CHAPTER THIRTEEN
1752 Words
Jeremy watched the girl from the drawing from across the entrance of the hospital, a wide semicircular covered area for vehicles dropping off patients. The foot traffic from the street passed through a small park with benches bolted to the path. It was on one of those benches that he found her. She fiddled with her phone, ignoring the din of both passing cars and the random chatter of dozens of conversations going on all around her. Helps when you have a pair of headphones, he thought as he saw the dark gray split cable dangling from her ears. Leaning forward, Jeremy rested his chin on the heel of his hand and curled his fingers in front of his masked face. She’s very pretty, he thought as he looked over the graceful lines of her smooth dark face. He kept his distance, wanting to observe her first.
“Did you hear a single thin’ I said?”
“Huh?” Jeremy turned to look at the large older man sitting next to him, his graying beard made his red gusset bulge around his neck. “Did you say something, Tiny?”
“O’course you haven’t. I swear boy, one of these days you gonna listen t’somebody. I just hope it happens sooner rather ‘en later.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. You’ve said that before.”
“And I’ll keep saying it ‘til you get it through your thick head! Young’un you on the streets now. You don’t pay attention out here, you can end up very dead. Keep it in mind. Why, my friend…”
Tiny went on about his friend who had come to a bad end because he was too distracted to notice a large pickup truck barreling down the road. It didn’t help that it was at night, the truck was black, and was running with his lights off. It also didn’t help that his friend was legally blind. Jeremy had heard it all before and kept an ear to his friend’s babbling tangents. In truth, he had been. With only two and a half years under his belt out of the twenty that was usually required to earn the title “master,” he was still at the beginning of his apprenticeship. Despite that, he had already been trained to build the encyclopedic memory needed for the honor and had very good auditory retention to begin with. Jeremy had also been combat readied when he was still an initiate and later, a mere six months after he had been sworn into the Order, he had been part of the strike team that had saved Allie’s daughters from the Red Hand. Tiny didn’t know any of this.
As far as Tiny was concerned, Jeremy was a young, punk kid who showed great potential, that is if he could pull his head from his ass in time. Tiny was a good judge of character. Pretty much anyone who worked with “The Kid,” as he and the rest of the homeless community called him, came away with the same impression; including Aspen, but he would never tell Jeremy that.
He rested his head on his chin again as he tuned Tiny’s voice down to a low drone to process later. He glanced at Sharron again. She was still on her phone.
“... and if it wasn’t for that horse I wouldn’t have ever gotten through that first year in college.”
Jeremy shook his head as soon as that registered.
“Wait, what?”
“See, I knew you weren’t listening.”
“I was too!”
“Then what was I talkin’ ‘bout?”
“Uhh…”
“Right. So what has your attention?”
Tiny followed Jeremy’s gaze.
“Oh, I see. Why don’t you go talk to her?”
Because I get a feeling that would be a bad idea right now.
“Come on Tiny! Get off my nuts!”
Tiny just laughed, loudly. The sound of it echoed throughout the overhang and Sharron raised her head and looked around quickly before focusing on both Jeremy and Tiny and taking in the details she could see. Tiny was dressed in a padded hunting overall and a knit hat. Appropriate considering the snow that was still on the ground. Jeremy however looked like he could’ve passed for a Van Helsing look alike. She tilted her head a bit as she admired the look, and the look of him. The torn black jeans with red and green Christmas tights underneath were in contrast to the waistcoat and revolutionary style black overcoat; all topped off with a wide brimmed black leather hat with a silver buckle affixed with a dark green ribbon that circled the headband.
She had been seeing him all over the area as he slipped between differing circles of people but still seemed to fit. She noticed that he was at least liked by the others. Respectable, almost. At least by street standards. Flamboyant, yes; but with a dark flair that she found interesting, if not inviting. Jeremy looked back at her as she continued to stare and their eyes met. He winked. Her heart quickened and she quickly looked away and her cheeks started heating up. Jeremy smirked as he watched her act like she got caught with her hand in a cookie jar.
