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  “Let’s cross here,” Darren said, pulling Audrey to the curb. “There’s no cars coming.”

  Audrey and Darren rushed across the street and continued their jog up to the door of the cafe. Darren held the door open for Audrey, and followed her into the warmth of the building.

  Small booths lined the perimeter of the building, a few tables scattered out in the middle of the room. Only a third of the tables were occupied by a mix of students and older couples, a sole person standing at the counter paying the blonde cashier that was no older that Darren or Audrey.

  “Do we seat ourselves?” Audrey said as they stood in the opening.

  “I’m not exactly sure.”

  The cashier finished with the man and walked out to Darren and Audrey, a practiced smile on her face and a pair of menus in her arms. “Two of you?”

  Darren nodded.

  “Hey, you’re in my biology class, aren’t you?” The blonde asked.

  Darren looked for a name tag, spotting one across her left breast. Danica. The name didn’t sound familiar, but he didn’t really know anyone in that class except for his two lab partners. “We might be.”

  “Tuesday, Thursday afternoon?”

  “That’d be it.”

  “I thought so,” Danica said. She glanced at Audrey for a moment, then looked back at Darren. “Booth or table?”

  Darren looked back at Audrey. “Booth?”

  She nodded.

  “Alright, this way.”

  Danica led them to a booth in the far corner, gave them the menus, and left with the threat of her eventual return to take their order.

  Chapter 27

  Audrey scanned the room as they sat down at the booth. “Seems like a nice place,” she said as she unzipped her jacket and shimmied her shoulder out of the sleeves.

  Darren’s jaw fell open to speak, but hung open by its own accord as his eyes looked at what Audrey had on below her jacket. A simple white shirt hung from spaghetti straps over her shoulders. The fabric didn’t start until partway down her breasts, showing the soft flesh of the top of her chest, down the slopes where a shadow disguised the darkest depth of her cleavage.

  Darren snapped his eyes off of her bared skin, but like a magnet, his eyes fell right back to the crevice. She was going to notice him staring, but he could not help himself. Maybe it was a test to see if sex was the only thing on his mind, or maybe she wanted him to see so much of her skin.

  Darren pried his eyes off her skin and brought them up to her eyes. A sense of relief came to him when he saw that she was still looking across the room, so he stole another glance before speaking.

  “I hope you are okay with a more informal place,” Darren said.

  “I actually prefer that,” Audrey said. “It’s much more relaxing I think. I like a nice casual evening.”

  “I’m glad to hear, I was afraid you’d be expecting a romantic candlelit dinner.”

  Audrey turned back to look at Darren. “Who said this wasn’t romantic?”

  “I just-”

  “There’s too much expected from a formal dinner. It’s just stressful and uptight. I like this a thousand times better than if you would have taken me to one of those places.”

  “Well, I’m glad you like it here.”

  “As long as I’m with you, I’d like it anywhere.”

  Darren felt a blush spreading across his cheeks.

  Audrey let out a light laugh and reached across the table, grabbing his hand. “I like you Darren.”

  “I like you too, but there’s so much I don’t know about you.” Darren put a smile on his face. “I noticed you the first day of class, but I was afraid to talk to you.”

  “I never thought I was a scary person.”

  “You’re not, I’m just rather shy. I’m used to rejection by people.”

  “It probably didn’t help that you had a girlfriend.”

  Darren’s smile vanished. He hoped Rachel wasn’t going to come up in the conversation, but after the confrontation in the union, he wasn’t too surprised. “Yeah, that too,” Darren said. “I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me, I’m not the type to cheat on a girl or anything, it’s just hard to ignore a pretty girl like you, when you have a failing relationship.”

  “I know, you can’t hold something like that against someone,” she said. “It’s only natural to look. Had you asked me out while you still had a girlfriend, that would not have gone over every well with me.”

  Darren gulped. He better not tell her about breaking up with Rachel after he and Audrey had made out. It was just this morning he dumped Rachel, but it felt like it had been a lot longer than that.

  “When did you two split up?” Audrey asked as she flipped open the menu in front of her. “After seeing her today, I’m sure it hasn’t been that long.”

  Darren hesitated. Bad idea.

  Audrey looked up at him from the menu.

