Alpha Obsession

Chapter 45.5

How I met your mother

When she walked onto the pale office floor that I'd been working in for five agonizing years, it was like a splash of color leaked in from another dimension and then exploded. Her scarlet stiletto heels clipped straight through the hard white ceramic tiles and inflamed the floor with each step she took. Her intricate yellow skirt danced and spun sunflowers around her swaying hips as she strut through the aisle. Her radiant orange top had a jaw-dropping ruby rose blossoming on the right shoulder and seemed to give the room an actual heartbeat for the first time.

She frightened me. If there was anything I'd learned from past relationships, it was the fact that bold women were dangerous. It was something they took pride in, and Ley Angelo was the personification of confidence and boldness. She wore an outfit like that to a business meeting with a bunch of middle-aged grizzly editors for crying out loud!

So, naturally, I ignored her to the best of my ability. I had enough to remind me of my potbelly and shaggy hair without having to look at someone so far out my depth. If I hadn't been promoted to assistant editor just the week before, I wouldn't have had to deal with Ley at all and she would have walked right past my desk without sparing me a second glance.

Funny how fate works, isn't it?

"Adrian Kent? I am Ley Angelo from the-" I held up a hand quickly to halt her introduction. It was pointless since I already knew damn well who she was.

"Save it, let me save you some time. Bluntly, you want to be featured, we want to feature something colorful, and that is why you are here. Sit, produce the files, and we'll filter down the selection to two pieces before moving them off to the editor." The words came from my lips like fine-tuned machinery. It was my default mechanism and I wasn't afraid to use it. I decided that I'd rather be harsh and rude than be a fearful and stuttering idiot when in the face of someone so intimidating.

Ley, was not happy with my tone, but she went along with it anyway. She took a seat by my desk and I did everything I virtually could to erase her presence from my mind while we went over the photos she brought. Her perfume was bewitching and her voice was that of a siren. So every bit of willpower I had went into ignoring her, even when speaking to her. I was precise with my words and quick with my reactions to move everything along as fast as I could. Going through dozens of options in mere seconds a piece.

But the woman was not oblivious obviously. "Why are you in such a hurry? I thought writers and editors were supposed to be careful and meticulous. It's one of the things I find so fascinating about your work," she declared calmly.

My blood went cold travelling down my spine, but I managed to restrain the shiver. I gathered my nerve and managed one quick respite, "my work does not reflect myself. I do my job, and that is all, Mrs. Angelo." But I made a fatal mistake as well. Without thinking, "someone like you would not understand my position," I challenged the wicked enchantress.

She replied quietly, "so you say," and I thought myself the winner. Had I looked into her eyes at that moment, I would have heard the silent, "...for now," that followed. The meeting ended just as promptly as it began with the most rushed selection of my career. Thankfully, all of the options were good enough to be presented.

The next day, however, Ley returned. She stepped from the elevator door and that same explosion of colors followed her into the room. She walked straight toward my center-room desk and placed a ruby-red apple on my desk before turning on a different pair of heels. She left without saying a word and I stared at that apple like it was cancerous for what felt like hours.

She returned the following day and looked me straight in the eyes as she walked around my desk and spoke to Andrew- my assistant- who was always close by. She left, once again with saying a word. I later found that she had asked him when my next day off would be. Needless to say, I was literally quaking in my boots. That office had been my entire mono-toned world for years as I climbed up the ranks. Yet after just a couple more visits, it felt like a battlefield.

Ley would stride in with some variation of bright reds, deep oranges, and enrapturing yellows every day. Her steely gray eyes would throw invisible hammers at my mental walls with every determined glance in my direction. All of it just to suck the color away back with her as she quietly exited. On the day before my one day off in the week, she placed a slip of paper with her phone number and a time frame.

When the day came and I refused to leave my bed as I often did on Sundays, I was hesitant. It went without saying that Ley would be expecting a call from me for some inconceivable reason. Yet, my mind raced with the awful possibilities that it implied. I was an aging single man who didn't have any skill in socializing with attractive women. So, can you imagine what I did?

I called her and hung up right after. The phone rang just twice before my nerve broke down and I started immediately kicking myself for being so childish. I rolled out of bed and was halfway to crawling through the door when a loud ring paralyzed my body. In my panic, I'd never even imagined she'd just call me back right away.

With trembling fingers, I answered and listened to her voice, "Mr. Kent! What a surprise! I'm so glad you decided to reach out to me. I was just in the middle of planning my evening and noticed that I have two tickets to a showing on Broadway. Would you mind accompanying me tonight?"

I would have said no. If she had given me the chance to put up my shields, but she didn't.

"What was that? You will? I look forward to it as well. It can be such a dreadful feeling to go to these kinds of showing alone, so I am grateful you accepted," she steamrolled me into a corner with her quick thinking.

That was how it started. I showed up at the theater with a dull suit and tie, expecting her to be disappointed in every way, but she wasn't. Her mission was to enjoy the night, and mine was to survive it, but little by little, her mission became mine as well. She asked a hundred questions and answered a hundred more than I asked.

Ley made me agree to meeting again outside of work. She would still show up like an alien color invasion at work every day, and sometimes leave a touch of color behind. We began seeing so much of each other that people thought we were dating, but I didn't. I thought she was just proving a point. Proving that Ley Angelo could win over any man she chose.

So, After a few months, when she called to say, "we need to talk," I expected the pleasant ruse to be over and done. Even so, I was happier than I ever had been in my life. She had shifted my entire world away from work and toward hers.

We met in a quiet park near her home and she said, "I've been waiting for a while now for you to say the words every woman wants to hear, but I realize that you aren't going to say it first. You're too stubborn, Adrian Kent. I know you well enough to know that you still don't see how much I've fallen for you, and I know you never will if I'm not the first one to say it." She took a deep breath and fired those steel gray laser beams at me before saying, "I love you, Adrian."

I opened my mouth to fumble and fluster like a fool, but she held up a hand.

"Save it, let me save you some time. I know that I love you, I know that it's shocking, and...I know that you love me too," she said sharply with a smile.

It was at that moment, and only that moment, did I realize I'd fallen for Ley Angelo. It was a blur, it was messy, and I was undoubtedly unaware of most of it, but that is how I met your mother.

Were you surprised by any parts of this little story? :3 I had a lot of small scenes in mind when I was thinking of the story of how they met, so it was really tricky condensing it into something that would make sense in just one chapter. I hope it didn't feel too rushed or forced, but I feel like you can probably imagine what kind of relationship they developed. This was at least a year or two before Jake was born and the description isn't necessarily the same as it is in the current timeline (because of course, people change)

you also get a glimpse as to where Jake gets his brass from lol. Who do you think he takes after more, Mom or Dad?