Many thanks to pandybear311 for editing this.
As usual any comments or feedback are welcome as long as it's constructive.
It is my belief that spirits watch the living like the living watch soap operas. They yell at our world like we scream at the T.V. when our favorite character does something stupid or dies. Sometimes, they get so angry with how things are going that they attempt to step in and change them. Most of them cannot cross into our world, but every now and then one of them breaks through and all hell breaks loose.
*~*
I watched as Alex walked across the coffee shop and left, the door swinging shut behind him. The rest of the patrons went back to their daily lives, the warring couple who had disrupted their morning broken and their own small worlds set back on their axes. We had been arguing when we walked into the small shop, but I had never thought he would have exploded in front of so many witnesses and then stormed out without me. I picked up my frappe and sat in a back corner to try to calm my frayed nerves.
He is so stupid!
I thought as I looked out the window as he sped past in his little car.
How could he have thought I wouldn't find out?
It had started several weeks ago when I noticed that he wasn't coming over as often. He wanted me to come to his apartment, and at first I was fine with it. We generally split our time between our apartments fairly evenly since we lived on opposite sides of the city, but suddenly I found myself driving to him more and more.
Then I walked in to find him shoving women's clothes into the laundry hamper. He tried to pass them off as mine, but I have never fit into a size zero anything. I called him out on the cheating, and we had been fighting ever since. I suppose I should have known that it was over then, but I didn't want to believe it. So the death of our relationship had been long, slow, and painful until it culminated in me sitting in a coffee shop, quietly crying in the corner. Yep, I should have known.
I stood, tossed the half-empty cup in the trash can and pulled my car keys from my pocket as I stepped into the parking lot. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I reached for the door handle. I shrugged it off as leftover chills from the very public fight. The car pulled smoothly out of the parking lot as I headed to the office for what I was hoping to be a mind-numbing day of work that would erase any emotions from the morning.
The drive home after work was less than eventful. Traffic was bad as usual, the people merging onto and off of the interstate highway weren't paying attention. I passed three wrecks in the eight mile drive to my apartment. I had shaken off several fits of chills throughout the day, and decided to head to a bar I frequented to wind down. Since it was Friday and the bar nearby, I went home, changed into something sexier than office wear and walked to the bar.
Lenny smiled as I walked in, "Haven't seen you in a while, darlin'. Pull up a chair and I'll get your first drink."
"You heard?"
"Yep. My little brother works at that coffee shop. He called me after you left. I don't like to say 'I told you so,' but I could have called this one. You want the usual?"
"Yeah, and a rum and coke."
I went to a booth in a dark corner and stretched out across one seat. The bar would be pretty empty for another hour or so. I smiled when Lenny walked around the bar with a pint jar of his handmade ice cream. This bar was the only place I could get chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips that tasted just like the out-of-production Blue Bell flavor. Best of all, Lenny made it in house.
"Hey, where's the drink?"
"Finish the ice cream and then see how you're feeling," he tapped the table and went back to the bar as a man in a business suit sat on a bar stool.
The ice cream was so delicious that I paid little attention to the few other people in the bar as I ate it. I set the jar on the table just as someone else set a glass in front of me. The man in the suit was standing in front of me, smiling.
"Lenny said you liked rum and coke but that I better leave you alone until you were done with the ice cream."
I glanced at Lenny and he shot me an over-the-top salute. "Yes, Lenny says things a lot. You shouldn't listen to him."
"Oh, so you don't like rum and coke," the man made to take the drink away and I sat up.
"Don't be too hasty, now. You can leave the drink."
"Can I sit with you?"
I looked more closely at him. His suit was well tailored and pressed. He was handsome in a way that made me think he would be more comfortable in a pair of jeans. I glanced down at his feet and, sure enough, he was wearing shiny cowboy boots instead of loafers. "Sure," I motioned to the booth seat across from me and straightened up on my own bench.
"I, uh, don't think I've ever had a woman take so long to consider letting me sit with her and then make the decision based on my shoes."
"There's a first time for everything."
"What if I had been wearing some fancy lace-up shoes?"
"I would have sent you back to the bar to grab your fruity drink and look elsewhere."
"But you still would have taken the drink I bought you."
"Hell, yeah. I'm not going to pass up a free rum and coke. Lenny charges an arm and a leg when I come in here."
