Central Park in early Spring.

Will the girl still be there when Mike gets home?

Mike hurried down crowded Madison Avenue carrying a take-out box containing a small pizza and two orders of ravioli, hoping like hell the girl would still be there at his house. He wanted to run but knew better, not on the avenues during the daytime. There were too many people afoot and he'd knocked down several of them when he was younger and a whole lot less respectful of the thousands of other New Yorkers always all around him. Growling with frustration, he finally got to 71st Street and hurried around the corner, worried J. Marie might have gone and not left him any information about herself. 

Fuck. Then what the hell would he do? He should have checked her jacket pockets for a cell phone. She had to have one. Everybody did. Then he could've gotten her number, at least. But he hadn't even thought of it, he'd been so busy tending to her, distracted out of his mind over her, and in a hurry to get back to work.

"Arrrrggghhh!" he shouted, punching a fist in the air impatiently. "God damn fuck!"

If only he was a really-rich rich kid and didn't have to work.

Arriving at the house, Mike ran down the steps to the front delivery door on the street floor. He never used the front door entrance with its stairway to the raised main floor and the fancy Beaux Arts arch that matched the rest of the six-storey facade of gray limestone and arched windows. Nobody used it. It hadn't been opened since his father had gone away to live in Italy.

Inside, he hurried to the elevator in the front storage room and took it up to the sixth floor. He usually climbed the stairs to pump up his legs, but he was in a hurry and his heart was banging as he obsessed over the possibilities of the girl still being there or not. Up on six, he squeezed out of the still-opening elevator door and ran through his workout room. A moment later he was in the hall peering into the bedroom.

But it was empty. No girl there on the bed.

Well, good thing, he thought hopefully, at least she woke up, and he ran past the bathroom into his den.

But things weren't so good in there. Mike's neck twisted this way and that as he gaped around the room, feeling his heart sink down to his toes.

No pretty blonde J. Marie anywhere in sight. She was gone. Not even a trace of her.

Mike grunted, feeling like he'd just been punched in the heart. And he groaned in disappointment as he set the box of food down on the table and walked across to the terrace doors.

"Mother fuck!" He banged a fist on the glass when he saw she wasn't out on the terrace. "She's not here."

He let out a frustrated shout, then another one, wanting to hit something. Then he punched the frame of the French doors so hard it hurt his knuckles. He yowled in pain and spun around, threw himself face down on the leather couch, then grabbed the blanket on its back and pulled it over his head and buried his face in the cushions.

"Che cazzo! Oh man, girl, why'dja have to fuckin' leave? Dammit!"

Pounding the cushions with his fists, Mike grunted and growled and let out a whole litany of Italian curses he'd learned from his mother when he was a boy, one of the few good things he'd gotten from her other than his looks.

At length he sat up, disgusted with it all, especially himself for the way he was acting, and he banged his feet on the floor. The blanket fell down around his shoulders.

"Okay. Okay. Don't go psycho," he berated himself. "I'll find her. I'll hire a detective. If I need money I'll pawn some of the French Lady statuettes downstairs. There's too damn many of them anyway."

Then it occurred to him that the girl may have left him a note. He could see there was nothing on the table, so he got up and went over to his desk and looked at all the clutter. On the top of his trilogy manuscripts was a message, hand-written on a piece of the printer paper and held down by a crystal Gandalf paper weight. He moved it aside and pulled up the sheet. There were three paragraphs of tiny printing, and his angry heart-thud instantly turned into an excited bang.

Hi Mike!

Thanks for helping me out. It was very nice of you. I don't know how I ended up in your back yard. I must have gotten lost on my way home last night. I hope you don't think I was drunk or anything worse. I have a condition that sometimes causes hypersomnia, and I often sleep for hours and hours ... and more hours ... when it happens. But I'm awake now and I have to get home. Sorry I can't stay. I'd really like to, but you won't be home for a couple hours yet. :))

I wasn't quite sure if it was okay that you kissed me, so I looked at your pictures on your computer and ... oh yeah! It's okay! Sigh ... OMG!  *_*  *_*  You are a real live dreamboat! And a prince, too, living here in this palace. If your kiss didn't awaken me, I guess nobody's can. O.o

I have your phone numbers. I'll think about the other things you mentioned and maybe give you a call. XD

J. Marie

Mike groaned and tossed the note back down on the desk. His lips curled down into a frown and he walked across to the French doors again and stared out at Central Park, not even seeing it.

"Dreamboat?" he grunted. "Yah right, she probably thinks I'm a dork. Just some spoiled rich kid jerk. She didn't even leave me her number. Nothing!"

