Carey gave his fuel gauge a concerned glance. It was showing low, and he hadn’t yet collected the crucial information he needed.
“Low isn’t done, though,” he said quietly to himself.
Tag: relationships
Fiction: Bad Boy
Dirk leaned back on the couch, looking up at the angry woman and the four men she had brought home with her.
She sure knows some losers. Not one of ’em is tough enough to be water boy for the chess team. But he was outnumbered, and the tall, young blond man with the button-down collar and the white-knuckle grip on the baseball bat looked angrier than Beth did. He’s in love with her. Poor kid.
“Something you wanted to tell me, Sweetheart?”
Beth smouldered. “Get the hell out of my apartment and get the hell out of my life.”
“And these gentlemen are the moving company?”
“We are if you’re not out of here in two minutes,” the baseball bat kid growled.
Dirk decided he meant it. The guy had never been in a fight in his life, but anyone that tightly wound wouldn’t stop once he got started. It’d take a shampooer to get all of me out of the carpet.
Fiction: Unmistaken Identity
“Trisha!” the man called.
The woman, on the verge of entering the coffee shop, looked up and there he was, embracing her and kissing her.
“Trisha! I haven’t seen you since oh my God you’re not Trisha.”
She shook her head a little, still caught in the surprise. “Gwen.”
“Oh, I am so sorry. I thought … well, obviously I thought you were my friend from college.”
“Trisha.”
“Yeah.”
“You must have been close to her.”
“We were pretty good friends.”
“Like you’re still close to me.”
He let go of her and took a step back. “Sorry, sorry.” He looked at the ground a moment in embarrassment. Then he looked at Gwen again. “I’m Travis, by the way.”
“I’m still Gwen.”
“Now that I get a better look at you, it’s not like you’re Trisha’s twin or anything. Something about your hairstyle and the way you were carrying yourself, I guess.” He paused. “Actually, you’re prettier than Trisha. But don’t tell her I said that.”
Gwen smiled slightly. “I won’t. If we ever meet.”
“Um, yeah. Which you probably won’t. Part of why I was so surprised to see you, I mean her, I mean…”
“I’m with you.”
“Well, she lives on the other coast. I wouldn’t expect to see her here.”
“OK, then I won’t expect to meet someone who kind of looks like me but I’m prettier than her.”
Travis laughed. “Um … I’m sorry. I must seem six kinds of idiot.” He looked at the door of the coffee shop. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee? Make it up to you? And, just maybe prove I’m not ready for a straitjacket?”
Gwen regarded him for a moment. “I’ll take that coffee. But you’re going to have to talk fast to avoid that straitjacket.”
He smiled through his embarrassment and she found it charming. He opened the door and she preceded him into the coffee shop.
Forty minutes later, he had her full name and phone number and an agreement to go out to dinner Friday night.
And, he thought, if things continued to go so well, on their honeymoon he could tell her the story of a shy young man who invented a college friend named Trisha to give himself a flimsy excuse to hug and kiss a particular young woman at least once.
Fiction: Pioneer Stock
Lara was held spellbound by the young man who was spinning visions of wide-open spaces and new opportunities. Her eyes were lit with a fervor Stephen hadn’t seen in a long while, and it grated on his nerves.
“Friends,” the fellow said, “I’m sure you agree the price to buy into this particular wagon train is perfectly reasonable. It includes your transportation, all the necessary equipment for homesteading, and the deeds to your parcels. Now let’s hear it: Who wants to go settle this new land?”
“I do!” overlapped with “We do!” as the individuals and couples cried out their eagerness to go.
Stephen heard Lara shout, “We do!” and then she looked to her husband for confirmation. His sullen glare shocked her.
Fiction: Rescue in an Antique Shop
Kay strolled slowly through the antique shop. She and Barry had met in such a store. She gently lifted a nautical barometer.
“My, aren’t you handsome,” she said. “So manly and wise and helpful. Barry would have enjoyed you so much.” But she set it down again, a bit wistfully. Barry had broken off their relationship three years earlier and she had to visit antique stores alone.
Walking on, she saw a magazine rack that had been both well used and well cared for. She touched a corner. “Sam would have liked you, even though he wasn’t particularly fond of antiques. You would have looked good in his home.” But again she moved on; Sam had dated her, briefly, before Barry had.
Kay came around a corner in the shop and froze. There, at the end of the aisle, two little boys were engaged in a very serious tug-of-war with a china figurine. She strode down the aisle quickly.
Fiction: Separation
A quiet rumble of thunder floated across the blue sky.
“That’s all this day needs,” Marla said to herself. “A little melodrama.”
The door flew open and the knob banged against the wall for the nth time that day as Lance came in for the final box.
“Make that ‘a little more melodrama,'” she corrected.