him,she realized.
Moriah wasn't sure why the name seemed as familiar as it did, as if she'd heard it before it in a completely different context, like a nondescript shadow at the back of her memory. She put the incident out of mind as she approached her client’s office, deciding she would look up the name later to determine why it seemed familiar to her, but she never got that far. She had barely pulled out of the complex's parking lot before she passed the first sign, and once she passed the first, the next five and ten and twenty seemed to scream out to her — from shop windows, street corners, from her neighbor’s yards as she pulled onto her street.Hemming for Mayor.