He began to pace across the room, starting to get horny now thinking of her lying on his bed all that time he was in the pizza shop cooking at the hot ovens. He growled at the stirring in his crotch and the warmth swirling in his loins.

Yah, right. Just what he needed. Horny and aroused, and no girl. His dick was hard and throbbing and she wasn't even here. He'd be damned if he was going to take another cold shower.

Mike struggled to calm himself down. He knew it was foolish to get all worked up about it. There was probably something seriously wrong with her anyway if she had hypersomnia and could sleep like that for hours and hours. Maybe a mental illness. Maybe a physical one. Something terribly debilitating.

But damn it, he didn't care. He fucking wanted her. She had slammed right into his life and now he was dying for more. He was trembling all over and his hands were shaking like they'd been when she was here earlier. He'd known lots of girls over the years, but none of them had ever appealed to him like J. Marie did. There'd been plenty of New York girls he'd grown up with, and others he'd gotten to know from all over the world whose families had homes in Manhattan, but he'd never been much interested in any of them. He knew he was getting himself all worked up about J. Marie now, just thinking about her. But he couldn't help it. And he'd never been obsessed over a girl like this before. Never!

How the hell was he going to find her?

She was out there somewhere in the big city below him. He knew that much. She said in the note that she had to get home. Yah, right here in little old New York, of all places, where there were a zillion people all day long every which way you looked.

"Damn it! I'll find her," he growled at the tree tops of Central Park.

And go completely nuts in the meantime.

Mike put the pizza and ravioli in the fridge in the galley. He'd eaten a couple meatballs at work, and that was enough for now. He went into his bedroom and changed into a pair of old running shoes. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, as usual, fine for running in Central Park, where he absolutely had to go now to work off some steam and anger, and sexual stimulation and frustration. But first he had to check the house, make sure the girl was really gone and hadn't fallen back to sleep in another room.

If only he could be so lucky.

"You're out of your freaking mind," Giorgio had told him earlier when they'd been out in the alley behind the pizza shop taking a break. Mike had told him about J. Marie, how he'd found her on the patio and carried her up to his bedroom.

"You don't know that girl," Giorgio went on. "She could be a thief, a drug addict sleeping off a fix. How could you leave her alone in that house? It has more treasures in it than the Metropolitan Museum of Art."

"Nah ... she won't steal anything," Mike argued. "She's a nice girl. I'm sure of it. I'd bet my life on it."

But Giorgio just gave him an impatient look. He'd always been like an older brother, tougher, wiser, smarter, like it was his job to set Mike straight about everything. "Have you gone wack? Or are you just a romantic fool? You find her out cold on your patio at noon, and she can't wake up? Then you leave her in that treasure trove mansion alone? C'mon, dude, this isn't Shakespeare or Emily Bronte. It's twenty-first century New York City, where every awful thing imaginable happens."

"You'd know it if you saw her," Mike insisted. "She's so pretty and sweet. Man, I hope she's still there when I get home."

"And if she isn't?" Giorgio's look of disdain made it clear he thought he knew better.

Mike grimaced, not wanting to think about it. "Then the two of us are going to play Holmes and Watson and find her. That's what. I've totally got to have that girl!"

Giorgio looked at him with a frown. "That's odd to hear from you, bro. Usually you're not remotely interested. I've never known you to be hot for any certain girl. One would think you're the queer boy, not me."

Mike's expression darkened and he looked away. He couldn't stand it when Giorgio talked about being gay. He hated it. It pissed him off and he didn't even know why.

Trying to ignore it, he drew in a deep breath. "Girls act like idiots around me. As if I'm all the One Direction boys packed into one dude. We can't even get past the way I look to have a decent conversation."

Giorgio snorted and laughed at him. "That's because your idea of a decent conversation puts most girls to sleep. You gotta discuss each one of the Harry Potter books in depth, then speak in the Elven language from Lord of the Rings. Meanwhile, all they want to do is make out, get their hands all over you and your hands all over them. Ha! Maybe that's why you liked this J. Marie so much. She was out cold and couldn't see you and react to you."

Mike wondered about that for a few moments, but then he figured, no. That wasn't it, because Ronnie Bellamy had reacted to him like wildfire, and he'd liked it, because he liked her so much. It was something about J. Marie herself that turned him on, everything about her turned him on. If she carried on around him like other girls did, that'd be great. He'd like it from her. He'd want it.

