The following days passed by but Frédérique couldn’t shake off whatever it was that she was feeling since she had had lunch with Richie, aggravated by the fact that she spent most of the day working on his project. She visualized him using the living room, the kitchen, in the studio with his guitars... And every time, she felt her blood sizzle.
On Monday, her office phone rang and she picked up the receiver.
“Hey, Frédérique, guess what?”
“Hi Gaby!”, she recognized her coworker’s voice. Even though they weren’t best friends, Gaby was the one Frédérique was closest to, and they had gone out a couple of times. Gaby was always aware of what was going on in New York City
“There’s a band playing tonight at ‘The Doghouse’, it’s sort of country but instrumental – lots of violins and stuff, what do you say? It starts at 10” . The Doghouse was one of New York
“Of course, that sounds great. I’ll pick you up at 9, OK?”. Gaby lived half way between Frédérique’s apartment and the bar.
“Perfect, see ya”.
The show was fantastic. Frédérique saw things being done to a violin she hadn’t imagined they were possible, and the music left her euphoric. When she went back home after dropping Gaby off, she was too excited to sleep so she just took a shower, put on her sleeping shorts and tanktop and started her laptop. She sat on the bed, crosslegged. Since she liked photography so much, she spent hours surfing the net and checking out Photographers’ sites and browsing through their work. She opened a random website and clicked on the tag that read “MUSIC”. There was a list of bands, some of them she didn’t know, they probably were new bands and she wasn’t at all in touch with what was “on” at that time. One of the names caught her attention. She giggled, covering her mouth with the back of her hand and looking to her sides as if she was doing some mischief.
She clicked on BON JOVI.
If Frédérique had been standing, she would have been knocked on her ass to the floor. Onstage and with a guitar in his hands Richie was literally sex on legs. Seeing him all sweaty, making sex faces, smiling, interacting with Jon, wearing some lame excuse for a tanktop that showed 3 quarters of his chest and his nipples, made her jaw drop. She looked at one after the other for several minutes, her eyes taking all in, staring at some more than others, even going back to look at the ones she had seen before.
All of a sudden, she realized she was aroused. What the…She shut the computer down. Don’t be stupid – she mumbled, and tucked herself into bed.
…
Frédérique was never one to jump right out of bed as soon as the alarm clock rang, so the next morning, as usual, she waited a few minutes to see if she could remember what she had dreamt about. She couldn’t, but she knew that it must have been a good dream, because she felt a kind of warmth in her heart. And down there, too. In her mind a face appeared: Richie’s.
Merde. That was going to be a long day.
…
As soon as she walked through the main doors, before Karen could even say hello, Frédérique spoke:
“Good morning, Karen!”. Karen opened her mouth to say something but was again interrupted.
“Yeah, I remember…the Sambora meeting at two, right?”
“That’s what I wanted to tell you, Frédérique: Mr. Sambora called earlier announcing that he wouldn’t be able to make it to the meeting.” Frédérique was surprised to identify a sting of disappointment, but did her best to conceal it.
“I offered to reschedule, but he insisted in speaking directly with you, do you want me to call him and put him through to your office?”.
“No, don’t worry, I have his number, I’ll do it myself. Thank you Karen, anything else for today?” Frédérique quickly tried to change the subject and recomposed herself as Karen checked the agenda and informed her of some other phone calls she had to make.
Frédérique decided to make all her other phone calls first and spent the next two hours on it. Finally, she dialed Richie’s number. This time she prepared herself in case the message box answered again, but he answered with a neutral tone before the second ring was over. His voice was a little bit different, though - raspier. Her ears tickled.
“Hello? Sambora here”
“Richie?”, she asked. Duh. “It’s Frédérique, how are you?”
“Hey darlin’” , he answered, changing his tone to a cheerful one - “I thought you’d forgotten about me”
Frédérique smiled secretively and ignored his comment. “I was told you can’t make it to the meeting. We need to reschedule for as soon as possible, we can’t go on without your approval of the preliminary ideas and we also have to go through all the paperwork. When do you think you’d be available?”. One of the pictures she had seen the night before popped into her head.
Focus damnit.
“Well, actually I’m stuck in Philly, by doctor’s order I should stay home to take care of my throat, it’s a little raw and we have a tour coming up in a few weeks, I can’t risk going out to the city, ya know. At least for a couple more days” Liar. Richie did have to take care of his throat, but he wasn’t actually under house arrest. “I was thinking maybe you could come over and we held the meeting here in my apartment?”
“Um…Today?”, she asked, trying to tone down her anxiety.
“Of course, if it’s not convenient for you I’ll understand and we can have this meeting by the end of the week”.
“No, no, there’s no problem – she hesitated a little - I had already saved myself for you this afternoon” she said. The actual sentence she was looking for was ‘I had already saved this afternoon for you’. She heard his low and throaty laughter coming through the line. Too late. Richie didn't comment, but Frédérique shut her eyes tight.
“In that case, what time should I be expecting ya?”
She looked at the time: 10.35. “I think I can make it there by 2 like we had arranged”
“Alright then” he said excitedly, “you got my address?”
“Let me see… - she looked for his file on her desk and – ...yes, here it is” – she read it to him.
“That’s right, so see ya at two?”
“Yes, see you then, bye bye”
“Bye, darlin’”
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