When It's Time

By Ann Silver

Darius Marino comes into his neighborhood store for his smokes and sees the most adorable little blond southern belle that just took his breath away. Something about her made him forget why he was at the store in the first place. He was beyond tired and wanted to get home and just sleep. However, he was alerted to her instantly. For six months, she just fascinated Darius with how she was with other people from all walks of life. So carefree and cheerful to everyone around, a real lady and he could tell she wasn't from around here. He would see hints of sadness in her bright blue eyes that always made him want to hold her. It would disappear so suddenly that it was almost like imagining it. Who was she really? He wanted to now her, and the more he knew, the more he was determined to protect her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483508948

Book preview

29

Chapter 1

Who is that guy? Salina was thinking this as she was leaning on the counter, as the door chimed with the arrival of the man in question. He comes into the convenience store that I have been working at and he always gets his cigarettes and sometimes beer or some iced coffee. He is so quiet and reserved, barely looking at anybody. Oh, but when he did look at you it was like a revelation.

He had the most appealing dark eyes that had such a chocolate color with traces of gold mixed in, it made me think of those new Milky Way chocolate candy bars that had caramel in them. How I loved those new candy bars. He was built lean with just the right amount of muscles, nice tanned skin. It looked more natural, although you could tell he spent time outdoors, I still thought that he had Italian or Mexican heritage in him. He never talked much when he came in the store, and I wasn’t the only one curious about him. The lady customers couldn’t help noticing him too, and boy, did they like gawking at him. Some of the ladies tried to talk to him but he would just smile a little at them not even saying a word and just walk out of the store.

I have worked at my neighborhood store for a little over six months and he was a regular customer that lived nearby. I had never laid eyes on a man that I instantly was attracted to. I hadn’t ever seen one that I ever thought about in that way. Of course, being in a new state and new city I didn’t really socialize with others outside of my job. I lived in an apartment down the street from the store. The store paid cash money so it was real convenient to work there.

The store was by a college, so there was constant traffic at the store. I am good with people, and attend to make friends easy. Everyone who comes through the store thinks I am goofy, silly, and have a crazy personality. Which, is what, I want them to think.

However, when he would show up at the store I would become tongue-tied and make no sense at all to myself. This baffles me because I have never had problems with talking with people. It didn’t ever matter if a man was good looking or not. Young or old, I could talk to them. However, some men I am naturally uneasy around. You know the ones that you just get a bad feeling about. But believe me, it wasn’t unease that I was feeling towards him. I just couldn’t treat him like I did other customers. I would be so professional with him. And we’re talking about him coming into the store almost every day for the past six months now.

For the first time in my life I was feeling something for a man, that wasn’t fear or anything negative. When I was fourteen, I was almost raped and nearly killed as well, if there hadn’t been a couple jogging down the trail near the park by my house. That was where the man had me behind some bushes. I was so scared and had retreated into myself after what had happened. That is all I could say that I did. My life as I knew it was gone. I was now forever alone. It was like looking down at something awful happening to someone else, not you. So I stayed away from men and didn’t get too close in relationships with anyone, male or female. What was the use? I could never let anyone know, the real me. So I put on an act and let people think that I was a naturally happy person.

I have abilities that I had thought was fun when I was a child. But now I have learned that it could also be a curse. To just know what other people were feeling the good and the bad. I can have people talk about their lives and what they were going through, because I would experience what they were going through. I would be able to encourage people that were unsure of themselves and you would be amazed at how others doubt themselves. Even the ones that you knew were successful and beautiful. They had as much insecurities then we all sometimes think. And the ones that always brought tears to my eyes when they came in. I would always try to control the barge of emotions and could handle it from years of training. I usually could control the real strong emotions of everybody that came through that store and have people walk away with a smile. Even feeling the release of being able to open about what was bothering them or what was making them feel hopeless.

The oddest thing was I couldn’t feel emotions from this man that I was having my own feelings towards. I have never felt so strong of a reaction to a man, until he came in. I didn’t like the feelings because I had never felt anything like it. And it bothered me. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t sense anything from him. I did know that I was having feelings that I had only read about in books. In, love stories. And it was ridiculous because I even started paying attention to my appearance more and I never really cared before about attracting a man. I always avoided men at all cost. I was just this short blonde little woman with a real southern accent that people found humorous and often mimicked me. And that is all I had ever felt comfortable with. Making people laugh and smile always made me feel better about my circumstances. But he would come in the store and I would feel so self conscious with how I looked to him. I think he probably thinks I am one of those dumb blondes because I would get so flustered around him. Why him?

