Don't Fall in Love with Me

Scarlett was more than thrilled to be back in the Big Apple. After all, home was the most comforting place after spending over a week in Vegas and the better part of the day with Brayden signing a contract that she knew would bring nothing but trouble. The only relinquishing factor was that, for the first time in a long time, she had money in her pockets.
Brayden had forwarded a hundred thousand dollars into her new bank account before she left and said the other eight hundred thousand would be forwarded into her account by the end of the week. The other 4 million dollars would be settled when their contract terminated at the end of January.

After she had signed the contract, Scarlett did not wasted a second. She immediately packed her things, called a taxi and took the first flight back to New York. She had not even said goodbye to Brayden.

She feared that if she stayed a second longer with him, she would lose her mind, and her senses, and do something that they would both later regret. There was just something about seeing her ex-lover again that made her uneasy.

It was awkward to talk, even more awkward not to. Scarlett was just glad that she only had to endure a few family dinners with him - and luckily enough they would eb surrounded by at least a dozen other people. She couldn’t stand being alone with Brayden for more than 5 minutes ever again.

Fumbling around her purse for the apartment keys, Scarlett exited the elevator and made her way down the corridor to the apartment she shared with her best friend Taylor Hope. She first met Taylor when she had moved into her foster family. Taylor had already been living with the Parsons for a month, but was extremely troubled and difficult to deal with. She refused to speak or make any sounds, save for her screams that occurred in the middle of every night without fail.

One night, awoken by the screaming, Scarlett wandered inside Taylor’s room. By the time she was inside, Taylor had half her body out the window of the two story brick house. She almost screamed, herself, worrying that Taylor was trying to kill herself, but calmed down when Taylor spoke. It was the first time she ever heard her speak and Scarlett was taken aback by the bell-like quality of her voice.

“Shh... Come with me,” she had said. They ended up on the rooftop. It was there where Taylor went whenever she had a nightmare. Taylor told Scarlett that save for her name, she could not remember a thing from her past. Touched by Taylor sharing something so personal with her, Scarlett gave her a last name - Hope. Scarlett told her all about her life before she ended up with The Parsons. She told her about the rich boys, the rich girls, the crazy parties. She told her about her friends, her parents, and of course, she told Taylor about Brayden.

That night marked the beginning of an indestructible friendship. The days following that only made them stronger. Sometimes Scarlett would feel nostalgic about her parents and wander into Taylor’s room to sleep. Other times, Taylor would find herself in Scarlett's because of the insomnia and the nightmares she had. There were no questions when they left The Parsons to attend NYU together and definitely no questions when they graduated and moved in together.

Scarlett smiled, ecstatic, as she pushed the front door open. She hadn’t spoken to any of her friends since Dave stole her cellphone and God had she missed them. “Tay!” She shouted as she walked inside and then dropped all her belongings on the floor. The door clicked closed smoothly behind her as she gawked at her naked boss who casually walked out of her kitchen with what was unmistakeably her chocolate pudding.

“Scarlett!” Andrew Morgan said when he saw her. “Where the hell have you been for the last week and a half? I was on the edge of firing you. Wasn’t your weekend at Vegas only supposed to be a weekend?”

Scarlett had always thought that Andrew was hot. Then again, so did the entire female staff at Cosmopolitan magazine. It was odd, however, that he was the head of a magazine directed at females, and Scarlett, the daredevil, had told him so once. He winked and said, “Well, that just shows I know what a woman wants. In bed and everywhere else.”

She could see now Andrew seriously was not the body builder type. His was lean and thin but his stomach did have defined abs. Scarlett always thought his biceps were his best feature. Sure, he had a nice face, nice hair, nice eyes, but his biceps were the perfect sort of muscled arms that she liked. But now that he stood stark naked in front of her, Scarlett realized she was wrong. So wrong. She could not prevent her eyes from darting down. Andrew’s best feature was definitely elsewhere on his body.

“Scarlett?” Andrew chuckled and walked right up to her, lifting her chin up with one finger so that her light green eyes met his dark, deep ones. “My face” he said, “is up here.”

Scarlett slapped his hand away. “And that’s my chocolate pudding you’re eating asshole,” she said before realizing there was absolutely no reasons he should even be inside. “Hey wait a minute. What the hell are you doing here anyways?”

“Alright. Alright.” He said as he walked down the hallway laughing. “I’m going to grab my clothes and get out of here before you call the cops.”

Scarlett watched Andrew walk down the hallway, making a sharp left into Taylor’s room. “Taylor!” She screamed at the top of her lungs. “We need to talk!”

Taylor was a too hungover to do any serious talking but she appeared, fully clothed, in the living room anyways. “I thought you eloped with Dave in Vegas,” she said bitterly as Andrew handed her a cup of coffee. “I phoned you over and over again but no one picked up.”

“Long story,” Scarlett repied, eying Andrew who was standing behind the couch Taylor was sitting on.

“Okay, fine! I’ll leave,” Andrew muttered. He turned to Taylor as he ran his hand gently over her long, black hair. “I’ll call you later babe.”

“Please don’t call me,” she replied in a monotone voice as she edged away from him. “I’ll call you when I feel like it. If I feel like it.”