“You know what Tiny, maybe I should go talk to her. What the hell!”
Jeremy got up from the bench and made his way over to Sharron across the way. He sat down right next to her, keeping about two feet of empty bench between them as a buffer. He flashed her a toothy grin.
“Hi!”
His tone startled her. It was chipper and bouncy, not at all what you’d expect from someone dressed so darkly. He stuck his left hand out before correcting with his right, offering to shake hers. She was too dazzled to notice her hand slipping into his.
“I’m Jeremy!”
“Sharron,” she replied automatically, but slowly.
“Nice to meet you, Sharron.”
His face broke into a wider smile and was instantly contagious. Oh, my gods! She is so adorable! That smile of hers is so sweet and demure… Oh! I love it! At that particular moment, not a lot was going through Sharron’s mind beyond a white noise of blood rushing to her head and a flurry of panicked half-thoughts amid a heat welling up from inside her.
“I’ve been seeing you around the past few days. New to the area?”
“Sort of…” Her initial dazzle was beginning to fade, but she felt almost compelled to answer him. “I’m from one of the smaller towns east of the Metroplex.”
“Oh. What brings you out here?”
“I had nowhere else to go.” An awkward silence filled the air.
“Are you somewhere warm? I saw you at breakfast but you weren’t at check in last night.”
A small wave of suspicion welled up in Sharron causing her brow to furrow slightly. Her life since “graduating” from foster care had been beyond rough. Forced to bounce from couch to couch, she had learned what had passed for loyalty amongst the friends she had made from school and the homes she lived in. One by one, all her friends either abandoned her or would toss her shoes over one thing or another, sometimes over an insignificant slight but mostly because of money. The last time she had stayed with anyone had been over six months ago.
That experience had been par for the course. Clara, a foster sister she had known since the accident that took the lives of her parents. They had been close the few months Sharron lived in the group home. Living with her had been Sharron’s last hope, but six months after Sharron moved in Clara admitted to sleeping with her boyfriend and kicked her out of the small two bedroom cottage they were renting in Gilmer.
That had been the last betrayal she would ever have to deal with, she told herself, as she packed her meager possessions into her backpack on the way out. She hitched a ride for Dallas and had been on the streets since. Through her experience, trust is very hard won. Jeremy had stupefied her momentarily but it wouldn't continue indefinitely. She had become too wily to be taken in by a pretty face, she kept trying to tell herself.
“Yeah, I’m good,” she responded after a short pause.
“That’s woderful! There have been a couple of people I know that have frozen to death so far this winter. I’d hate to see it happen to you. You’re far too pretty.”
This last statement made her heart skip. I’m too pretty? Another wave of suspicion welled up inside her. She didn’t think she was pretty at all, she was too dark. Anyone who would tell her that she was attractive was immediately suspected by her of either being delusional or trying to butter her up for something.
“Thank you,” she replied slowly.
“If something were to happen to you, I would have regrets about that.”
“Why’s that”
“Because then I wouldn’t have had my chance to get to know you, Sharron.”
His smile flashed again as a punctuation to his sentence and her suspicion was forgotten as a wave of heat crested and she found herself fanning her face and smiling back.
“Would you like to join me for lunch?”
“Huh?” She gently shook her head as what Jeremy had asked her sank in.”
“You know, the meal you eat in the middle of the day.”
“Right… Right now?”
“Why not? Can you think of something better to do right now?”
Her stomach growled loudly and Jeremy playfully raised an eyebrow.
“Come on. I know a couple of good places close by. Hey, Tiny! See you later!”
He took her hand and gently helped to lift herself off the bench. She felt like purring from his touch, but she kept herself under tight control. He offered her his arm to hold as they made their way down the sidewalk.
“You allergic to anything?”
She burst out laughing.
“Yeah, you could say that.”
- Writer
