Chris Ch. 03

"Alright. Yeah, no problem." He mumbled to her retreating back as she wove through the crowd.

Freckles had retreated to laying under the table as the press of patrons grew.

Chris was glad he sat at a small table with only one open chair, otherwise he'd probably be sharing with a large group of drunk folks that seemed intent on yelling at each other and laughing uproariously. He didn't have anything against partying or being loud but after the last couple days of forced socialization he was ready for some quiet time alone. After some food of course.

He sighed and picked up the beer.

Soon enough we'll be on the road again. He pulled his phone out and started to plan his next route using the maps feature.

I think I'd like to head back north, maybe hit up Johnsons and stay with him a while? I should probably check in on him actually.

He took a pull of his beer and wrote up a lengthy text to his old military buddy, asking how he was and informing him he was going to be staying with him for a couple days.

I'm not even gonna ask, I'm just gonna tell him I'm showing up and we're hanging out for a while.

He sent the text and made a few reservations in campsites between here and there to split up the long drive.

"Hey Chris!" Someone called, slurring their words slightly. He looked up from his phone and saw it was Josh from earlier. He looked pleasantly sloshed and had his arm around a smaller woman that looked like she wanted to be elsewhere. She had black hair that was slightly curly and wore an oversized sweater with denim shorts. Her chest appeared on the smaller side but it was hard to tell with the baggy sweater she wore. Her legs were toned and firm, smooth and muscular flesh that drew his eye and to Chris it was obvious she did some sort of exercise regularly. She looked older than Josh but probably younger than Chirs' thirty by a few years and she was a couple inches shorter than even Josh.Hazel eyes and fine features made her pretty in a way that made Chris nervous. Petite and fit were the words Chris would use to describe her if he had to and the combination worked very well on her.

"Heyya Josh. You look like you're having fun." He said, tearing his eyes away from the woman beside him.

"That's right! Thirsty Thursday!" He cheered loudly and the call was taken up by several others around them.

"Anywaaays, this is my friend, Alex. Can she sit with you, she's our DD and all the chairs are taken. Plus we're going inside to dance a bit and her innocent eyes don't need to see all that." He slurred with a laugh.

Alex scowled and tried to push him away but the attempt was half hearted at best and a smile threatened her scowl.

"Of course! I mean, only if she wants to though." Chris said, looking at Alex.

"It's fine. Go grind on some dude Josh but don't you leave without telling me again!" She warned.

"Yeah yeah, sheesh. Two times that happened." Josh said with his hands up in surrender.

"Four times! Four times you've done that. Don't make it five." She pointed a delicate finger at him threateningly from the depths of her large sweater.

"Alright! Alright. Really, I won't." He said with hands still up.

She kept her finger pointed at him a moment longer and then dropped it. "Ok, good. Go on then. Come get me when you're ready to go or whatever."

"Love ya Lex!" Josh said and disappeared into the crowd.

"He's a hoot." Chris said as he stood up.

"Yeah it's funny to you but you're not the one that has to keep track of him all night." Alex said with a shake of her head, making her wavy hair sway from side to side at her jawline.

"Well you're a good friend for it I'd say. Chris." He said, holding out his hand to her.

Standing in front of her made him suddenly self conscious of his own height. The top of her head only came to a little below midchest on him and her small hand felt delicate in his own.

"Alex." She said, somewhat curtly and not looking him in the eye.

"Look, Chris. You don't have to share your table. Josh just decided that's what was gonna happen and so he made it happen. I can find someplace else to sit." She said, almost apologetically. Chris had to force his eyes from watching her lips move and focus on what she was saying, it proved much more difficult than it should have.

"No no! It's fine, we don't mind. I was mostly just waiting for my food and then we were going to head out anyway. It's no trouble really. Please sit." He gestured to the empty chair across from him and sat in his own.

"I'm actually surprised no one else asked for it before now, the place is packed." He remarked as she sat down.

"Yeah, poor Katy has been working her ass off. I can't believe Tony bailed on her on a Thursday. Thankfully the manager stepped in but I'd be surprised if he keeps his job after this." Alex said. Apparently she was on a first name basis with the staff and was in the know about workplace drama.

"You said 'we' earlier, is there going to be an angry girlfriend showing up or something I should know about?" She asked.

"Oh no I'm single. No girlfriend here, or uh.... Anywhere. I. What I meant was Freckles." Chris stammered, tripping over his words and feeling his cheeks heat up.

"Freckles." She said flatly.

"Yeah, she's my dog. Freckles, here." Chris said, hating how flustered he was acting around her.

Freckles came out from under the table and stretched with a yawn.

"Oh! A dog, I see. Is she nice?" Alex asked, ignoring Chris' stammering and blushing.

"Yeah! She's really friendly." Chris said, thankful to have a distraction from his heating cheeks..