Oh but he had such beautiful black hair, lots of it, like a lion’s mane and I wanted to run my fingers through it. He exuded this confidence in him that I found so sexy. And I was saying sexy in my head when I seen him! He made me go blank in the head and I would lose my momentum around him. It would drive me crazy that I acted like a stumbling idiot. There was something different in a shocking way for my body and mind to be so aware of this one guy. It was so new to me. And what made him be the one to do this to me?

I screwed up on my secret fascination of him by telling my co-workers that I thought that this one customer was so hot. And they all knew who I was talking about. Oh what the hell, I knew his name. His name is Darius. Darius was a great candidate for a wet dream. This is what I started thinking. This thinking was so coming from way to many romance novels that I have read. I would lay in my bed at night for over six whole pathetic months fantasizing about him. He haunted my dreams. And, I tried to act normal around him even after my co-workers started saying his name so often around me when he was there and they knew it was embarrassing to me. That’s why I should’ve never mentioned him to Misty and Lora, the other girls that worked there with me. But, it was not even them that started saying his name so much around me.

I had told Paul, and that’s only because he was attracted to a customer and so I said that I found someone that comes in there ’so hot.’ And that had slipped out of my mouth without thinking. He knew instantly who I was talking about. That wasn’t a surprise. He made me feel like he knew everything about everyone. Paul was the night manager at the store and he had only been in Oklahoma for ten years. He was a Persian man with a New York kind of accent with his Persian accent mixed in. He had come to New York City when he came to America thirty years ago. He was tall and he reminded me of the ‘Godfather’ movie with Marlon Brando. He always told great stories and he was like a big brother to me. I was irritated when Paul started saying Darius’s name when I would be there. I felt that Darius wasn’t stupid and had to know that one of us girls liked him. Or, he already knew he was hot, therefore no surprise to find that we found him hot. But I hoped he didn’t think it was me. That would be so not cool. But Misty and Lora would try to encourage me to bring my personality out to him. We all, every one of us employees at that store had cool personalities with the different backgrounds and being a great team and most importantly, friends. Misty is a beautiful white woman with four children and she was married to a black man. She is just so cool and even though she lived in lower class, Misty never gave up on believing she had a good life. Lora is a beautiful young Mexican lady that had two small children and had such a kind spirit towards everyone. Then there was Jerry who was the day manager who was a white man in his upper forties that had a child like personality. Like a goofy silly boy. The way he laughed just made you laugh. The owner was originally from India and is also a doctor at a hospital. He mainly is like a scientist kind of doctor because his team at the hospital works on different cures for cancer. He went by Steve but his real name is Suresh. We are all an original team at the store. I had not had that in a long time. But around Darius I just couldn’t be myself when I had to wait on him. And they all knew this too. And it was frustrating that I tried each and every time to be the way I was with other people, yet it seemed I would fail each and every time at trying to act like my normal self around him. So I started to try to avoid waiting on him as often as I could get away with it. Since, my co-workers would find ways to always make me take care of him. Finding something they had to do, immediately, just to get me to wait on him. And then start snickering at me before he could get out of the store. And of course he would always turn around and look back. I would smile like a dork and move away from his view behind the counter. So I hoped he just thought it was just us being goofy. God, I hoped that was surely the answer.

I even tried to convince myself that he was just like all the rest of the guys thinking women are little toys that they can play with then toss aside, like so many women have to go through, everyday. So I started trying to use this to get me to be more normal around him even if my heart always skipped a beat when he was near. Trying to think this way about him made me think it was easier for me to treat him as a normal customer. Until he started coming in the store with different women. It became harder. Especially, having to feel the lust those women had for him come over me, which would make me want to give the bitches headaches and him one too. But I would look in his eyes with a slight frown and ask, Sir you need the usual? And he would look at me with amusement and something else was there, and it would momentarily stun me as I could see in his eyes for those brief moments, something good. Like what, I seen in my father’s eyes. It made me not want to give him a headache the way he would smile at me, and I thought of that movie called, ‘Jerry Maguire, where she says, You had me at hello." So I begin to relax a little around him and I would even laugh with him at jokes that we heard from other regular silly customers that liked gossiping about another customer that lived down the street from them, and even Darius commenting on the different character shirts I wore day to day at work. I called them my ‘work’ shirts. I now thought I could treat him like one of the other customers even if my heart still skipped when he comes into the store. I still couldn’t feel what I can always feel with other people. It still was just him that I couldn’t feel from and yet I still became more comfortable around him.

