Good morning and Happy Hump Day ! If it's Wednesday, then it must be time for more flash fiction from the Wednesday Briefers! We're a group of authors who bring you our finest flash fiction every week, 500 to 1000 words, inspired by one of our prompts.
As promised, this week I am starting a new story! I hope you are as excited as I am to welcome back Vinny and Ethan! I do have a working title for the story, but it's long, so I'm sticking with Rose and Thorne #6 for now. I hope you enjoy seeing them again! Don't forget to see what the other Briefers are up to! Their links follow my tale! Enjoy!
“Vinny, have you ever thought about having kids?”
I had just taken a blissfully large sip of my
morning brew. The warm caffeinated liquid barely had time to connect to my
taste buds when my lover’s words struck me. I damn near did a spit take all
over my breakfast at Ethan’s question. What the fuck? Where had that come from?
Did it have anything to do with the visit of Ethan’s sister Sarah and her son
Alex, who’d just recently turned three?
And if so, what did this portend?
I told myself to calm down and not leap to
conclusions, diffusing a potentially awkward situation with humor instead. “Well,
you know I’m not really built for that, Ethan.” My cheeks blazed as I realized
I’d just assumed if one of us was going to carry any future offspring it would
have to be me. Although I was growing more comfortable at wearing dresses,
thanks to Mr. Thorne, that was as far as it went. I wasn’t willing to grow a
uterus for him, even if that were a thing. Which I knew it wasn’t.
Damn. Even after five years, he knew how to fluster
me.
Ethan wasn’t laughing. His beautiful blue eyes held
an enigmatic expression I couldn’t read. He opened his mouth, as if he intended
to say something, but before he could utter a word, his sister swept into the
room, little Alex in her arms. They were staying with us for a few days, having
made the seven-hour drive to Roanoke from Imperial, Georgia, where she lived
with her friend Mercy after having separated from her husband, Scott. Also
known as her soon-to-be ex. No surprise there. She’d mentioned the possibility
when Ethan and I had been in Georgia a couple of months ago, after their mother
had had a stroke which, fortunately, she’d quickly recovered from with no ill
effects.
Ethan rose as soon as Sarah entered the room and I
hastily followed suit, being sometimes prone to forgetting my manners. She
waved us back into our seats, just because that’s how she was—self-reliant and
not dependent on the quirks of etiquette for instructions on how to behave.
“Morning guys,” she greeted us.
“Morning,” Alex echoed. At least I think that’s what
he said. I wasn’t exactly fluid in baby-speak.
“Did you sleep okay?” Ethan automatically headed for
the coffeemaker as Sarah set Alex into a booster seat at the table. He was
growing so quickly, at least it appeared that way to me. And he didn’t seem to
show any anxiety over his separation from his… Well, not father, but he was too
young to know that Scott wasn’t his biological parent. I wasn’t sure if Sarah
intended to tell him the truth about his birth, and if so, when would she do
it. Those were issues I’d never had to deal with as my father had been a
no-show my entire life. I didn’t miss him, and Alex didn’t seem to miss Scott.
I was overthinking things, as usual.
“I slept great,” she confirmed as Ethan set a cup of
fresh brew in front of her.
“Want me to warm that for you, Vin?” Ethan offered,
reaching for my cup.
“Yes please.” I offered him a tentative grin, not
sure if I’d managed to annoy him or not with my flippant reply to his probably
serious question and was rewarded with his usual beautiful smile. At least he
wasn’t upset with me. I hoped the question had been tabled for a while—say, for
the next twenty or thirty years—but if I knew nothing else about Ethan Thorne,
I knew he was persistent. That’s how he got me, after all. A normal man would
have given up with all my assholery, but not him.
Ethan took my cup, refilled it, added my usual
requirements and returned it to me. He reached down as he set the cup on the
table and pressed his lips against mine, and for that moment time stood still
as I lost myself in Ethan Thorne, and blessed whatever powers that might be for
sending him to me.
When he drew back and headed toward the stove, I
couldn’t help but notice Sarah watching us with her usual understanding. Part
of it was that twin thing, I was sure. She and Ethan were very much alike in
the way they thought and acted. But this was something more. Normally, she
would sigh at our displays of affection and wish aloud that she had what we
did, how lucky we were to have each other. This morning, though, she seemed
different. More content than usual. Happy even.
Ethan laid a plate filled with the breakfast he’d
cooked in front of his sister, as well as a plate for Alex then resumed his own
seat, sitting so close to me that our thighs touched companionably. He gently
stroked the hand nearest to him before renewing his assault on his own food.
Sarah diminished Alex’s meal into appropriate-sized bites that he could stab
with the special fork she’d brought for him. When he tired of that, he tossed the
utensil aside and opted for the manual method, shoveling food into his face
with occasional noises that could be interpreted as satisfaction.
“Is there something you wanted to tell us?” Ethan
asked out of the blue. Didn’t I say they had that twin thing going on? If I
could see something different about Sarah, how could Ethan not?
I expected her to protest. To tell her brother he
was imagining things. Being silly, even. Instead, she pinked up,
uncharacteristically for her, at least from what I’d seen of her, set her fork
onto her plate, and announced, “I think maybe James and I might be getting back
together.”
James? The James who took off for parts unknown when
she announced her pregnancy, never to be seen or heard from again?
“What the hell?” Ethan sounded as confounded as I
felt.
to be continued
Don't forget to see what the other Briefers are up to!
No comments:
Post a Comment