Chapter 2

August, 2003
Charlotte, North Carolina

"Stupid door," Ed Martin said, kicking at it. Despite his proficiency with most things electronic, these damn hotel doors and their keycards always seemed to frustrate him.

On the fourth try, the little green light finally came on and Ed swung the door open. Slinging his laptop case onto the desk chair, he pulled his necktie off and tossed it onto the bed. After ten hours on his feet at TechWorld, trying to sell software to businesses not willing to spend money, he had let some of the other vendors persuade him into dinner at one of Charlotte's better steakhouses. Not only was the steak good, the beer was cold, and Ed was buzzing slightly as he pulled his jacket off.

All he wanted to do was take a hot shower and climb into bed. That's when he saw the flashing red light on the phone. He picked it up, and dialed his code.

"You have one new message," said the voicemail system's sterile voice.

"Eddie? It's Chrissy. It's about 7:00, I don't know what your plans are for the night, but I have a problem." Must be a big problem, Eddie thought, since her voice sounded frantic.

Chrissy's message continued, "I was trying to get my laptop online from the room, and now it's crashed and won't reboot. Eddie, all my client info is on here -- if I lose it, I don't know what I'll do. Call me. Room 522."

Ed sighed, and hung up the phone. He glanced at his watch -- it had been nearly two hours since Chrissy called. Although troubleshooting a laptop wasn't on his list of plans for the night, he had to admit he'd like to see Chrissy again.

Quickly changing into a pair of jeans and a Sun Microsystems t-shirt, he grabbed his CD case with software tools and headed out the door. While waiting for the elevator, Ed's thoughts again drifted to his high school days with Christine Edwards, this time thinking about the first time they met.

March, 1990
Atlanta, Georgia

He knew her face, but he didn't know her name. She was a petite blonde, with curly hair framing an angelic face, and a lovely teenage body encased in a green tank top and a pair of tight black jeans.

Eddie Martin watched this mystery girl from across the room. The family room of Bill Wilson's house was crowded and loud for Bill's annual St. Patrick's Day party, the bass thumpings of Salt-N-Pepa's "Push It" vibrating through the room.

Eddie didn't really know Bill; after all, Bill was a senior and Eddie was only a sophomore. Still, this party was a big deal, and it was the kind of party that if a friend of a friend of yours was going, you could go too. They weren't exactly checking invitations at the door.

Mr. & Mrs. Wilson went to visit Bill's grandparents the third week of March every year like clockwork, and Bill took the opportunity to throw a kegger. Eddie hadn't ever had a drink before this party, and the cup and a half of vile keg beer he'd imbibed was making his head feel fuzzy.

Still, he didn't care about any of that, as he leaned against the wall and watched the pretty blonde in the green tank top laughing with her friends. He knew she was in his lunch period, but was pretty sure she wasn't a sophomore. He had to find out.

Refilling his cup at the keg, Eddie made his way unsteadily over to Dan Jacks, a friend of his with an unfortunate name. "Hey Dan," he said, clapping him on the shoulder.

"Eddie my man! What's up dude?"

"Got a question for you, since you know everything about everyone. Who's the hottie over there in the green tank top?"

Dan looked, his eyes squinting slightly to locate the girl Eddie was talking about. "Oh, that's Chrissy Edwards. She lives on my block, we used to carpool in middle school. She's a freshman."

"Oh yeah? What's she like? She got a boyfriend?"

"She's funny, or at least she was in 5th grade. I haven't hung out with her much lately."

Sipping from his beer, Eddie moved around the room, greeting people he knew and some he didn't. He moved ever closer to the girl in the green tank top; Chrissy, that was her name. He was thrilled to see that one of the girls she was now talking to was Liz Burke, a tall brunette who had been his study partner in geography class last year.

When Liz moved off to refill her Coke, Eddie followed her at the drink table. "Hey, Liz."

Liz turned around. "Hey, Eddie. How's life?"

He smiled. "Much better now, since I don't have to worry about continental divides and that nonsense."

"You're right, though Biology isn't much better. I wish you were in my class this year, you've got a head for this science stuff," Liz said, frowning.