But he hadn't told Giorgio about Ronnie Bellamy and him, only that he delivered the pizza and thought she was bangin' hot. Nor did he mention that he was going to work for her. He'd have to break that news to him gently. He knew Giorgio would want to work for her too. Which he should. They looked enough alike to be brothers and he thought Giorgio was way better looking with a more conventional look. He knew he'd have to talk to Ronnie about it when he got to know her better.

So now, Mike went around and checked every one of the rooms in the big townhouse, but there was no sleeping blonde in any of them. Damn! He was totally hoping to find her zonked out again, somewhere in all those rooms. But everything looked the same to him. If she was a thief and had stolen something, he'd never know. Maybe Henry would. He was the one who had to clean the place, and he was such a fanatic about the house that he probably knew every single item in it.

After Mike went through all the rooms, he let himself out the back door, set the alarm, and hurried through the alleyway to 70th Street.

It was still warm, near seventy degrees, and Fifth Avenue was bustling. Crowds moved up and down the sidewalks and the traffic heading down toward midtown was heavy. Mike crossed the avenue from 70th at the light and jumped over the stone wall into the park. He broke out into a run and started jogging down the open lawns. The smell of spring was in the air, and so was the special magic that made one feel fresh and alive and looking forward to tomorrow at this special time of the year.

Some of the leaves had already come out on the trees and shrubs, and there were tulips and daffodils and crocuses blooming in the planting beds. He ran onto the nearest paved walkway and began running uptown. People were sitting on the benches, strolling on the paths or jogging like him, others tossing balls or throwing frisbees, and roller skaters whizzed by. He had to run off onto the grass to avoid two young mothers pushing baby buggies that looked like flashy SUVs, they were so decked out, and he noticed, as always, the female heads turning to look at him as he raced by.

What a day it had been. From sheer elation earlier at noon to almost total despair just a few minutes ago. But Mike could feel himself calming down now, his normal good humor returning. He laughed out loud thinking of a headline:

SPRING WEATHER SAVES BILLIONAIRE'S SON FROM TOTAL MELTDOWN

The spring air felt good in his lungs and he sucked it in, hard and deep, then expelled it with a whoosh. It was that time of year, the promise of new life when spring fever gripped everyone. It always made him want to do impossible things, like jump off his roof terrace and fly, or stow away on a spaceship bound for another galaxy. Things he'd sit down and write about because he had to do them one way or another.

But spring fever always had its flip side for him too, the melancholy of time slipped away, and that tugged at him now as he ran. This part of the park was home to him. He'd grown up here. It had been like his own back yard. Every spot he ran past had a memory or two or three to go along with it. And they all played out like movie scenes right in front of him now.

Everything had changed, and Mike knew someday it was going to hit him hard. Those days of growing up on the Upper East Side were gone. He lived alone in the house now. His parents had their own separate lives in Europe. His mom certainly would never come back to New York, and his dad might not either.

He had punked out on going to college and skipped school big time. But he'd written a trilogy and would do anything to get it published. He was getting older, soon he'd be twenty. Giorgio, the most important person in his life, now was gay, and that complicated the hell out of everything.

Mike couldn't help but wonder what life had in store for him now, what direction his life would take. But he just knew, he could feel it in his heart and soul, he wanted it so fucking bad, that the mysterious J. Marie had to have a part in it.

He pushed on faster, harder, trying to get the girl off his mind. He'd never known what it was like to really crush on somebody, and now he knew. And the possibility of not having her was totally killing him.

**

Jax was pacing back and forth on her terrace, cell phone in hand. She knew Mike Strato had probably gotten home from work by now, it was almost six-thirty. She'd programmed his numbers into her phone and had been roaming restlessly around the apartment and terrace for almost an hour. Wanting to call him. Wondering if she should call him. Knowing she couldn't possibly in a million years call him. But driving herself crazy acting it all out anyway.

Earlier she had googled Mike's father and read about the man. Some reports claimed he had even more billions than generally believed, suggesting there were large deposits stashed away overseas that IRS didn't know about. There were a lot of photos of him on the search engine's images, his villa in Italy, the glamorous woman he lived with, Mike's movie star mother, and Mike himself when he was younger.

There were photos of the house on East 71st Street with its fabulous French décor and marble floors and staircases. She'd been astounded by it on her way out earlier in the day and had stopped to look in almost every room. She found several websites about the house and its history. It had been built by one of the Vanderbilts over a hundred years ago. There were thirty-five rooms and some of them had been purchased from castles and mansions in Europe, along with all the furnishings, and shipped to New York and installed in the house. The current real estate value was estimated at ninety-million dollars. She'd had a good laugh over that, considering that Mike was working at a pizza shop.