Then today things would change, everything between us, as I had just opened the store, it was a rainy spring Sunday morning. And he came in while there had been no other customers in the store. There had always been someone in the store when he came in and I would be there. Not to mention that I had never seen him this early in the morning. My heart skipped a beat when he walked into the store. He was so confident and assure of who he was that it was a wonder I fantasized about him. I can’t believe I am thinking of fantasies I have of him right now! I become nervous and was afraid of giving myself away. Because I didn’t think I could treat him like other guys right now. And there was nobody to distract me from him right now. Shit, even other good-looking guys never made me so confused with the explosion of feelings throughout my body that only I could feel. But still no matter how hard I tried, I felt nothing from him. And I had good-looking guys giving off some shocking things that they wanted to do with me. Make me blush red. Quite, disconcerting it was. Even when Lora was at work it was quite hilarious what men wanted to do with her in their feelings toward her. I would tell Lora about some and she would turn beet red, too. I also could feel the bad people and it would be hard but I tried to continue to give them good customer service. Most of the time, I would just tell someone to not come back and they hadn’t even done anything wrong to me. Just some people can be truly bad. We all know that.

So not being able to feel what he was feeling was a big confusing puzzle to me. When he walked into the store the first day that I started working here my body always seemed to hum. Like wind chimes on a nice breezy spring afternoon the wind blowing hard as it rained. The sound of thunder and having beautiful displays of lightening in the sky. Calming, and yet, still so violent. Yes, violent. It was so overwhelming. Definitely way too many books I have been reading. My imagination was running wild. I felt for the first time about wishing I could find a man to be with me and we would have a family and I would not be alone anymore. I was thinking about that for the first time. Which was ridiculous.

Darius wasn’t necessarily the man but I wanted only him to take me, like how the men took the other women in the books I would read, as wonderful feelings that I wanted to experience before it’s time for me to be found. Darius has brought the feeling of wanting to feel something that was foreign to me. And I, Salina, all of a sudden was feeling passion.

Passion… What a word.

Chapter 2

Darius looked over at the tiny little southern girl remembering that is what his first impression of her was when she was at the counter when he had come in for his cigs and she was a new girl working there at the time. I wondered at first if she was one of Jerry’s girls and hoped not because it had been hard to not stare at her. But she was a rare lady, indeed. She was just new to town but he knew she was southern. Maybe she was from Alabama or somewhere around those other southern states. She was so petite and tiny like a doll. Her hair was a natural blonde and she had it in a bun like a librarian. She had a dainty face with a small nose and had these cute little black glasses perched on her nose and huge hazel eyes and such soft pink full lips that were so delicious to look at. Definitely, I was really thinking, librarian.

Sometimes he would get lucky and she would be at work with her hair down. He had wanted to bury his face into her hair the first time he saw it down. She is just so adorable to him and he wanted to know her. But for some reason he had problems with talking to her and ended up just talking like a retarded guy and didn’t know how to talk to her, it was quite unfamiliar territory for me. Well he knew he wasn’t going to get the gumption to ask her out now, like so many times before. He tells himself that as he starts to head over to the coolers and get his red bull and some Starbucks iced coffee and go to the counter like he always does. God, I love the music she listened to when she worked. She would even dance a little with the music when she didn’t think no one was watching. He always watched her though. She was so adorable always smiling and making people laugh and so cheerful. But, for some reason I felt she wasn’t like that with me. She probably thinks I am just like all those other customers coming in, who try to flirt with her. Yet I have never flirted with her. Darius recalls this one occasion when he had wanted to go after a guy who was trying to stand there and ask her to go out with him. He had an overwhelming urge to knock the scumbag out. This was startling for Darius to feel like he could lose control when he always stayed calm and in control. He was trained to stay in control. The creep was good-looking enough but she just smiled her sweet smile and declined to him so lady like, it made me think she was more adorable. I know, I was feeling pretty pathetic.

After a while of coming in to this store I would always look for her car in the parking lot. And be so hopeful that I would be able to see her. I was being ridiculous I know but I was just so fascinated with her. There was just something about her. I just couldn’t understand how she was so different from the other girls I have known. He knew that he had never felt this way about any woman before. He definitely never had problems with talking to any woman before. And it was taking him forever and he still couldn’t talk to her like he wanted to. She was even haunting him in his dreams and he wanted to know all about her.

The only problem was I couldn’t talk to her without feeling like a fool. She always was so professional with me that it was hard to read her. Never would give me full eye contact. And it bothered me. And how she would even turn down other men with no eye contact? Strangely, she always did it with the most beautiful smile, that always took his breath away as she then would charm the men and they would take her rejection so well, that they just smiled and laughed at silly things she would say and call her their friend.

I smile to myself, remembering this one time when she was real busy working by herself and she was just so