Brilliant sunlight streamed through the bedroom curtains left open from the night before. Dominique nestled closer to the wide hard back beside her before opening her eyes. Once she did, she sat up with a start. Oh my goodness! What time is it? Her head whipped around to the bedside clock: 9:45. Dominique gasped and then jumped out of bed, waking Jake in the process.

“What’s going on?” he asked, his eyes barely opened. They’d “exercised” for most of the night, until almost four AM.

“I can’t believe I’ve overslept!” Dominique hurried over to her sitting area and picked up the phone, thankful that she’d had the presence of mind last night to call Faith, have Justin stay over, and then have her sister drive him directly to school this morning. “Reggie, it’s me,” she said in a rush. “I’ll be in the office in ten minutes.”

“Whoa, slow your roll, Miss Dom. You didn’t get my message?”

“No.” Dominique allowed the simple response to stand, not wanting to explain why she’d slept through the Black Eyed Peas’ “Let’s Get It Started” that served as her ringtone for Reggie’s calls.

“Okay,” Reggie responded, drawing out the word. “I’m glad you called because I just got off the phone with Emily. Looks like our fabulous senior writer’s water heater broke and she’s there with the repairman. I looked at your schedule and it was clear so I moved the Monday meeting to this afternoon. You might as well take your time on getting in here with this weather acting all crazy.”

“What’s up with the weather?” Dominique walked from her closet to the side of her window, carefully shutting the blind against her nakedness before peeking behind it to see outside.

“You can’t hear all that rain pouring down? The devil is beating his wife.”

“How do you know about that?”

“I grew up in the Midwest, Miss Dom, but my granny is as Southern as a mint julep. We all know that’s what happens when it’s raining while the sun is out. I looked at your calendar,” Reggie continued. “That was the only time-sensitive thing on it this morning.” Jake sneezed. Dominique frowned, imagining Reggie’s smile. “If you’d like, I can move the meeting to tomorrow, forward your edits via e-mail and girl you can, you know, work from home. Anything important come up, I’ll call you.”

Reggie put a certain emphasis on the words work and come up. He’s not slick. That fool knows he heard Jake sneeze. “Don’t worry about the edits. I have work here. I’ll check my e-mails and see you in a couple hours.”