"Listen Liz, I'll give you whatever Biology help you need if you do me a favor. I saw you talking with Chrissy Edwards back there," Ed said, jerking his head to the left.

"Chrissy? Yeah, she's a good friend of mine from cheerleading. But why-- oh, I get it," Liz said, a smile flashing across her face. "I hate to tell you this, stud, but she's got a boyfriend. Some guy who goes to Central."

Eddie's face fell. "Man, when I didn't see a guy hanging on her tonight, I thought she was single."

"She should be, Eddie. I don't think her boyfriend treats her all that well. Do you want me to put in a good word for you?" Liz asked, smiling oddly.

"That would be nice. She's in my lunch, but we've never talked. Actually, I'd just like to meet her."

"Oh, I think that can be arranged. Here's your Coke," Liz said, reaching past Eddie to hand the cup to someone. Eddie's heart jumped as he turned around and found himself face to face with Chrissy Edwards, who looked amused and confused at the same time.

"Let me introduce you two," Liz said. "Eddie Martin, Chrissy Edwards. Chrissy, Eddie."

Eddie blushed as he shook Chrissy's hand. Her blue eyes twinkled at him as she said, "Good to know you, Eddie. Aren't you in fifth period lunch?"

Over the course of the next two hours, they clicked in a serious way. The party around them seemed to fade into the background as they sat on Bill Wilson's back staircase, talking and laughing about school, their parents, and their friends.

Finally, Eddie got brave enough to ask, "So, I hear your boyfriend goes to Central?"

A frown passed over Chrissy's face. "Oh. So you know about Chad, huh?"

"Mmm hmm. Are you surprised?"

Chrissy nodded yes. "It's just that I figured, since you were spending so much time flirting with me, that you didn't know I had a boyfriend, and I didn't quite know how to tell you."

"It's okay. Liz told me. So where is he? If I were lucky enough to be your boyfriend, I'd be glued to your side!"

Chrissy smiled, and blushed. "That's sweet. He's in Jacksonville, some big baseball tournament. He's one of Central's starting pitchers."

"Ahh," Eddie said. "So, umm, do you think that Chad would mind if you and I ate lunch together sometime? I mean, you know, just as friends and all that."

A smile lit up Chrissy's face. "Well, I don't think he'd mind at all, and if he does, I guess that's too bad. He can't expect me to eat lunch alone, can he?"

Ed Martin knocked on the door of room 522. The peephole in the door darkened for a second, and then the door swung open. "Eddie! Boy am I glad to see you!"

Chrissy was wearing one of the hotel's white robes, her damp hair pulled back into a ponytail. "Sorry if you tried to call. I was in the bath 'til a few minutes ago."

Eddie shook his head no, the momentary image of Chrissy in the bath zipping through his consciousness. "No, I just decided to drop down. Figured it wasn't too late."

"Definitely not, and I'll stay up all night if it means getting this stupid thing working," she said, gesturing toward the desk. A fairly recent Apple PowerBook model sat there, lid closed.

"Ah, a Mac," Ed said. "This should make things easier. Let me guess, when you turn it on, it comes up with a flashing question mark icon, right?"

Chrissy stared at him. Ed tried to keep his eyes on her face, not on the front of her robe, which was gapping open slightly just below her neck. "How did you know that?"

"Seen lots of these," Ed said. "Don't worry, there's usually no data loss." He flipped through his binder of CDs, finally coming to the Norton Utilities disk that he wanted. Putting it in the drive, he opened the Mac and rebooted it, holding down the 'C' key to force a boot from CD. Once the familiar Norton screen loaded, he started Disk Doctor and then leaned back in the chair, stretching his arms over his head.

"This may take a little bit, but it should fix the problem," Ed said, swiveling the chair to face Chrissy. She was seated on one of the room's double beds, her legs pulled up underneath her. Ed admired the smooth skin of her calf and ankle.

"Thanks, Eddie. I appreciate it. So how was your day?"

"Long," he admitted. "Lots of lookers, but very few buyers. It's frustrating to have to go through the sales pitch so many times, with so few results to show for it. How was yours?"

