My Life Would Suck Without You

Magazines - Vegas?

Six weeks later Ariana flew into the office with a peeved expression on her, otherwise, beautiful face. She'd been waiting for this day for two months - the Elle magazine featuring Gisele hit the stands today. And she started out this very important day by oversleeping. She was feeling continually run-down lately and couldn't understand it. And then, she couldn't seem to find a copy of the magazine. The newsstand closest to her apartment had none; the newsstand outside their office building had none. Both claimed to be sold out.

There was Donny waiting as usual with her Starbucks in hand and looking particularly terrified of her.

She didn't say anything to him, but just grabbed her latte in silence. Coffee could always make her feel better. Ariana closed her eyes as she let the warm liquid slide down her throat.

Donny watched Ariana nervously. He stood there in abject horror; fear was driving his every action. When he'd left his tiny apartment which he shared with two brutish guys whom he hated, by the way, he immediately saw the latest edition of Elle sitting proudly on the rack at the corner newsstand. He quickly paid for it and started flipping through, looking for the layout on Gisele. When he found it, the magazine fell right out of his hands and landed in a dirty puddle of water on the sidewalk. And that's the best place for it, he thought.

Thinking quickly, Donny hailed a cab and had the driver take him to Ariana's apartment. This was something he needed to tell her in person. However, as he exited the taxi, the first thing Donny saw was that Elle magazine, staring back at him, taunting him. So instead of confronting his boss, he decided to buy all the copies of Elle and save his own hide. It was lucky that the newsstand took credit cards. After buying up two stands worth of copies, he realized he would have to cut back on his frivolous spending or he wouldn't be able to pay next month's credit card bill.

Now he stood, carefully observing Ariana and waiting for the right moment to drop his bombshell. She also took bad news better after she had a couple of sips of her latte. He actually enjoyed the way her face and her whole body relaxed when that first jolt of caffeine hit her mouth. It was almost sensuous. She lifted the cup to her open mouth, closed her eyes and slowly sipped.

However, instead of the anticipated look of delight on her face, he saw ... disgust.

"Eeww!", Ariana grimaced as she pulled the coffee away from her mouth to read the side of cup. "This tastes horrible. Is this my usual drink, Donny?"

"Y-yes, ma'am. A Triple Venti Skinny Vanilla Soy Latte. Just like always."

She shoved the cup into his hands and continued to rant. "Just get rid of it. This day has been one crappy thing after the other and it's not even 9:00 a.m. yet."

"S-sorry, A-Ariana."

She brushed by him and sat down at her computer, waiting anxiously for it to boot up.

"It's the weirdest thing, Donny; I can't find any copies of Elle, so I'm going to look it up online." Ariana was typing as she talked and within seconds, her browser was sitting on the Elle website. Scanning the screen, she quickly saw the link for the latest issue and clicked it... just as the monitor died. Puzzled, Ariana spun around in her seat and was stunned to see Donny holding her computer's power cord in his hand, the same traitorous hand which had just recently held a particularly vile cup of coffee.

"Donny?", she screeched, uncharacteristically. "What the fu...?"

"I had to, Ariana. Y-you need some preparation before you look at that spread. Please, Ariana?"

Realization suddenly dawned on her. "It was you! You bought all those issues! I want it now, Donny. Hand it over."

He didn't know which Ariana to be more frightened of: the one that was yelling at him now or the one that would want to kill Gisele later. Feeling like the coward he was, he reached inside his messenger bag and pulled out the only copy of the magazine he'd saved.