And the way he had his sports and workout equipment and modern-day possessions mixed in with the priceless antiques on the sixth floor was a hoot, too, although the rest of the house, except maybe the kitchen, looked like Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour could hold court in it today. Jax had lived in an Upper East Side townhouse herself when she was little, but nothing nearly so grand, and it was astounding to her that Mike lived in that palace all by himself.

And, of all things, that handsome rich-boy hunk down the street had begged her, begged her, to let him get to know her.

Jax walked over to the terrace wall and looked over the edge down to Fifth Avenue and Central Park.

Fuck. Yes, she wanted him in her life.

At least give it a try. She'd dated a few guys in Florida, but nothing too serious because she just couldn't go very far with it because of her problems.

But at least she'd tried. And she so badly needed a friend here. All she had in New York were her uncle and his wife, and their two daughters, both off somewhere in an exclusive New England boarding school. There were some other distant relatives, too, but no one close. More than anything she needed a friend. But she knew, of course, Mike didn't want to be just friends. And she wouldn't either.

Jax brushed the bangs away from her eyes and watched the traffic moving slowly down the avenue toward midtown. People were out in droves walking up and down the sidewalks. Vendors and kiosks lined the stone wall along the park. She could see people in the park, too, strolling and jogging down the walkways and paths, playing on the lawns. Her eyes moved to midtown where she could see the skyscrapers marching down along the avenues, so incredibly many of them. Beyond, the Empire State Building loomed in the distance with its tall spire piercing the sky

New York City. It was all there waiting below her, the most exciting city in the world. So much to see and do and experience. And here she was, all alone up on her lonely balcony, unable to join in any of it. Yet there was that hot hunk prince so close by in his splendid castle who wanted to come and rescue her. He'd even kissed her earlier in the day.

Jax grimaced and pounded her fist on the ledge. Even though he'd asked for it, how could she possibly involve him in her life? She knew it wouldn't be right. He had no idea what he'd be getting himself into. And once he found out, which he inevitably would, he'd cut out in a minute. Of course he would. No guy in his right mind would stick around for that party.

"What the fuck am I going to do?" she cried.

She sighed and tossed back her hair, looking up at the blue sky above. It was now losing its brilliance as the sun began its descent over the west side of town across the park. She knew it did no good to get her hopes up. It was very clear to her how severe the situation was. She'd taken a big chance coming here to New York on her own, with no doctors to monitor her and the ones in Florida having warned against it. She still didn't remember what she'd done last night or where she'd gone. But she had a suspicion, and it scared the crap out of her. A few nights ago, the same thing had happened. She'd gone out somewhere and hadn't remembered anything about it the following day. Now it was twice in the same week.

It had happened in Florida several times, too. One time she was gone for two days. When she got her credit card bill it showed she'd been in South Beach, at a motel and a couple very exclusive clubs, places she didn't even want to think about. Especially how she could have gone to them and had no memory of it.

Is that where she'd been two times this week, a club like those in Miami Beach? Had that other girl she could never remember being been able to find a similar one here in New York already? Jax clenched her fists angrily, forgetting the phone in her hand and almost dropping it.

And she wanted to call Mike Strato and welcome him into her world?

She let out a bitter laugh. She turned away from the city and stormed angrily across the terrace. Back inside, the apartment was spooking her. It was big and beautiful and all white and shining chrome, totally ultra-modern, and it made her feel like she was living in a mental ward.

Where, she knew now, beyond a doubt, she certainly belonged.

Her uncle didn't want her to end up in the hospital again, but he sure leased her an apartment that looked like one. He lived in a big townhouse near Park Avenue but he didn't want her there. Nor did she want to be there. He and his society matron wife sure as hell didn't need a mental case around who disappeared a couple times each week and then spent twenty hours in a near coma sleeping off the trauma of shifting personalities.

Jax could feel herself getting on edge and she knew better than to let it happen. She went into the bathroom off her bedroom and took a Valium. It was the only medicine she could take. It worked and calmed her down. Other meds just intensified the anxiety and made it worse. She'd tried them all. She needed to remain calm. When she didn't, she could flip out and become that other Jax, the one whose actions her mind managed to suppress so she wouldn't have to know the things she did.

Twice this week was enough!

She got the black leather jacket and her wallet and left the apartment. She'd go across the street and into the park, walk around, chat with people, socialize, join in the human race. All those things she was supposed to do when she felt the danger signs coming on.

And she knew she was in that danger zone right now ...

Terrace on Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park

**

Thanks for reading! Looks like both Jax and Mike will be in and/or around the park. Could it be that they might ... um, well ... who knows what fate has in store for these two? You can find out real quick, though, by turning the page. :))