Haze - By Andrea Wolfe Page 0,2

white smile nearly blinding, his body taut and perfectly muscular. Probably six foot three, he towered over my meager five foot four. Freshly clean shaven, but would have been perfectly fine with stubble. Classically beautiful, yet modern, urbane.

I couldn't break eye contact with him once it began, his eyes so green, so striking that I could almost drown in them. He was clad in a nice pair of light brown slacks—almost the same color as his hair—that complemented his charcoal sports coat and dress shirt. There was something terribly interesting about him.

He was like the perfect blend of artsy and business oriented. His attire was an obvious attempt to look the professional part, yet his messy brown hair seemed to reveal something entirely different, the tufts flowing in every possible direction. It was just long enough that you could pull on it...

"God, I'm so sorry," he said. "I'm Jack. I didn't see you there." He reached out his hand to shake mine—and time seemed to stop.

Dammit, why was this happening to me?

I froze. Honestly, it was as if I were at the subway. I was stuck, my mind in some other space entirely as the world roared around me. And then, everything rushed back at once, an explosion of lights and colors and sounds. "I'm Effie!" I said. It came out far louder—and excitable—than I intended.

"Let me get you some paper towel," he said as he disappeared around the corner. I heard some mumbling in the background and then suddenly wondered if he was actually going to come back. If he was a super stuck-up businessman, he might just walk out instead of dealing with the undignified hassle of bringing poor me paper towel.

It also seemed very possible that the whole encounter had just been my mind playing tricks on me. Maybe Jack Teller was just an apparition. So many possibilities and so little time to deal with them.

"God, I'm so sorry," he said as he handed me a wad of paper towel. He came back! "I was late, and then I rushed in and—"

"No, no, it's okay," I said, wanting to avoid any additional apologies on his part.

"Effie, what the hell happened?" Sam had stepped into the doorway and only saw me wiping down my blouse with paper towels. A look of horror formed on his face when he realized that his star potential client was standing right next to me. "J-jack?" he mumbled, half to himself, half to Jack.

"Hi, Sam. Jack Teller, as you probably already knew. Sorry, I'm late. Long night in the studio."

Sam's perplexed look was almost as mesmerizing as Jack's beauty. "Uh, Effie, do you have a change of clothes? Why don't you go switch out of those—"

"I think she looks great," Jack said with a smile. "Take a seat, Effie." He was giving my name a test drive after hearing Sam say it.

I blushed and stood there silently for a few seconds, entirely unsure of whose orders I should take. However, my gut told me to sit down. "You can barely see the stain," I said proudly as I reoccupied my former chair.

"Sure, sure, right." Sam closed the door and then walked past me and sat down where he had been before. "Mr. Teller, I really can't tell you how thrilled I am to have you here. You could do huge things with MCI." His tone was ingratiating.

"I'll see what you have to offer my client, and then I'll make my decision." Jack's words were firm, yet reasonable.

The two men started to converse somewhat rapidly, exchanging terms that I didn't understand, making references that were lost on me. I began admiring Jack's cadence when he spoke. The words seemed to flow effortlessly from him, the rhythm so subtle and controlled. There was a tiny twitch in his lip that seemed to surface after every couple of sentences, almost as if his muscles were trying to get in their fair say as well.

I almost burst out laughing at the though.

My mind started crawling toward the gutter, something that was incredibly unusual for me. I don't know if it was the boring subject matter or what, but I imagined my hands in Jack's hair, holding on tightly as he had his way with me. Something—well, Sam, more precisely—told me that Jack was very good at most things he did, and I was certain that the bedroom was another area where he excelled.

"And will Ms. Effie," he trailed off. "What's your last name? I didn't get it