"Who was that?" Jasmine said as she pulled the curtain back to take another peek out of the window, but the car had pulled away. Sophia slipped out of her wet coat and hung it onto the back of a chair.
"Just my boss," she told her with a shrug as she navigated through the apartment to the kitchen which, as always, was a mess. Sophia began to load the dirty plates into the sink and pulled on a pair of pink rubber gloves. "Grab a towel will you?"
Jasmine leaned against the sink, stopping Sophia from doing the washing up. "Not until you tell me why you never mentioned you work for Noah McKenzie."
"Because it isn't important. It's a job, Jas."
"I'd be screaming from the top of this building if my boss was as sexy as yours."
"Joey's sexy in his own right," Sophia joked, and Jasmine's expression changed into one of disgust.
"He's 50."
"You always said you liked older men. Besides, you knew I worked at MKT, I thought you'd put two and two together."
"I didn't realise you were working directly under him. It's such a big company, I thought you'd work away from him."
"I'm his PA, Jas and you'd know that if you actually listened to me once in a while instead of drooling over the postman."
Sophia nudged her best friend out of the way and began to wash the dishes. An hour of teamwork later, the dishes were washed, dried and put away. The sink had been cleaned and so had the counters, the kitchen was spotless by the time they relaxed into the couch. Jasmine suggested ordering a pizza, which they allowed themselves once a month as they still had to budget. Sophia was hesitant to agree but finally caved, as her friend said that it was her evening to make dinner, but she was shattered and could barely lift her finger to change the channel on the tv.
When the pizza arrived Jasmine paid the delivery girl and carried it into the living room, where they ate and watched the nature channel. It was a typical Friday night in the Jenkins-Hughes household; they would eat their dinner lounging on the couch watching rubbish on tv, and as it was almost Christmas they hadn't a care in the world about anything else. Jasmine still had to work up until Christmas Eve, but Sophia had been given two weeks off, as had the other employees of MKT, and it gave her a chance to go out and buy her friend a present. Over the year that they had been sharing an apartment, they hadn't given each other Christmas gifts, as Jasmine always said having a roof over her head is the best gift she could ever receive, but Sophia decided it would be different that Christmas.
***
Christmas day passed by quickly and January rolled in without any drastic temperature change. Snow had failed to fall that year even though the weather forecast had predicted a couple of inches, and strangely, for Sophia it had felt more like Christmas than it had in a long time. She spent the holiday with just her roommate, a roast and classic films, the same way they'd spent it every year. A small 2ft tree sat in the corner of the living room, decorated with shiny balls and thin strands of tinsel they had purchased from the dollar store. It was the first year they were able to afford decorations, and it quickly became a memory for their mental scrapbook.
Her old flip phone sat on the table while she was wrapped in a blanket on the small couch, watching one of the classic Disney movies and it vibrated across the wooden surface. She'd received a text message from an unknown number, it was a simple Merry Christmas message. She ignored it knowing it was a wrong number and erased it from her mind.
The new year closed in, marking the end of her struggles with a low paid job. The new year promised exciting opportunities at MKT. They dressed and decided to go to the bar for new year drinks, as they'd earned them. Once again, it was a rarity.
She'd only had three drinks by the time the other customers in the bar began chanting the countdown to the new year. A couple of seconds after she dodged a new years kiss from a complete stranger, Sophia made her way outside for some fresh air and as she did, she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. Once again, there was a text message from the same unknown number who had sent her the Merry Christmas message. This time it read Happy New Year. Without another thought crossing her mind, she clicked the number and waited for the line to connect.
"Hello?" A familiar raspy voice said through the phone, although she couldn't place the voice to a face.
"Who is this and why do you keep texting me?" She slurred.
"Miss Jenkins," his voice sliced through the air and as if he were standing beside her, goosebumps shot up her arms, and she shivered. "Are you intoxicated?"
"How do you know my name?" She shouted.
"Answer my question." She chose to stay silent, ignoring his question. "Where are you?"
