My eyes followed the man for a moment, and then I glanced up toward a sign hanging over the desk that read: “Our prices are six feet under the competition”.
Tasteful.
“ Well then,” Gravelly Voice guy offered, rocking back on his heels and narrowing his eyes on me.
“ I’m sorry, are you here to pick out an urn or…?” I asked, looking around for clues to his strange, albeit interesting, behavior.
“ No,” he answered simply.
“ No?”
He shrugged his shoulders innocently. “I like coming in and checking out the latest models. Never know when you’ll need one.”
I gaped. “Are you serious?”
Cue a sexy smile. Damn. “No. I was getting a slurpee across the street and I saw you walk in, so I followed you on a whim.”
I narrowed my eyes in confusion. Of course. He’s too hot to be normal.
“ So you’re a stalker?” I asked with a hard stare.
He smirked, a knees-turning-to-jelly kind of smirk. “I prefer gravitationally linked by your presence.”
Oh c’mon. I’d be lying if I said his answer didn’t take me by surprise. I had to recover quickly and stay on task.
“ Right. Uh, well you’ve successfully annoyed me so you can go about your day now.” I was being harsh, but his entire demeanor felt like a threat to my rock-solid plan.
We stood there, locked in an awkward moment, and neither one of us made a point to end it. Most people I’d met in life were satisfied with surface content and meaningless pleasantries. Like the fact that everyone’s default answer to “How are you?” is always “Good.” But this guy was the exact opposite. He seemed curious, stubborn, and persistent, yet I didn’t know him at all.
“ What’s the urn for?” he asked with brazen curiosity.
What?
“ What? Who actually asks something like that? Don’t you have a filter?” I could feel my eyebrows tugging together to form a judgmental scowl.
He slowly nodded his head once and I could tell he didn’t want to drop the subject, yet he still backed off. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“ It’s for my dog.” I crossed my arms and cocked my head to the side with a hint of attitude. There, now go away.
He licked his lips, trying to hide his grin. Shouldn’t he feel terrible about bringing up my dead dog? Well, my fake dead dog, but he didn’t know that.
“ Ah, I’m so sorry to hear that. What was its name?”
He sounded sympathetic, but his eyes were narrowed on me as if he didn’t quite believe me. It felt like he could see right through me.
“ Sparky,” then to truly seal my fate, I added, “he’s real.” Don’t ask me why I felt like I had to justify my lie to him or why I chose to sound like a four-year-old when I said it.
He nodded thoughtfully. “Where are you going to keep his ashes?”
I could have lied, but something stopped me; instead, I found myself telling him, a complete stranger, about the secret adventure I’d been planning for the last month.
“ I’m spreading them on a road trip.” I said it with a shrug and a soft voice.
Without missing a beat, his smile unpeeled an inch wider. I couldn’t strip my gaze away.
“ I’ll save you the trouble of asking. Of course I’ll come with you.”
I stared at him in utter bafflement. Every pre-set pathway in my brain was thrown for a loop by this guy, leaving me gaping in silence. He was the most arrogant person I’d ever met, but there was something hidden beneath his jokes. I think he actually wanted to go on the road trip with me even though he didn’t know me at all.
Just as a retort formed on my lips, Fred stepped back through the storage room door. I paused and took in the stranger for one last moment before turning toward Fred.
A black urn was cradled in his puffy hands. Bingo.