Are those open house signs?
Aha! Busted!
Against my better judgment, I cautiously slither beside parked cars to get a better look. I just want to see for my own satisfaction whose open house he’s ruining today. And this is when the slow motion part happens. Just as I’m inching up from the side, sure to stay far enough away that he won’t see me, I realize, he’s PICKING UP someone’s signs! But at that very moment, an SUV blares its horn at me and shouts, “Are you crazy lady? Stay outta the way?” Which of course catches Tac’s attention.
Uh oh.
“Melissa?” A confused Tac hollers over. I do not know if I am more mortified that Tac is going to see me looking like a street urchin who was clearly spying on him, or about the fact that he was actually picking up someone’s knocked down sign. I am speechless as he approaches, suddenly sure I could have lived with a stopped-up toilet a few days longer.
“Hey Tac,” I manage.
“What are you doing?”
“Drain stuff,” I say, holding up the red jug in case he needed evidence.
“Ah.” He looks perplexed but in an accepting kind of way.
“You?”
“Oh, I just saw some kids kick down that sign, and you know what a bummer that can be.”
Inside, I snarl at him.
“Yes I do. So you just stopped to pick it up?”
“Well, yeah, wouldn’t you? Plus, I was here anyway.”
“Oh, so you shop here?” I say, kicking myself so hard I pull a muscle.
“Yeah,” he says, and looks at the ground like maybe he dropped his lucky penny.
“Nice.” But what I really mean is, how convenient that I run into you when I look like a homeless person.
“I’m afraid I can’t actually make it Thanksgiving,” he says, looking down at the ground like maybe he dropped something.
I knew it.
“Oh gosh, no worries.”
I suddenly wonder if I smell as bad as I look. Of course he cancelled. I start to retreat. Just get me to my car so I can go park in my garage and leave the engine running.
“But I was thinking, maybe we could get together the day after, since the office is closed and all?”
Black Friday.
Tac is asking me out and on Black Friday? I am sure Crystal Visions would have a field day with this one.
“Sure, I mean, I wasn’t going shopping or anything,” I say, lying through the teeth I haven’t even brushed yet.
“Great, so I’ll text you, if that’s okay?”
“Sure, yeah, that’ll be good….gotta run,” I say, holding up my jug.
He smiles and nods and just as I turn to go he calls out, “Melissa?”
“Yeah?”
“Have you been painting?”
“Huh?”
“Your neck…you’ve got something green all on the side of it.”
Crap.
I just wave like maybe I didn’t hear him and throw myself into my car as fast as I can.
I sink into the driver’s seat. That’s when it hits me. I have a date with Tac. Not really a real date, though. In fact, it’s a date that I’m going to go on only so I can confirm once and for all that he’s the stuck up, self-obsessed pretty boy I’ve always known him to be. So what if he picked up some open house sign? That’s doesn’t make him a Boy Scout or anything. It was probably some kind of publicity stunt, knowing him, and it certainly doesn’t prove he didn’t knock mine down.
There’s only one thing bugging me. If I’m so sure he’s such a jerk, why am I excited? I resolve that whatever kind of “date” he has in mind is purely platonic. When I was in high school, he was still watching the purple dinosaur. It will just be a couple of competitive agents from the same office talking shop. Maybe I can find out more secrets to his success? I drive myself home thinking about what I’ll wear on my casual non-date. I have nothing to worry about. Seriously, what could go wrong?
The End (for now)
Look for the Sequel to this book coming late 2013
Visit Tamara at her website: www.TamaraDorris.com
Secrets of a Spiritual Guru (Guru 1) Page 16