"About the same," she admitted, "Except I was one of the lookers who wasn't buying. I want to get a new massage table for my office, but all the ones I saw were way too expensive."

"Yep, I heard that excuse a lot today," Ed said. "Too expensive. But anyway, I thought you were a sports therapist, not a massage therapist. I was picturing injury rehab and that sort of thing."

"We do that," Chrissy said, nodding. "But my partners and I also provide what's called 'sports massage, ' a specialized form of therapeutic massage geared towards athletes and active people."

"Ah," Ed said, nodding. "So more deep tissue work than the average person might want."

"Exactly. I interned as a massage therapist in college, so I've got some experience with it. My table is a couple years old and I'd like to replace it."

Unconsciously, Ed found himself flexing his lower back. All this talk of massage was making him realize how tight his muscles were. He swiveled his chair back around to check on the Mac, which was about 80% complete.

"It's too bad you didn't get that new table today," he joked. "I could use a nice massage about now."

Ed didn't hear Chrissy chuckle, so he turned back around to see if she heard him. She was blushing as she said, "If you get this fixed, I'll owe you one — so a massage is yours!"

Ed shook his head. "I was only kidding, Chrissy. You don't owe me anything, and besides, you don't even have a table."

"I can use this," she said, patting the bed. "Hotel beds are so firm, they're practically massage tables anyway."

Ed felt his cock lurch in his pants at the thought of being in Chrissy's bed, and he quickly changed the subject. "Ah, let's not plan ahead. I might not be able to get this fixed anyway."

While the Norton software repaired the errors it had found, there was somewhat of an awkward silence in the room. Finally, the software announced it was finished.

"Now comes the moment of truth," Ed said, as he rebooted the Mac. "Let's hope that instead of a flashing question mark, we get your real desktop."

Chrissy crossed her fingers as Mac OS 9 went through its tedious loading process. Finally, the splash screen disappeared, replaced with an icon-filled desktop and the background wallpaper of a little boy, six or seven years old, in what was obviously a school picture.

"Eddie! You fixed it!" Chrissy said, squealing and throwing her arms around his neck for a quick hug. She leaned past him to work the mouse, clicking various folders and finding that all of her files were still intact.

As she leaned over his shoulder, her robe gapped open even more, and Ed couldn't help but sneak a peek at the upper curves of her breasts. His jeans felt tighter again.

Trying to distract himself, Ed pointed at the screen. "Your little boy, I assume?"

Chrissy shook her head. "Actually, no. He's my husband's son, from a previous relationship. We don't get to see him that often — he and Mike's ex-girlfriend live in Nashville. Boy, does she hate me," Chrissy said, sitting back down on the edge of the bed.

"In fact, that's why Billy is in Atlanta with Mike this weekend. Ellen's more than happy to let him come for a visit when I'm not around."

Ed reached out and patted her hand. "Hey, Chrissy. I'm sorry. That must be rough for you."

She smiled wanly. "It's okay. I've always wanted kids of my own anyway, but Mike had a vasectomy before we met, and I guess I'm not going to be involved much in Billy's life."

"Chris, sometimes those little operations are reversible, you know."

She nodded. "Yeah, but the patient has to want it reversed."

"Ah," Ed replied.

"Okay, enough of that," Chrissy said, clapping her hands. You held up your end of the bargain, so it would seem I owe you a massage."

"Chrissy, no, I don't think it's a good idea..."

"Come on Ed, I'm a professional. I called on you for your computer expertise, let me provide some of my therapeutic expertise."

"Chrissy, I'm a sweaty mess," Ed protested. "I probably stink like a pig."

"I doubt it, but here," Chrissy said, yanking Ed up from the chair and aiming him towards the bathroom. "Get in there and shower, it will loosen your muscles up anyway. When you're done, come out here and we'll get started."

While he showered, Ed wondered if this was a good idea. Certainly he'd had plenty of massages before, and a massage didn't have to be sexual in any way, shape or form. Truth be told, his aching muscles were begging for a massage.