3

After exactly three months and three days, Angus Adler found himself forced to take part in the company’s annual party, celebrated, in all honestly, to skip one day of work in the company of alcohol and food. The excuse was to award the employees’ efforts during the year, thing that not even Michael Chadbury believed.

It was at the event that, while speaking with some associates, he felt two pats on his back and turned around.

“Excuse me sir, would you like to have a cup of…” The person, green eyes he had come to know fairly well, stopped her speech for a second before retaking it without any conviction. “Champagne?”

Angus Adler felt like berating himself for skipping a beat and three quarters.

“Hell, Merry.”

She smiled weakly.

“Angus.”

From behind him, his blonde friend nearly squealed.

“Merry!”

The waitress smiled more happily at the sight of the other man, and Angus felt a pang in his chest. One that went accompanied by a frown.

“Michael! You’re here too?”

“It’s our company’s annual laze party.”

“Ah,” Then Angus thought he heard her mutter, “Should’ve known.”

One of their associates was a beautiful red haired woman who looked much too refined for the occasion. She, blinking at the scene, decided to interrupt them because her heart desired.

“Excuse me,” Her voice was graceful like chiming bells, and Angus Adler had to stop himself from stomping a foot like a little kid. He really was uncomfortable. “But who is this? Do you know her?”

“Yes we do!” Michael chimed in, “She’s Angus’ girlfriend!”

The waitress that held the tray was scowling.

“No, I’m not.”

Angus irremediably smacked his forehead.

Michael winked, “But you could be.”

She turned her nose up in the air.

“I’m not that desperate. Now if you excuse me, there are others wanting champagne.”

And left with the refinement of a madam, to serve other guests. Angus could’ve sworn there was a sashay to her step.

Abruptly he felt his friend’s arm come around his shoulder.

“There, there. Look at the bright side, fate does seem to want the two of you linked, and there are many opportunities you can use in this party to get closer.”

After accurately seven pats to his back Angus had enough and forced his friend’s arm off of him. He, stony face as usual, looked down to the side and sighed. And then that redhead partner of theirs grabbed his arm.

“Come, take me to the dance floor.”

Angus Adler found himself rather taking a certain waitress.

--

Meredith Rowland wasn’t happy.

It was the nth encounter with that bloke, and she was frankly getting fed up with it at an alarming rate. She couldn’t help, however, as she walked to the refill table, but think that it was partly her fault for allowing him to get closer.

Fine, it was a proven fact at that point that the guy wasn’t a stalker. He was ego centric, perfectionist, obsessive compulsive, and time maniac, but over all too rule abiding and goodie-goodie two shoes to do something out of law like stalking a person.

All was that dream’s fault.

Had he not dreamt of her telephone number they would have blissfully remained strangers. Right? The fact that he was a frequent client of the café she worked at, and that she ended up working at his company’s party wouldn’t have changed anything if it weren’t for that strange link that bound them- That dream.

Right?

Meredith chugged down a whole cup of cheap champagne in one gulp.

Next to her appeared Jordan, leaving empty cups on the table and filling her tray with filled ones.

“Ugh, accounting firms’ parties are so boring. Why didn’t the boss take that designers’ one instead?”

Meredith angrily muttered, “It was no use, this firm had booked us first.”

It wasn’t fate… Right? Such a thing didn’t exist.

Jordan, knowing her very well, simply laughed.

“Oh, I know why you’re so upset,” The Chinese girl clicked her tongue, “It’s because of that man, huh? He’s here, too.”

Meredith grabbed another cup. At that time the crowd seemed to clear before her eyes to let her see that man dancing with the woman that had been next to them. He was a surprisingly good dancer, a little stiff, but good enough. Maybe with a better partner he’d loosen up a bit.

She drank the whole thing.

Jordan, who wasn’t one to miss a single detail, observed the ordeal with a smile.

“Why does his presence upset you? I thought you had become somewhat… friendly. After all,” She made a pause in were Meredith glared at her with venom. “He did tell our boss that time that he was your boyfriend, and he kinda acted like it later, you know?”

“That was all pretending.”

“Ah,” Jordan shook her index, “Yet you didn’t push him away. You became friendly with him.”

“I’m not appreciating the emphasis.”

Jordan smiled, “Is that why you’re glaring at him right now as he dances with another woman?”

“He can dance with a dog for all I care.”

Her friend sighed and patted her arm, making her lower the next cup she was going to grab.

She murmured, “You’re so obvious,” And then raised her voice with a clear of her throat. “Why didn’t you ask him out if you already like him so much?”

“I don’t like him!”

Her protest went ignored.

“Because, you know, it might be that little thing called fate. I mean, he did dream with your phone number of all things, y’know?”

Jordan left her in the service table with a laugh, expertly balancing her much too loaded tray in one hand and greeting guests with the other. Meredith was left cursing and thinking she shouldn’t have told the other girl at all.

She chugged another cup.

Meredith Rowland made up her mind; by her Irish blood, she wasn’t a coward.

--

Peripheral vision was one of Angus Adler’s turquoise eyes traits, that and looking strangely creepy in his handsome face. So it wasn’t really a surprise that throughout the entire dance he could see Merry chug down three entire cups of champagne, and then see her advancing towards him –without a tray-, with a steady but determined pace.

