Chances

Chapter 1 -

I’ll admit, I had always thought Max was a cutie, but I never acted on it. That would just be weird, considering I thought of him like a brother. Not that I need any more.

Meet me, Zoe Brimling Sander, who is part of a family of five. Me and four older brothers. Pure. Torture. My mom and dad died when I was nine, that was eight years ago. Now, I’m seventeen.

Anyways, as I was saying about my brothers, there’s Tyler, Alex, Adrian, and Nathen. Tyler’s only two years older than me. He’s a carbon copy of my mom… in guy form. He’s got piercing blue eyes, and striking blond hair. I’ve got dull brown eyes with matching brown hair, like dad, except I don’t have the brilliant hazel eyes. Alex and Adrian are identical twins, meaning they’ve both got greenish-hazel eyes, like our dad, with dirty blond hair. They’re four years older than me. Nate, being the oldest, was put in charge of our little family. He’s got blond hair like mom, but somehow he got grey eyes. He’s ten years older than me, so he was only sixteen when my parents died in the car crash that I was in too. Since he wasn’t able to legally be in charge of us, we were handed over to our grandma in Oregon. I never met our grandfather though. He died before I was born. When Nate was nineteen, grandma was put in a retirement home, leaving us her house and nothing else. In need of money, Nate sold the house, and we got an apartment in California. My parents died while we were visiting my grandma. The boys didn’t want to go, so it was just us. Dad didn’t see the lights coming because I was distracting him. I killed our parents, and I had a scar on my side to prove it.

Nate was forced to take any job he could, so he quickly started doing handy labor work that a friend of a friend needed. Sense then he made enough money to buy a cheap car, long story short, he went to school, and became a cop. Adrian and Alex both took part-time jobs as waiters the week after they turned fifteen. They work at a snazzy Italian restaurant/hotel called La Serial. La Serial is owned by a kind, old, Italian man named Michael Serial. Last one is Tyler. Tyler is working on his studies while working part-time at Starbucks. They all forbade me from getting a job, but the year I turned sixteen, they all saved up to buy me a car. I cried. In front of me was a brand new 2014 Chevrolet Impala in white. The interior was red, and beautiful. I loved her. I named her Pala… for the ending ‘Pala’ in Impala.

They granted me permission to finally get a job at one of Nate’s friends companies once I turned seventeen. Nate’s friend, Max, said that his boss was going out of his mind doing all these small things; like getting coffee, and filing papers, while getting lunch and marking the calendar for his meetings. I would be his personal assistant.

“Are you sure, Max? I mean, I’m not as pretty as all the others I’m sure are…” I played with the tips of my honey brown hair which were coming out of my neat high-pony tail. My family all together was actually doing pretty well.

We moved out of that crap apartment and got something a little more… bachelor pad-ish. Oh, did I forget to mention the one little detail about how my brothers all put the man in ‘man-whore’?

“C’mon, Z, you’re fine!” My brothers dressed me up in something they called ‘classy’, but I called slutty. Nate and Adrian hated it, but Tyler absolutely loved it. My black dress went to mid-thigh, and matched my glassy black pumps. I hated heels. They hurt and gave me blisters, but this job was good pay, and I needed good pay. That is, if I wanted to get into a good school. My major was undecided for now, but I was leaning towards photography. I always loved taking pictures.

“Are you sure?” My dress was overlapped in lace, but had a thin black material underneath. The lace went a few inches lower than the material went, and covered above my chest. The lace is removable, but then it’s just a thin tight tube-top dress. The lace gave me sleeves until just a bit below my elbows.

“Positive.” He confirmed, grinning. Max was a good seven years older than me, which was frowned upon by Nate, Adrian, and Alex, but Tyler thought ‘who cares’. His words, not mine. Max had brown buzzed hair, with warm chocolate eyes and a deep voice. He was wearing a pair of torn jeans with black converse and a green hoodie. He was driving his silver Mercedes C250, with a beige leather interior. I had to admit, I was madly jealous of it.

“But… for real?” A smile peeked out, as he glanced at me.

“For real.” Turning his eyes back to the road, he hung one arm loosely over the steering wheel as the other was lounging out the window with his cigarette. I never liked him smoking, but he usually didn’t… when I was around.

A few turns and stop lights later, we had arrived at the large glass building. I warily stepped out, careful to put even pressure on my pumps as to not fall and break my face. What a nice first impression that would be. My HTC phone was tucked perfectly in my long black leather purse. The golden magnetic buckle kept unclasping, making my clammy fingers fumble around to get it closed.

I turned around to face the car as I slammed the door shut. The reflection on the window showed my abnormally large brown eyes nervously staring back at me.

“You can do this, Zoe. You can do this.” I whispered to myself.

“C’mon, Zo-Bear.” He hooked his arm though mine, making me grip his arm to keep from running back into the car and never coming back out. The doors slid open, sensing people walking towards them. There was a woman who sitting at the desk with a black phone pressed against her ear. She had long blond hair with brown highlights. It flowed down past the desk. Her light blue button up shirt was nearly bursting open by how large her breasts were. I could see that her shirt was tucked in by grey skirt, but I couldn’t see how long that was since she was sitting down. Yet, I didn’t think I wanted to. Max dropped my arm as he leaned forward on the counter. She smiled at him through her expensive presumably some kind of designer cherry lipstick. One word; F.A.K.E. Never the less, I sent her a smile, which she returned. I could still see the glare behind it, though.

“Hey, Abigail, how’s it going?” Max asked, lightly. She giggled and thrust her breasts forward as if he had said the funniest thing in the world.

“Oh great! What’re ya here for, Max?” She asked, batting her long thick eyelashes. I could just barely detect an accent through her voice, but it was light.

“My friend here and I wanted to go and see Bennett, is he busy?” Her lips puckered as she clicked a few things on her PC computer.

“Oh, it says here that Mr. Dominique has a meeting at three… so he should be back…” She checked her bright red watch and sent him a grin. “In about ten minutes. You’re free to wait here if ya’d like.” He sent her a curt nod, and turned to drag me away. Giving her a small smile, while muttering a quick ‘thanks’, I turned and tried jogging to keep up with him. He planted his butt on one of the four sofa chairs that were all facing a table in the middle. I had to admit, the lobby area was nice.

Since it was the middle of April, it was warming up. There were a few workers mingling around, most likely on break. We were sitting on either side of a large open door, which seemed to be a cafeteria. Lots of women wearing fancy shoes and men with nice ties were there, sipping coffee and eating sandwiches. They were all chatting and laughing. They seemed to be… enjoying themselves. Maybe working here would be fun.