"Freckles, go on. Go see." Chris said, pointing to Alex.

Freckles stretched once more and ambled over to sniff Alex's extended hand.

She let her sniff until she was satisfied and then gently pet her head.

"She's cute! She seems like a good dog." She remarked as she continued petting her. Scrubbing her ears and earning a lick or two.

"Ah yeah, she's the best. I've had her three years now and we pretty much go everywhere together." Chris said, unable to keep the smile from his face.

"Ah Alex! Josh said you were here. Can I get you anything?" Katy said as she set a plate down in front of Chris, the large burger with steaming fires he'd ordered had arrived apparently.

"Hey Katy. Just a water when you get a chance? DDing for Josh tonight." Alex said to the server.

"No problem! I'm about to put your to-go order in the kitchen now, should be out in about twenty minutes?" She said to Chris.

"Uh yeah sure, sounds good."

"Great! Be back in a bit." The server said cheerily and turned to weave through the crowd once more.

"So you come here a lot then?" Chris asked after Katy left then realized how cliche it sounded and barely kept himself from wincing.

"I mean, you seem to know the servers pretty well and I just assumed. I didn't mean-that is I..." He blew out a sigh as he stopped the endless flow of words from his mouth.

"Sorry, we can just sit here in silence if you like. I'll just eat my gigantic burger and that'll at least keep me from making a fool of myself by talking more." He said with a laugh and slid the burger around to look at it from all angles.

"I mean, look at this thing. It's gigantic and I ordered two!" He picked up a fry and blew on it.

"What're we gonna do Frecks? Get fat is what." He said as he flicked the fired potato to her. The fry never had a chance to hit the ground and was chomped out of the air with a snap.

Her tail wagged and her eyes flicked to the table where the food was, asking for more.

"They do make them big here." Alex said, thankfully just moving past his awkward conversation starter.

"I don't mind talking with you but before you get the wrong idea, I'm not looking to date anyone. Period. Not looking for a one stand or whatever either. I just want to get that out there now." Alex said seriously. Holding his eyes with her own.

Her words made a small part of Chris sting at the premature rejection but he quickly snuffed it out.

Everyone had their own lives and pasts and he respected that. In a way he was actually grateful she had said it outright the way she had, it left a lot less room for confusion on his end. There wouldn't be any agonizing later if he should have tried harder to get her number or tried harder to give her his or if he should've suggested they go dancing or anything like that. This would just be a brief night of conversation that he'd hopefully look back on fondly.

"Fair enough." He said with a nod and slid the plate to the middle.

"You want some fries? I'd feel bad eating in front of you and now that dating is off the table I don't need to hold myself back with table manners." He said with a grin.

"Just like that?" She said, slightly incredulous.

"What? That you don't want to date right now? Sure, no big deal. I get it." He said, squeezing a healthy amount of ketchup onto the only open portion of the plate.

"Really? Most guys get upset when I tell them that. Like I've somehow hurt their personal pride or something." She said, not moving to take any of the offered food.

"I could see that but most guys are stupid, especially around someone as pretty as you." He said as he blew on another fry.

"Everyone's entitled to their own preferences, I won't begrudge you yours." He said as he ate it.

"Honestly it's for the best anyway. I'm leaving town tomorrow and hopefully won't be back for months." He flicked another to Freckles. Alex just watched him with a slight frown, as if she didn't believe him entirely.

"I do appreciate your direct approach to it. Takes courage to just come out and say it." He said.

"Huh. Well yeah ok. Thanks." Alex said, still sounding like she didn't quite believe him.

She stared at him for a moment then seemed to come to some internal decision and grabbed a fry from the plate between them.

"So." She began, dragging the fried potato through the ketchup. "You're leaving tomorrow? What do you do for work Chris?" She said with a smile that left Chris feeling light headed.

"I work for a government contractor as a 'military consultant'." He said with a shrug and unrolled the silverware from the napkin.

"Which basically means I do a little of everything, the last three days I had to sit through so many conferences that could've been emails my butt is sore." He said with a chuckle as he cut the burger in half.

"So you were in the military?" She asked, her eyes flicked up from his hands as she spoke.

She must be hungry. Probably a college student or something. Watching that burger like a hawk.

"A long time ago, yeah." He said as he slid half the burger and a healthy handful of fries onto a napkin.

"I've worked for Deritech for the last couple years. Derril's been good to me and the work allows me to travel as well as working remote." He slid the napkin in front of himself and pushed the plate Alex's way.

"What're you-no. This is yours, I thought you were cutting in half to give to Freckles!" She said in protest but not quite pushing the plate away.

"There's no way I need this much food and Freckles already ate so don't believe her lying eyes." He said, throwing another fry that she happily snapped up.

"Well...If you're sure."

"I'm sure." He said, taking a bite and then a drink of his beer. The burger was exceptional and Chris took another bite before putting the half burger down and wiping his lips.

