Annie was in a visible huff as she sidled up to the news and snacks rack at the Greyhound bus station kiosk. She'd left Ben's apartment in such a rush of packing and throwing insults and recriminations at each other that she hadn't even thought about the long bus ride to Cincinnati. Now she needed something to read and something to calm her nerves and unruffle her feathers while she was waiting for the bus to pull in.
What was it that Ben had said? That she rushed to judgments and ran hot and cold all the time? OK, so maybe he
had
brought her Valentine's Day flowers and she'd flown off the handle thinking he hadn't. But he'd had to tease her by not bringing them in right away, pretending he hadn't even known it was Valentine's Day, and not saying anything about the sexy skirt and blouse she'd paid a pretty dime for and was wearing on purpose, just for him.
Maybe it was the way he'd said she made wild assumptions that made her unload her long-held resentment of his insensitivity and take-take-take. Anyhow, she'd known the relationship was coming to an end for some time. She suspected that Ben knew it too—that he hadn't been unaware of how she had been paring down what she had in his apartment to what she could fit into one suitcase. It had been a mistake to move in with him in his apartment to begin with. They should have kept separate places or he should have moved in with her. No, she thought, that wouldn't have been good. He wouldn't even have noticed that someone needed to move on. She wouldn't have been able to get rid of him.
No, it was better that she go camp out with her sister Liz in Cincinnati for awhile. It was a good thing that an ER nurse could get work on short notice almost anywhere. She'd had enough of "here." It wasn't just Ben. She needed to burn these bridges down to the waterline. What was it that someone said to her the other day—that she'd gotten to be boring when she once was so spontaneous and fun easy? Whatever "fun easy" was to that guy. She wasn't about to go there. She and that guy had had a whirlwind thing going for a while that was best not delved into. Is that what eight months with old boring Ben had done to her—made her as boring as he was?
She pulled a book off the stand with such angry force that it and three others hit the floor together. A young man stooped and picked them up. He gave her a smile, which she only half returned, and put the books back in the shelf for her. They'd been in alphabetic order by author, though, and, as if to prove how ordered she'd become, she rearranged them with a "Marion the Librarian" show of irritation that couldn't have been lost on the young man, who shrank away from her and gave a hurt puppy dog flash of a reaction. This was quickly covered with one of apology on his part and another smile.
Nothing from Ann. But he was still looking at her with a silly grin on his face. She was about to ask, "What are you looking at, Bub?" when she realized she'd left the apartment in such a rush that she was still wearing the sexy blouse and skirt she'd donned for Ben's benefit. Well, we'll just let someone else's tongue hang out in appreciation for those, good ole' Ben, she thought. But she did give a tug to the lapels of her jacket to cover herself a bit better.
That the guy would apologize for helping to straighten up her book toss in a snit of irritation irritated Ann further, and she blindly pulled one of the books out of the rack—reaching a new level of irritation when she saw him smile again—grabbed at a snack package of potato chips, and flounced off to the sales counter with them. She didn't look around to see what the young man was doing, but the image of him flashed in her mind again: nice looking, irritatingly engaging smile and pale-blue eyes under a blond mop with a lock falling down into his face, good build—not bodybuilder good like Ben's was . . . but why the hell did she care? All men were scum.
She found a seat facing the arrivals board, which would keep her informed on the change in arrival time for the bus to Cincinnati. There would always be a rolling delay in the arrival of a bus one needed to get on—just like for trains and airplanes. There was an attached table in the seating unit on her left, with a seat on the other side. She pulled the paperback novel she'd just bought out of her floppy handbag and slapped it down on the table, only now looking at the title, which made her chuckle. It was
Grey
by E. L James—Christian's side of
50 Shades of Grey
. She'd sworn off James half way through that series, and she wouldn't have consciously bought a book like this on a bet. What a waste of money.
She reached in the open bag of potato chips on the table, took one out, and plopped it in her mouth. Only now did she realize that the young man from the news kiosk had sat down in the chair on the other side of the table.
The nerve of him, she thought. Coming on to me in a public place like this. He could have sat anywhere. But, looking around now, she saw there wasn't much of anywhere else he could have sat. Several buses were scheduled to leave in the next hour, and the waiting room was buzzing with other people.
She was about to calm down and tell herself that he wasn't following her when she looked at his face and realized that he was looking at the book she had put on the table—the erotica book that was pretty well known to be that. Blushing—and irritated—she turned the book over. Worse, as she did so, she saw that he had his hand in the bag of potato chips. He pulled a chip out, and in doing so, their hands brushed against each other. He plopped the chip in his mouth, smacking his lips slightly at the pleasure of the taste.
She shrank away from him. The nerve of him, she thought. Taking one of her potato chips. It's something Ben would have done without a thought, as well. A stranger in a bus waiting room. And that little tingle she felt when their hands had brushed against each other. What was up with that? Such conflicted sensations she was having.
Well, they were
her
