~ Fantasy Lover Part 7 ~
Hours later, Grace sighed as she opened the door to her two story home and stepped into her polished foyer. She tossed her handful of mail onto the antique drop-leaf table by her staircase before she shut and locked the door behind her, then dropped her keys next to the mail. As she pulled off her black high heels, silence rang in her ears and a lump settled deep in her chest. Every night she followed the same innocuous routine. Come home to an empty house, drop her mail on the table, trudge upstairs to change, eat a small meal, sort the mail, read a book, call Selena, check her answering machine, then go to bed. Selena was right, Grace's life was a short, boring study in monotony. And at twenty-nine, Grace was tired of it. Heck, even Jamie the nose picker was starting to look good. Well, maybe not Jamie, and most especially not Jamie's nose, but surely was someone out there who wasn't a cretin.
Wasn't there? As Grace headed up the stairs, she decided that living by herself wasn't so terribly awful. At least she had plenty of time to devote to her hobbies. Or to develop some hobbies, she thought as she walked down the hallway toward her bedroom. One day, she really was going to get herself a hobby. She crossed her bedroom and dropped her shoes by the bed, then quickly changed. She'd just finished pulling her hair up into a ponytail when the doorbell rang. Heading back downstairs, she went to let Selena in. As soon as the door opened, Selena huffed, "You're not wearing that tonight, are you?" Grace looked down at the holes in her jeans and her oversized t-shirt. "Since when did you start caring about what I look like?" Then she saw it in the huge wicker bag Selena used to carry her groceries. "Ugh, not that book again." Looking a bit peeved, Selena said, "You know what your problem is, Gracie?" Grace looked up at the ceiling seeking heavenly help. Unfortunately, none was forthcoming. "What? That I don't go moon-crazy and throw myself at every guy I meet?" "That you don't know just how adorable you really are." While Grace stood dumbfounded by such a uncharacteristic remark, Selena took the book into her living room, and set it on the coffee table. Next, Selena removed the wine from her bag, and headed for the kitchen. Grace didn't bother to follow after her. She'd called for pizza after work, and she knew Selena was just getting wine glasses. As if pulled by an unseen hand, Grace felt herself drawn toward the coffee table and the book. Unbidden, her hand reached out for it, and as she touched the soft leather, she could almost swear she felt something brush her cheek. This was ridiculous. You don't believe in this stuff. Grace ran her hand over the smooth, perfect leather, noting that no lettering or title appeared anywhere on it. She opened the cover. This was the strangest book she'd ever seen. The pages looked as if they had once been some kind of a scroll or something that had later been bound into book form. The bleached parchment crinkled under her fingers as she turned to the first page and saw an intricate emblem of painted scrollwork that had three intersecting triangles and a beguiling image of three women united by swords. Frowning, Grace vaguely recalled it was some sort of ancient Greek symbol. Even more intrigued than before, she flipped through the book only to find it was completely empty except for the three pages..... How weird. It must have been some sort of sketchbook for an artist or a sculptor, she decided. That would be the only explanation for why the pages were left blank. Something must have happened before the artist had time to add anything more to the book. But that didn't explain why the pages looked a whole lot older than the binding..... Flipping back to the drawing of the man, she studied the writing across the page from him but couldn't make any of it out. Unlike Selena, she'd avoided language classes in college like they were poison, and if not for Selena, she would never had passed that part of her core curriculum at all. "It's definitely Greek to me," she said under her breath, then she returned her attention to the man. He was amazing. So very perfect and inviting. And so, so, so incredibly sexy. Completely captivated by him, she wondered how long it would take to make a drawing so perfect. Someone must have spent years on it, because the guy literally looked as if he could step right off the page and into her house.