He laughed and I smiled at him. He had a nice laugh.
"I'm Remi."
He held his hand out and I shook it, "I'm Zach. So, do you come here for the ice cream often?"
"Don't knock it till you've tried it, buddy. Lenny makes the best ice cream in the state." I took a sip of the drink and was thankful that Lenny went easy on the rum.
"I'll take your word for it," he ducked his head a bit and smiled. "Other than the ice cream, why would someone as good looking as you be here alone on a Friday night?"
"Oh, that's very cliché. 'What's a place like you doing in a girl like this?'" I smiled at him until I noticed he was serious. "I had a screaming fight with my recently ex-boyfriend in a coffee shop this morning. Lenny's ice cream is more comforting than my empty apartment."
"Wait, how recently ex?"
"This morning, in the coffee shop. That fight I mentioned? Yeah."
"Ooh, sorry."
"Don't be. It's not your fault. He was the bastard." I rubbed my neck as the hairs stood up again, sending chills down my back.
"Are you cold?" He stood, took his jacket off and wrapped it around my shoulders. He took the opportunity to sit next to me in the booth with his arms over the back behind my shoulders. He lifted his glass to me, "To hell with the bastards."
"Thanks," I clinked glasses with him but couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched. A quick glance around didn't reveal any evil stares from across the room, but Lenny was watching me with a worried look on his face. I raised my half empty glass and motioned for him to add more rum to it than the last one as I downed the rest of the drink.
Lenny brought the drink to the table and shot me a look, but I just smiled and reached for the glass. It fell off the table and onto Zach's lap. I frantically called Lenny back with a towel. "Oh my god, I am so sorry."
"It's fine. It's a dark suit and my cleaners can get anything out," he didn't look like it was fine. The smile was forced as he moved back to the other side of the booth. "Though if you didn't want me to sit next to you all, you had to do was say something."
"I swear I didn't spill it!"
"My pants would beg to differ."
We laughed about the mishap as Lenny brought me another drink, careful to hand it to me. To make matters worse he left a thick pile of napkins on the table as well. The night went a lot smoother and we had a lot more drinks when I finally signaled Lenny that I was done. Zach followed, held my wrist as I tried to hand Lenny some cash for my drinks - about half what another patron would have paid for the same amount - and handed him a black credit card. He signed the receipt and then walked out with me.
When I didn't turn toward the parking lot, he stopped me with a hand on my waist. "Whoa, you're not walking at this time of night, are you?"
"That was the plan."
"Come on, let me give you a ride. I'm a little reluctant to leave your company after having met you."
I looked at him and then followed him to the parking lot. I had expected a low-slung Corvette or bright yellow Ferrari, but he pointed a key fob at a modest BMW instead. The seats were soft leather and I was impressed as I sank into them.
He stopped before leaving the parking lot, "You've got to tell me which way to go."
"Well, I live to the left, but you're free to just drive for a while if you want."
He smiled and turned right, heading to the highway that looped around the city. At this hour there were a lot of cops and a lot more drunks on the road. He was careful not to speed too much and soon we were pulling off into one of the more expensive parts of town. "You said it was ok to drive, but I didn't figure you would want to drive all night. We're almost to my apartment."
We pulled into a small garage. Zach led me to a door at the back and up some stairs into a nice, modern living room. Everything was white, silver, or black and made of straight lines. The floors were stained concrete. Some of the other elements of the room were industrial, but it wasn't overpowering. It worked and seemed to fit a man who drove a beemer and picked random girls up at dive bars.
"Nice, place," I said as I walked through a door into a half bath.
"Thanks. Took me a few years to get it to this state, though. Would you like a nightcap?"
"Sure." I sat at the breakfast bar in his kitchen and watched as he made a couple glasses of coffee with one of those fancy coffee makers that uses the little cups and makes single servings. "Lots of sugar and milk."
He walked into the living room after handing me my cup and set his own on a tray on the ottoman. "I've got to get out of these pants. Make yourself comfortable."
I watched as he headed toward a hallway. I slid his jacket off my shoulders and laid it across the low back of the sofa. He had a huge TV on the far wall with enough entertainment equipment to make a lesser woman swoon. Considering I didn't have a TV at all, I went to the rack of CDs and vinyls he had on another wall.
