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.
Upset by his sister's revelation, Ethan takes a walk with Benny and Vinnie and reveals the story of James, his one time best friend. See what's going on in this week's chapter of Rose and Thorne 6. Don't forget to visit the other Briefers and see what's up with them. Their links follow my tale! Enjoy!
“You’d survive,” I assured him, even after he turned
a skeptical eye toward me before straightening up. I was just being honest.
Ethan was a strong man. His continued survival didn’t depend upon me. Me, on
the other hand…
“But you don’t have to worry about it,” I hastily
added to avert any potential storm. “I’m not going anywhere. I need you too
much.”
That produced a smile. “Vinny, you always sell
yourself short, you know? You’re like a cat. You’ll always land on your feet no
matter what.”
I felt my cheeks warm at his words and could just
imagine the blush he’d brought about. “But it wouldn’t be the same without
you,” I said honestly. When Ethan kissed me, I decided to steer the
conversation away from scenarios in which either one of us was bereft of the
other. Such topics tended to be upsetting to me, especially considering what we
did for a living. We might not face death on a daily basis but with any new
assignment it was always a possibility. One I’d rather not think about too much.
“Did you try to contact James after he took off?”
Back to the original subject.
By now Benny had finished his investigation of the
insect—or rather the bug took off for greener pastures, to his dismay—and we continued
to locomote along our path.
“Of course I did. I phoned him multiple times, shot
him some rather nasty emails. I even went to his parents’ house, but they said
they didn’t know any more than we did about his whereabouts. When I told them
Sarah was pregnant, they…” He took a deep breath before continuing. “They
weren’t surprised at the news, and neither did they seem to care. When I
questioned them, they had some pretty terrible things to say about Sarah. How
she entrapped their son. And worse things I won’t even repeat. I never even told her. I mean I just couldn’t.
It was bad enough she had our father to deal with, she didn’t need to worry
about them too.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “What did your father do? He
didn’t try to throw her out of the house, did he?”
He shook his head before stopping once more in the
middle of the sidewalk. We had reached the point at which we normally turned
and retraced our steps back to the house. Maybe he’d heard something in my
voice. Not surprising. I couldn’t help but think of my mother, and how her own
parents disowned her when she found herself having me. And so did my sperm
donor. I’d never met any of them and didn’t want to.
“I would never do that to any child of ours,” he
said in a solemn voice, and I believed him.
“I wish you could have met my mom,” I said
wistfully. “I know she would have loved you. And you her.”
“I’m sure she was a wonderful woman,” Ethan said.
“You’re proof of that. She raised you to be the fantastic person you are
today.”
Again with the blushing. Only Ethan Thorne could affect
me this way. I tried to turn my head but
he was having none of that. Using his free hand, he brushed back a stray strand
of my dark hair before he kissed me. “Love you so much.”
“Love you too, Ethan.”
A moment or two of silence passed as we slowly
wandered toward home. “I don’t want to see her get hurt again,” Ethan said at
last. “I just don’t trust him anymore.”
“I can understand that.” I wanted to be the voice of
reason, to tell him that everyone deserves a second chance, but every skeptical
instinct I possessed told me that Ethan’s sister was just heading for
heartbreak if she continued along this path. I had never met the baby daddy but
I already mistrusted his motives. A man who would abandon a pregnant woman
without so much as a backward glance and never make an attempt to see his own
child… well, he was no man in my book.
“What the hell?” Ethan exclaimed. At first I thought
maybe I’d said something wrong, though I couldn’t imagine what that might be.
Then I saw his gaze riveted on a vehicle that sat in our driveway and my first
thought was how did Sarah’s ex find us? But that irrational thought quickly
passed as I recognized the car. Apparently Ethan did too. His anger had morphed
into a puzzled frown. “What’s Anderson doing here?”
to be continued
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