His Dream Role

Chapter 1-2

As the bizarre Sherlock Holmes pushed the door open and held it for an elderly couple, Sam surreptitiously snapped a photo on her phone. She sat at a table and texted her best friend, Jess. Guess who just bought me a cup of coffee? Sherlock.

A minute later, her phone rang. “Hey, Jess.”

“Where do you find the weirdos?”

“I’m at the same place I always get my coffee.”

“And Sherlock Holmes just walked in and bought you a cup of coffee.”

“My ten bucks was stolen out of my purse again.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she wanted to yank them back because Jess was going to start yelling.

“Jeez, Sam, we talked about this. When you’re at the shelter, you need to lock up your s**t. I get that you want to help people, but that doesn’t mean they won’t steal from you.”

Sam sighed. She did know better. She’d mostly learned her lesson her first week when her whole purse went missing. Now she only carried a small amount of cash on her, and bottom line, she figured if a kid stole it, he needed it more than she did. “I know,” she finally huffed back. “Anyway, Sherlock came up behind me and paid for my coffee.”

She took a sip and waited for Jess’s reaction.

“So, does he think he’s really Sherlock?”

“Hmm…I don’t think so. I’ve seen him in here before. He’s always dressed strange, like in costume. Once he was Riddler and another time, a Jedi? And then again the guy with the pointy ears from the other show.”

“So he’s a supreme weirdo.”

Sam smiled. “He was nice. He bought my coffee and left. He’s cute.”

“Oh God. Please tell me you didn’t give him your phone number or make plans for a date.”

“Nope.” She knew better than to tell Jess that she planned to buy him a coffee as a thank-you. Jess might be right. He could be a total weirdo. In fact, the first few times she saw him, she was concerned that he might have some mental issues. But his costumes were too well crafted and he functioned well in public, so she figured he was just eccentric.

“I mean it, Sam. Find a normal guy.”

Sam choked on her coffee. After clearing her throat and regaining the ability to breathe, she said, “I date normal guys.”

“You intentionally find strange ones just to piss off your dad. You’re getting a little old for that.”

“Whatever. I gotta go. Talk to you soon.” She disconnected quickly because Jess had known her long enough to know that was exactly what she’d done for years. Her dad had an idea of the kind of guy he wanted Sam to be with, so Sam rebelled. However, Sam really did like the guys she picked. At first. She tended to fall hard and fast. It was her nature.

Sherlock was different. He was far from a bad boy. Maybe sweet and quirky was her type. Everyone had a type, right?

She finished her coffee, tossed the cup, and bundled up for the cold. As she exited the shop, she looked toward her car and wished she could abandon it. The Mercedes made her stick out everywhere she went. She believed the damn thing was the reason kids at the shelter were okay with stealing from her. The car screamed I’m rich!—which she wasn’t. Her parents were well off, not her.

The car had been her compromise. She’d wanted to live in the city to be closer to the locations where she would work and where she currently volunteered. Her parents flipped. They couldn’t have their baby living in unsafe situations and—gasp—taking public transportation.

They ultimately came to a compromise on an apartment, and Sam agreed she’d use the car to get to and from classes and her volunteer work. When she’d agreed, however, she’d imagined a regular car, like a Civic or RAV4. Her dad’s compromise was getting a low-end Mercedes, as if one actually existed.

She pressed the key fob to disarm the car and got in. Admittedly, she did enjoy the heated seats when the weather turned. That probably made her a hypocrite.

The problem was, she wasn’t quite sure who she was supposed to be yet and graduation was looming. Part of her wanted to continue on for her master’s degree immediately so she could stay in her safe cocoon of school, where she knew exactly who she was. A bigger part of her, though, loved the work she did at the shelter, and she felt like she belonged there, like she made a difference.

She had a hard time reconciling the Mercedes-driving, heated-leather-seats Sam with the woman who wore yoga pants splattered with finger paint.

Sam pulled into her parking spot in the lot behind her apartment and sat in her car for a minute. A nagging feeling had been gnawing at her for months. Her life felt unsettled in a way it never had before. Jess’s point about her dating habits hit home. She needed to decide what she really wanted and why.

The problem with that was she was going to a school, driving a car, and living in an apartment her father paid for. If she took the stand that she wanted independence, was she willing to walk away from everything that made her life comfortable?