There was a momentary shot of pain on his face but then it disappeared as sudden as it appeared. Andrew nodded, turned around and walked out the door without another word. Taylor didn’t look at him once. Her eyes were focused on a piece of lining on the carpet that was coming undone.

Scarlett didn’t bother to ask. They knew in and out about each other but sometimes they gave each other a necessary boundary.

“So what actually happened?” Taylor asked as she put the cup of hot coffee down and curled up into a ball. “The girls and I were really worried.”

Scarlett sighed and explained everything, Dave, the stripping, the fat guy, Brayden, Brayden’s grandmother, the contract, all the way up to when she saw Andrew and the chocolate pudding. “So speaking of which, when did this whole thing start?” She asked nodding at the door Andrew exited 20 minutes ago.

Taylor shrugged. “A while,” she replied. “But we haven’t slept around that many times. This is the second time. First time was nearly a month ago.”

Scarlett shook her head and pretended to be ashamed. “What else are you hiding?”

Taylor laughed and threw a pillow at her. “You’re changing the topic. I can’t believe you got yourself into this fake marriage mess. Are you really going to marry him?” She didn’t wait for Scarlett’s answer. Instead, she jumped up and looked at the clock for the time. “Oh shit. It’s Saturday. I almost forgot I’m meeting Ebony and B.J. for lunch. C’mon, let’s get ready. You know how Ebony hates not being the last to arrive.”

“Alright,” Scarlett muttered. Five outfits, four pair of shoes shoes, three purses, two hours and one taxi later, Scarlett and Taylor were sitting with Ebony O’Neil and Blaze Johnson on the patio of a popular deli. It was rare that the quadruplet didn’t see each other at least once during the week. After all, they worked together at Cosmo, though they worked in different departments in the company.

After a bit of small talk revolving around what happened to Scarlett in the last week, and Ebony talking about which designer shop was having a sale, the girls got right down to their favourite topic - sex.

Today, Ebony was the first to start. Scarlett had actually met her at a college party and, oddly enough, they just clicked. An heiress to an oil drilling company worth billions, Ebony was one of those stereotypical melodramatic socialites.

“So as you know,” Ebony started, “this week I was in the South of France for my cousin’s wedding. Anyways, I was enjoying myself. Tons of hotties were there and after one too many bubblies, I go off alone with one of them.” She paused and took a sip of her drink as if talking took too much energy. “So anyways, I’m on top and we’re going at it, right? And then all of a sudden, it breaks.”

“Oh no. The condom?” Scarlett asked. “That sucks.”

“Amen for Plan B,” Blaze agreed.

“No, no, no. Not the condom!” Ebony says rolling her eyes. “Something else!”

“What?” Taylor pressed. “The bed?”

Ebony looked at all of them like they were retarded. “No!” She shrieked. “His penis!” She spoke so loudly that all the men in the next table over turned to look at them. Scarlett was the first one to burst out laughing. Count on Ebony to always bring the oddest sexual experiences to the group. “Shut it, Red.” Ebony hissed kicking her lightly under the table.

“Ow.”

“Wait, it can break?” Blaze asked with bewilderment.

“Supposedly,” Taylor said. “I’ve heard of it before. I think it’s when you come down on him too hard and sort of snap it with your pelvic bone. Something like that.”

By now Scarlett was choking, her blonde hair wild. “So you humped him so hard that you snapped his precious?” She asked, wiping a teardrop from her eye. “That’s just beyond tragic.”

Ebony flushed red. “I hate you guys,” she mumbled.

Soon, the conversation slowly drifted away from Ebony, and to Blaze and her most recent experiment.

Blaze Johnson was nicknamed B.J. by the girls. B.J., of course didn’t stand for Blaze Johnson. It stood for Blow Job and was a regular joke among the four. Scarlett met Blaze when she first started working at Cosmo. The pair were the only ones that worked in the same department and a lot of the times, they teamed up to think of interesting articles to write. But this week, Blaze had been assigned by their department manager to write about the topic of online dating.

“So anyways,” Blaze says, talking about her date last night to a guy she met online. “He was 5’5, not 6’2 like he wrote on his profile. Nothing like I had imagined and nothing like his profile picture. The one thing he didn’t lie about was his massive package... or so I thought. But then guess what? We were taking a walk after dinner in the park and then it completely fell out of his pants. Turns out he was stuffing his pants with toilet paper to make it look bigger! Like get back to the fifth grade!”

That story sent the girls onto a tangent about the biggest package they had ever seen on a guy which made Scarlett yelp with excitement. “Tell them Taylor. You have to tell them!” Ebony and Blaze stared at Taylor expectantly while she threw Scarlett a glare.

“Tell them what?” She asked calmly.

“Who you’re banging!” Scarlett insisted. “They’re your best friends too. They have every right to know.”

Taylor sighed and looked into Ebony’s catlike hazel eyes and then Blaze’s large, round, brown ones. “I’m screwing our boss,” she said in a very uninterested tone. “His is, by far, the biggest I’ve ever seen.”

Ebony and Blaze stared at her in disbelief for a whole minute before giving each other a big high five. “Nice,” Blaze said. “Extra long lunch breaks!”