"By a green fountain, oh wait nope it's blu-" The line went quiet before she had a chance to finish her sentence. "Hello?"
*
He paced through his apartment pulling on a grey NYU sweatshirt and slipped his feet into a pair of sneakers that were on the shoe rack by the door. He scooped up his car keys and raced to the parking garage. He dialled the number again but it connected to voicemail and he threw his phone into the passenger's seat out of anger. She had called him and woken him up and somehow he wasn't furious, as hearing her voice had made all of that okay. Usually, he would have cursed the individual on the end of the line for calling at such an hour, but the fact that it was Sophia only evoked warm feelings within him. Noah sped down the relatively empty street at just past midnight to a bar he'd been to before. Fortunately, he was able to recall the pub she was talking about; he'd been there a few times during his college days. And he knew from that experience that it wasn't a place a woman as attractive as Sophia should be, especially alone and drunk.
As he rounded the corner, the luminous blue light of the fountain met his eyes and he parked his car with two wheels on the curb. He noticed Sophia's slim form sitting on a wall that contained a planter with white flowers. Beside her on the floor was a young woman, her head rested on her knees, her face a greenish colour. Noah's car was parked in a no-parking zone but he didn't care, he'd only be stopped there for a couple of minutes. A bouncer walked up to him and told him he had to move the car, instead of explaining the situation he pulled $50 from his wallet and handed it to the tall man. It was as if there was an unspoken understanding between them as the man slipped the bill into his pocket and resumed his position outside the door with a nod.
"I'm taking you home," he said as he approached the two women. She didn't put up a fight nor speak instead she just nodded and allowed him to take her to the car. He helped her into the passenger's seat and then helped Jasmine. By the time they were on their way back to their apartment Jasmine was out cold in the back seat and Sophia was sat with her head rested on the window and her eyes were barely open.
He decided to help them into the apartment after he stood patiently watching her trying to open the door with a key she repeatedly dropped. Noah didn't stay for long, once he had helped Jasmine inside and onto the couch and Sophia into her bedroom. He wrote a short note onto a post-it and stuck it onto the fridge before leaving. He was tired once he arrived back at his apartment, but he couldn't sleep. He thought once his head hit the pillow he would be out cold, but that wasn't the case. His mind once again drifted to Sophia and why he'd sent both the Merry Christmas message and the Happy New Year one. He'd made sure she'd got home safely- as well as her friend- but he couldn't help but feel sick to his stomach. He'd saved her from potential danger that night, from men who would have taken advantage of a beautiful drunk girl on New Years Eve. But he knew that she was still in danger from the man she'd been running from, from the man she feared, and making one move to save her from danger wouldn't justify the ones he'd taken to put her in it.
***
Noah had logged into his company's system from his home computer on Christmas Eve while he sat alone with a glass of whiskey in one hand, and felt compelled to look her up. He'd googled her name but the results came up empty. He even typed her name into Facebook, but she hadn't got a profile. It was only after he couldn't find any details about her that he contacted someone he knew could. He contacted a private investigator who got back to him within the hour with all of the details about her life. Some he already knew but others were foreign to him and soon enough he found himself engrossed with the details as if he were reading the story of her life. The ways he found out about her past hadn't been ideal, and he hated that she couldn't have told him herself. Noah wished she would trust him with that information and it was obvious that one small act of kindness he'd shown on that evening would never make up for the future danger she was in. He hated himself more and more as each day passed. His life had been so simple before her, he was a businessman, that was all. But now he was a victim, on the receiving end of blackmail, and all the money in the world couldn't put a stop to the inevitable. Night after night, he scribbled onto countless sheets of paper ways he could help and soon enough, the stack became far too tall to fit into his bedside table. Paper was scattered across his room, on the floor and even in the bathroom. The maid he had clean his apartment was forbidden from the room because he felt ashamed of his actions and inside, he was scared of being judged. That morning on the first of January a new year dawned and he drifted to sleep with a notebook on his stomach, a pen in hand, trying to write an apology he knew he would need.