"So how about you?" He asked. Dipping a fry and letting her have a chance to chew and swallow.

"I'm actually a freelance writer I guess?" She said, covering her mouth with her hand while she chewed.

"Wait. Did you say you work for 'Deritech' and the guy you work for is named Derril?" She said after swallowing.

"Yep! We all told him it was stupid to name the company after yourself but he wouldn't listen." Chris said with a laugh, delighted with the way her face lit with a smile at his words.

"And now his company is too big to change it. He's got to explain the dumb name anytime he meets a new client and it never gets old." Chris smiled and drank some more of his beer.

"Haha! That's funny. Poor guy. " Alex laughed as she ate.

"Yeah. He's a good guy though." He said, watching the crowd of people talk and laugh.

They fell into a comfortable silence as they ate and watched the people around them.

"What kind of writing do you do?" He asked after a while and leaned forward, genuinely interested in what she had to say.

"Oh this and that. I'd like to write novels but for now I mostly just do whatever pays. So I do a lot of small-time news articles and stuff like that." She said, leaning back away from the table as she spoke.

"That's still pretty neat, anything I would have read?"

"Ha, no. Probably not." She said, slightly dejected. "It's mostly local stuff."

"Hey, you gotta start somewhere." Chris said with a shrug. "The fact that you're getting paid to write at all is impressive. I tried it once. Not for me." He said with a shake of his head.

Her cheeks turned a very faint red at his words and he pretended not to notice.

They had mostly finished the food at that point and Chris drank the last of his beer.

They chatted about small things after that. The weather, the local attractions and Chris found the more she relaxed the more he was drawn to her. Some of her stories about growing up in the area had him laughing harder than he had in months.

She seemed to think his funnier stories from being deployed were entertaining, she laughed at least and when she thought he wasn't looking he'd notice her smiling at him in an unusual way that made his heart beat a little faster.

The crowd ebbed and flowed throughout the night and Katy eventually brought out a round of waters and exchanged them for his credit card, saying that his to go order would be out soon.

"Aaaaalex!" Someone yelled in a singsong voice.

Alex rolled her eyes. "Over here Josh."

"Alex! There you are. Hey, can we go downtown now. I just got a text from...Oh hey Chris!"

He smiled widely at the two of them still sitting together, his eyes taking in the shared plate and their relatively close proximity.

"How's it going over here eh?" He said, smiling smugly at Alex who blushed while trying to scowl.

Chris reached down to rub Freckle's ears and surreptitiously give her a chance to compose herself.

"We're just chatting but it sounds like you're leaving?" Chris said, trying and mostly succeeding in keeping the disappointment to himself.

"Well we were but one sec. Be right back!" Josh said in a hurry and rushed off.

"Uh. Ok." Chris said, bewildered by his sudden change in demeanor.

"That's just how he is." Alex said with a sigh.

"But it does sound as though we're leaving." She said with a small frown.

"Well hey, thanks for sitting with me. Maybe I'll see you around next time I come through?" Chris said, trying and failing to not read into the small frown too much.

"Yeah...Maybe I should-" She was interrupted by Josh coming back to the table.

"Arlight Alex! Time to go!" Josh nearly yelled while pulling her from her chair.

"Thanks for keeping an eye on her Chris, See ya around!" He said, dragging a reluctant Alex away.

She looked back at him and smiled sadly before being pulled into the crowd and out of Chris's life.

He sighed and looked down at his dog. She wagged her tail and tried to sit on his foot.

"I know girl, I know. We'll just get our food and get going."

"Hey, is anyone sitting in that chair?" A random young man asked, pointing to the empty chair.

"Nah man, go ahead." He said and the chair was taken off into the crowd.

Chris checked a sigh, he didn't have any right to feel so depressed about her leaving so suddenly. Especially only having known her for an hour or so but here he was. Feeling sorry for himself and wishing he'd at least had a chance to say goodbye.

"Here you go." Katy said as she set a paper bag on the table and pulled out the bill for him to sign.

"Thanks." He said as he filled it out with the provided pen. It was a little awkward filling out the tip amount with her standing over him but he was planning on giving her a decent one anyway so it was bearable.

"You know, that's the most I've seen Alex smile in a long time." The server said as she tucked the waiter wallet into her apron.

"Oh?" Chris said, suddenly feeling much lighter than before as he tucked his card into his wallet.

"She's...got some things going on, it's not my place to say but it was really nice to see her so happy. Even just for a little while." Katy said as she collected the empty glasses and the plate.

"Too bad I'll probably never hear from her again." He said as he stood and gathered Freckle's leash in one hand and the brown bag in the other.

"You never know!" Katy said with a bright smile. "You can bring Freckles back anytime."

"Will do, have a good one!" Chris said as he gently led them off the patio and out to his van.

Authors note.

Thanks for reading!