Chapter 17: Pinky
*Whether you believe that you can or you can’t, you’re right. – Henry Ford*
Helen laughed as a buff man with a Marine tattoo wrapped his arms around Pinky from the back. “You’re not offering me up as a signing bonus again, are you?”
“That depends. Am I cooking tonight?” she asked looking up at him.
“What is the correct answer?” he asked.
“The correct answer is no, your beautiful wife is not cooking tonight.” She told him.
“Very well. My beautiful, intelligent, sexy wife is not cooking tonight.” He gave her a quick kiss. “And neither are you.” Before she could respond, he was dashing across the building.
“He’s yours.” Pinky laughed and Helen felt a pang of jealousy. “No charge.”
She had never had an easy relationship like that. Bob had married her after dating for a few months because she was pregnant and his father was telling him to settle down. She was barely eighteen and he was twenty-five. He had encouraged her to continue her education and she was nearly through with her degree when she got pregnant with JD.
Bob decided that it was too much. She later discovered that he had been having an affair with the babysitter. Who became pregnant.
It wasn’t the first. It wasn’t even the last. Towards the end of the marriage, his office thought that they were already divorced since his new wife already used his name.
Pinky suggested that she warm up on a treadmill and she would go get a trainer for Helen. She changed into her workout clothes and took the empty treadmill next to the tall handsome man wearing a muscle shirt and shorts. He had muscles bulging everywhere and tattoos over them. Several were Navy tattoos and she wondered if JD would someday look like that.
Helen started pressing buttons trying to figure out what she was doing. A large hand reached over and hit cancel.
“Just start walking, sweetheart.” The large tattooed man said without even slowing his pace.
“Thank you.” She mumbled with a small blush.
“Not a problem, honey.” He smiled down at her trying to figure out where he knew her from.
Reese turned his music off but left his earbuds in. The woman was getting into a groove and he reached over and pushed a button to hold it at an easy pace. She smiled up at him and it hit him. The new secretary at TRAAC.
She turned her attention back to the treadmill. Helen did not want to be like the other women in here that were eye fucking the man. The man on the other side of her slowed down and then stepped off the machine. The woman next to him did the same thing.
As Helen focused on her treadmill, two thin women took the now empty treadmills. They both wore leggings and sports bras showing off their slender bodies. The blonde that was closest to Helen looked over at the setting on her machine.
“If you plan on accomplishing anything, you should probably turn that up.”
Helen ignored her even though it stung.
“Harsh.” The other blonde said as she started walking to start her treadmill.
“It’s bad enough that I have to look at the fat bitch on the wall. I don’t want to look at Shamu trying to run on the beach.”
Reese effortlessly stepped off the treadmill and walked away.
“Look at this!” the first blonde said as a tear slipped out of Helen’s eye. “I think that I made the little piggy cry!”
Helen stepped off the machine and ran for the locker room to get her bag. The whole time, all she could hear was their laughter. She was oblivious to the several women in the locker room that tried to ask what was wrong.
In her rush, she did not see Pinky who had heard the whole exchange. Or that Joel ordered them off the machines and into his office. She certainly didn’t hear the large man calling her name.
Standing at her car, trying to see through the tears, Helen leaned against her car. It wasn’t until large hands turned her and she was engulfed in large muscular arms that she was aware that she was no longer alone. She had no idea who was holding her or why, she just knew that they were holding her while she cried and they let her.
Sometime later, maybe a few minutes, maybe an hour, it felt like she had cried for days, the tears finally subsided and her sobs became hiccups.
“I’m sorry.” Helen mumbled against a wall of chest muscles.
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” A voice rumbled low and deep.
“I cried all over you…”
“Not all over. There are a few spots you missed. We can try again, if you’d like.”
The voice was husky and promised good sex. It was not a way that anyone had ever spoken to Helen before.
“Helen, I’m sorry for the way that they spoke to you. It was cruel and wrong.”
“But it’s true. I am a beached whale.”
“No, sweetheart. A beached whale gives up and waits to die. You, my lovely mermaid, are fighting to get back where you belong.”
She sniffled, not certain on how to respond. Stepping back, she looked up to see who her rescuer was. “Mr. Reese!” she whispered hoarsely.
“Just Reese.” He smiled down at her and brushed some of her hair out of her face. “Promise me that you’ll come back. Don’t let them win.”
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