Jake froze for a moment and looked at her intently for a moment. ‘Why, what do you mean, Miss Rosemarie?’ he asked with a raised brow. Rose felt h...er heart leap into her throat but somehow managed to keep her composure and asked, in what she hoped to seem an innocent tone, ‘Well, it’s very late. Don’t most men usually have a smoke before retiring for the evening?’ Jake continued to study her for another moment, wondering if he was imagining a heightened color upon her cheeks, but then deciding. “It looks like Jennifer and Amanda are both open for a session in fifteen minutes.”Darius sighed. “How long would I have to wait for a male trainer?”The receptionist looked irritated as she applied a few keystrokes and clicked through the day’s schedule. “At least an hour. Is there a problem with a female trainer?”Darius froze. Another woman who was working behind the desk turned to look at him. He could feel many sets of eyes glaring at him from behind. He didn’t have to turn and look. He knew. Decided against that. She gets cranky when I wake her up before she's ready. Beating off is always a possibility. The minutes dragged on. I know they dragged because I was staring at the clock, waiting and watching for the numbers to change. It took forever.The dark was like a cloud, no, a shroud, about us. We both liked our bedroom as dark as possible to sleep. The honeycomb shades did the trick. In fact, it was practically dark enough to load film canisters, if I was still developing my own. By road, it was more like 33 miles and took between 30 and 45 minutes to travel depending on the time of day and traffic conditions.Matt had not survived his divorce as well as I did. When he gave up his share of the farm to the girls, it was the final catalyst leading to his divorce. Although his wife was not as viscous as mine was. She did run up a sizable debt by buying all new stuff after she moved out charging it to their credit card accounts. The judge split the property up saying since.