"If the damn kids didn't get their stupidity from you, I wouldn't be out fucking 800 bucks right now!"
Cindy just stood still, not knowing how to react or how to deflect this humiliation.
"All you do is baby them, no wonder they're turning into lazy fat asses like you! Your damn lucky that the whole fuckin' car isn't shot, if I wasn't here to put some discipline into you, God knows where the fuck you'd be."
With that Cindy's husband Dan left the gas station, throwing the door open and slamming it shut causing Cindy to break out of her stone like trance with a startle. How humiliating she thought, to be absolutely belittled like that, in the station where she worked. Luckily the owner Sheila was out to lunch, or she wouldn't have known how to explain that.
As usual, Dan had overreacted to something that wasn't even her fault, and placed the blame squarely on her shoulders, much like he had done so many times throughout their 22-year marriage.
With her mind trying to recover from Dan's verbal assault, she had not even noticed that a customer had come into the station.
"Is everything alright ma'am?" Asked a deep voice.
Cindy looked up and saw a young man standing in front of her.
"What?" Cindy asked flustered, "Oh, that, no, I mean yes, everything is fine."
Cindy could feel her face turning red at the embarrassment of having her scolding being seen by someone else.
"That was just my husband, he's a little upset with me. One of our kids ran a curb and did some damage to the car." Cindy felt stupid trying to rationalize that it was in fact her fault, she knew that her son Mark took more after Dan than anyone.
"He gets like that sometimes when he's had a bad day."
"Well bad day or not, that is no way to treat a lady, especially when that lady is your wife," he said again surprising Cindy who had started to drift into thinking what she could expect when she went home that night, "Does he act like that often?"
"No, not at all," Cindy said, suddenly feeling shame at her blatant cover up for her husband.
"I may be wrong, but it seems like he has treated you like that before." "Not that often," Cindy replied, this time she couldn't keep the lie going, "Actually yes, he does tend to yell quite a bit."
"That's a shame, no woman deserves treatment like that, especially not one as pretty as you are."
Cindy was taken aback by that comment, and for the first time she really looked at the man before her. He was very handsome, around 6 feet tall, brown hair ,and eyes, with a neatly trimmed goatee. He was very well built, broad shoulders with big arms and a strong chest. He was young, he must have been in his early twenties, she had experience aging people through checking for Id's, and she knew that he must be around 22 or 23 years old.
"Thank you," Cindy stammered, "I haven't been told that in a while." She said, realizing when she said it how true it really was.
"Well that is also a shame, a good looking women like you deserves better treatment then that, you could do so much better than him, he doesn't deserve someone as nice as you." He said with a sincere look on his face.
Again Cindy felt herself blushing at this kind of attention. She had been hit on by drunks at the local bars, but never by someone whom she would consider attractive. At age 41, she no longer had the rail thin teenage body. She was by no means fat; she was around 5'5", 150 pounds, blonde hair and blue eyes. She considered herself attractive, she had once overhead her sons friends calling her "pretty hot for a mom", but she never seemed to turn heads the way she did in high school, before kids. And attractive is definitely the word she would use to describe...
"By the way, my names Mike." He said interrupting her thoughts as if he were reading her mind. He extended his hand over the counter.
"Cindy," she said as she let him grab her hand.
"uhh", Cindy let out a small gasp as he grabbed her hand, the smoothness and strength of his young hand sent a feeling throughout her body that she hadn't remembered feeling since she was in high school.
Cindy blushed, had he heard it? No, he didn't react differently. That would have been embarrassing thought Cindy.
"Cindy, nice to meet you. I should get going, I have to get home for work, and I have about another 45 minutes on the road. Promise me though that you will not let your husband treat you this way anymore."
"I'll try not too," Cindy said, amazed at hearing herself promising to make Dan treat her better.
Where did that confidence come from? It must have had something to do with that feeling she got from his touch.
"Ok, I'm going to hold you too that. Here, I'm going to write down my cell number, and I want you to call me and tell me how things are going with you and your husband. If you need anything, just to talk, or anything at all, just give me a call."
Cindy took the slip of paper before she even fully realized what it meant,
"I'll talk to you later Cindy." Mike said as he walked out the door with a smile that seemed to know that he would.
As Cindy watched Mike get into his car and drive off she looked at the number and smiled to herself. Getting a number from a guy, she thought, now that really makes me feel like I'm in high school again. She slipped the number into her pocket and began to clean up as she saw her boss pulling into the lot from lunch.
...........
Coming home that night was just what Cindy had expected. Dan yelled at her again for their son wrecking the car, again pointing out how it must be Cindy's fault, because he had always been responsible with cars. After he was done he headed out with his buddies from work for a "few drinks" which Cindy had come to realize meant, see you tomorrow.