A Wifey for the Bad Boy(192)

*

“Are you ready for this?” Danny asked, resting a hand against Carrie's back. The day was cold and yet the sun was shining. The two of them held coffee in their hands. Steam rose from the small lids in the cups. Carrie handed hers to Danny as she pulled out a thick envelope from her bag.

“I hope this is alright,” she said, her voice trembling.

“You proofread it, right?”

“Yep, the first three chapters, and a synopsis, and a biography about me. I can't believe it's finally done. You think they'll like it?” she asked, looking up at him with wide eyes.

“I think they'll love it, just like I did,” he said, wrapping his arm around her and kissing her on the end. She took a deep breath, and placed it in the mouth of the mailbox, but let it linger there while she looked back up at Danny.

“Thank you for not letting me forget who I am,” she said. He leaned down and plucked a kiss from her lips, and as he did so her fingers left the envelope, letting it drop down into the bowels of the mailbox with a dull thud. With that done the two of them walked away hand in hand, sipping on their coffee.



THE END





The Summer with Clara





The Summer with Clara



Chapter 1

I tapped out the final few words of an e-mail. My cell buzzed beside me, its screen glowing. I glanced at it as my fingers danced over the keys, then picked it up and answered.

“We're just round the corner, I hope you're ready, we're on a tight schedule!” Kira said. I could hear the demand in her voice. She was afraid that I would cancel or back out like I had done with so many other things over the past year. I look at the unpacked clothes on my bed and felt a sinking feeling in my stomach.

“I'll be there, don't worry, I'm just finishing a few things up,” I said, and I heard her silent sigh of relief. She hung up and I scanned the e-mail, then pressed the send button. I checked over my notebook to make sure that everything was in order and then chucked everything into a big bag that I had bought especially for this weekend. I had no time to fold them properly, but we were only going camping for three nights so I would surely have enough clothes. I ran around the room and picked up my cell, money, and other little things that I thought I wouldn't be able to do without, although I had a nagging feeling that I had forgotten something.

Then I heard a car roar around the corner and the horn blared out. I cringed, for it was early in the morning and the neighbors wouldn't have appreciated this. I threw the bag over my shoulder, ran down the stairs, and slammed the door behind me.

When I approached the car the girls cheered. Kira came out and helped me throw my bag in the trunk. She was smiling but I got the sense that she hadn't slept. That was Kira for you, always on the edge of excitement. She linked hands with me but then let go almost as quickly as she had taken my arm. She went to the passenger seat. I was assigned the back seat, to the left.

“Hey Andrea, glad you could make it in the end,” Simone said. She was dark-haired and usually wore a lot of make-up, but evidently there hadn't been enough time for that this morning. Her hands clutched the wheel and she moved the car forward. The tires rolled across the smooth road as we carried on.

“Yeah, I managed to move a few things around. I know I've been useless at doing things recently so I wanted to make the effort this time,” I said, and pulled out my cell quickly, wanting to make a note of something that I needed to send someone.

“How is the business?” Simone asked.

“Yeah, it's good, really hard, sometimes I forget to sleep and eat but other than it's great. Can't really complain seeing as how it's what I wanted all these years. But there we go,” I said as I sent the message and slipped the cell back into my pocket where it felt heavy against my thigh.

“Well I hope you're ready to relax, we're going to have a technology-free weekend. An escape from the drudgery of modern existence. We're going back to a time when it was just humanity and the world, no Google, no Facebook, no blogs or Tweets or anything like that. Hashtag going old-school,” Kira said, twisting her head back so that she could look at me. I smiled and nodded, although I had no intention of going the whole weekend without checking my messages. It's the 21st century, I'm sure that I can find a signal somewhere.

Kira leaned forward and slid a CD into the dashboard.

“I made a little mix for the road, thought it would bring back some memories,” she said. Then N*SYNC started playing and me and Simone both shook our heads. Kira started singing loudly, and the other two of us had no choice but to join in.

As we sang I realized how much I had missed this. For so long this was what life had been like, just us girls sharing laughs and experiences, singing and dancing no matter what life threw at us, and then somewhere along the way it had been forgotten, like a faded, hazy dream. I was as much to blame for that as anyone but it was mostly life. After we graduated from high school we promised that we'd always be friends. Sometimes we were just people on each others' Facebook feeds though, but being in that car with them was like slipping back into my own bed after a vacation. Midway through the song I stopped singing and smiled, and simply looked at my two friends. This is what life should be like. But I knew that after this camping trip we would all go our separate ways again, back to our ordinary lives with our ordinary plans and we'd all promise each other that we'd stay in touch but we know that we wouldn't. And we'd talk about arranging another trip but we wouldn't be able to find a date that everyone could make. The time between seeing each other would increase, then we'd fall into other lives with husbands and children and we'd watch them grow up and play together, and we'd think about each other and what a shame it was that we never kept in touch but by then it would be too late, and we'd be nothing to each other but a wistful smile on a sleepy Sunday afternoon.