Angus Adler blinked exactly two times before she crossed the whole distance and stood next to him, tugging on his dress shirt sleeve.

“Excuse me, I need to speak to this man.”

The classy woman frowned and almost pouted, “But I-”

“Sorry, Emma,” Angus Adler said, his eyes on the green ones, “But I need to speak to her, too.”

Leaving her with no other choice but to go; not without an irritated backward glance, though.

Not that Meredith or Angus noticed her, anyway.

“You said you need to speak, so… Speak.”

Her lips twitched at his bluntness. Was that a hint of a smile?

But at the sight of his smile, the arrogant looking he seemed to have all the time around her, her lips turned down into a frown and his, slowly, turned up in a straight line.

“You are strange, conceited, uptight, obsessive compulsive, and over all very exasperating.”

Angus face angled down a little. Why was she so freely reminding him of all his faults? And after knowing him for so shortly… Who gave her such liberties? But at the same time, he couldn’t respond. He could only sigh dejectedly.

And he liked her, too. To hear something like that from the one you like…

He looked up, “I know that.”

“And you’re stiff, and awkward, completely socially challenged,” She made a fifteen seconds pause that almost killed Angus. “But you dreamed with my phone number.”

He nodded shortly at the fact, “I did.”

And when he was contemplating to apologize for all the inconveniences and say he’d try his best to disappear fully from her life –going to the great lengths of shortening his lunch time by finding a farther café or restaurant to have lunch at-, she walked one step closer to him and looked up to his eyes.

She was a good head shorter; he really hadn’t noticed that before while she took his order and he sat next to her in the café.

“And I thought it was very strange. Impossible, even.”

Her hand went up to his cheek, and he caught the slight smell of alcohol coming from her mouth.

Stoic Angus Adler, though, was quickly losing face.

“I apologized many times.”

His hand went up to remove hers, but she didn’t let him.

“It was your fault. I was okay before you came along. And now…” Her chest heaved with a sigh. “Now I can’t stop thinking about you.”

His heart beat at least twice as faster.

“What are you saying? You… You’re always annoyed when I’m around.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Her head tilted to a side, long tresses of wavy hair cascading down her back. “If you suddenly started thinking so much of a stranger?”

Because he was somewhat sweet and considerate; an old fashioned gentleman, and had appeared in her life out of nowhere…

“I wasn’t bothered.”

His face reddened at the admission. He had thought of her, true. Until the point of no standing it. Every time before they spoke on the phone, and every time after each conversation, his heart was always beating several times faster than normal, and he even stuttered. Angus Adler stuttering…

Since meeting her he hadn’t gone back on time to work after lunch a single day. It was a good thing his boss was kind of scared of him.

Finally she smiled.

“You have a need for being right, and you’d die if you didn’t have your watch with you,” Her free hand grabbed the item securely tied around his left wrist and then slid down to try to cover his hand. It was to no avail, her hand was much smaller than his. “You’re a perfectionist to the point you make others feel bad about themselves, that’s why your only friend is Michael. He’s the only one who can understand you, truly.”

He gulped and frowned a little. That girl… That girl, though always talkative, argumentative and frank, was like a tornado that turned him upside down on the inside.

And she hit the damn nail every time she spoke.

Forcefully she held both of her hands between them with only one of his, “That’s why an outgoing and chaotic girl like would be much better with an easy going guy.”

“Michael told me you need a bit of chaos in your life.”

Fast breathing, eyes straying to every corner of her face… Angus Adler was going to break a cardinal rule of his. Act without thinking.

“You’d be better off with someone like him.”

Her eyelids were falling, and she was carefully approaching on her tip toes.

“He’s not the one that dreamt with my phone number.”

Her arms went around his neck and pulled him down a little. Satisfactorily she watched as his eyes drooped too; they made constant trips from her eyes to her lips.

“Who knows, maybe the fated dream was for the two of you to meet?”

She smiled, finally her lips tickling his.

“I don’t think so.”

And Meredith Rowland, pure blooded Irish woman, kissed Angus Adler, Scottish man with German mother halfling, in front of a crowded room, without minding their two friends rooting for them in the background. And while Meredith stopped thinking about the oddity of her kissing a virtual stranger she met one morning through a bizarre phone call, Angus, for once, stopped counting.

He didn’t know they spent exactly three minutes, thirty three seconds kissing. An insanely long time that almost beat a world record of bad breathing.

He also didn’t count the pair of eyes watching, the number of tongue strokes of their kiss, and the amount of times Merry bit his lower lip afterwards. Angus Adler didn’t count the long but heart felt minutes he spent just holding her tight to him.

Not Meredith or Angus knew it was three years, three months, three days, three hours and three minutes later that they said I do.

Surprisingly the story of their love made it to the newspaper headlines.

Man finds wife through a dream.

They didn’t know the article made a record sell of the newspaper that published their fated story, one that ended with their words,

“Who would’ve known I’d end up marrying my first stalker?”

“I wasn’t your stalker. It just happened.”

AG says: Yay! It’s my birthday, and this story’s done! Thank you all who read and reviewed, and to those that only read too. Hope you folks enjoyed this little piece.

AG’s Done it Again.