  “To be honest,” Darren said, though he had no intention of being honest. Just close to the truth. “It was just on Sunday.”

  Audrey nodded and turned her eyes back to the menu.

  “It was over a month ago, or at least I knew it was, but I was too afraid to do anything about it.”

  “Seeing her today, I can see why you’d be afraid.”

  “I’m so sorry she did that to you. I never thought she’d do something like that.”

  Audrey shrugged. “She probably saw us together, and being less than a week since you split, she got jealous that you were moving on, and she wasn’t,” she said. “It’s quite natural, and even though it wasn’t a fun experience, I at least understood.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Darren said. “I don’t know how you can be such an understanding and forgiving person in this world.”

  “Just need to look at the bigger picture sometimes.”

  “You mean, like God?”

  “I didn’t mean quite that big, but that works.”

  Daren nodded.

  “You guys ready?” Danica asked, approaching from out of Darren’s view over his shoulder.

  Darren hadn’t even looked at the menu, but he chose a calzone after Audrey ordered a seafood platter. Danica whisked herself away, coming back a moment later with a pair of sodas, then disappearing again behind the counter.

  “Do I get to learn a little more about you tonight?” Darren asked. “I haven’t found out a lot about you so far.”

  “I’m not that interesting.”

  “I disagree.”

  “I knew you would,” Audrey said. She folded her hands in front of her and let her perma-smile grow. “What would you like to know?”

  “Anything.”

  “I’m a Pisces.”

  “Well, I guess that’s a good thing.”

  Audrey laughed. “Not much to say really. Born and raised in Madison.”

  “There’s got to be more than that,” Darren said.

  Audrey shrugged.

  “What about your family?”

  “I have no family.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was an only child and my parents died when I was fifteen,” she said, her perma-smile vanishing while she spoke.

  “I’m so sorry,” Darren said. “How’d it happen?”

  “Car crash. Christmas night when they were on their way home from a party. They hit a patch of ice and broke through a guard rail, falling into the river below.”

  “That had to have been hard,” Darren said.

  “It still is.” Her smile came back. “Looks like we’ve both had some pretty rough times, haven’t we?”

  “Well, I guess that’s the quick version.”

  Audrey’s smile turned into a smirk. “I’m a straight to the point kind of girl.”

  Darren nodded. “Yeah, I picked up on that right away.”

  “Some people find me a bit intense.”

  “I wouldn’t call it that. But you do seem like you’re always on the edge of your seat.”

  “
Think you can handle me?”

  “I know I can.”

  Audrey smiled. “Good, because you’re going to be in for the ride of your life if you stick with me.”

  “I’ll just have to wear my seatbelt.”

  “You may need a helmet too. At least until you catch the hang of things.”

  “I got a hard head, I’ll be fine.”

  Audrey laughed, her breasts shaking beneath the little fabric covering them. She seemed to notice Darren looking at her chest, because she squished her breasts together by bunching up her shoulders.

  Darren blushed and tried to look away.

  “I don’t care if you look,” Audrey said. “Just don’t forget where my face is.”

  Darren’s blush grew hotter. Sweat beaded on his upper lip and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. “I won’t forget.”

  Food came, and the conversation mellowed into discussions about their classes and the research paper they had to get done.

  “Did you want to work on it tomorrow night?” Darren asked between bites of his calzone.

  “Before or after you take me out again?”

  “You’re ready for a second date already?”

  “I think this one’s going well, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, very well.”

  “I don’t think we can screw it up too bad any more. The pace has already been set.”

  “I guess. It doesn’t matter to me either way.”

  “Let’s just play it by ear then. See how long we’re down in the tunnel.”

  “As long as we keep the tunnel out of the conversation tonight.”

  “Why don’t you want to talk about it?”

  “Then we’ll never stop talking about it.”

  “There’s something you aren’t telling me,” Audrey said.

  “What do you mean?” Darren asked. Was she talking about Rachel? What did she find out?

  “There’s been more about your reluctance to go into the hatch,” she said. “I know it isn’t as simple as being afraid of getting caught.”

  Darren sighed and closed his eyes, seeing the rusted iron ring of the manhole in his mind.

  “What is it Darren?” Audrey asked, reaching her hand out to him across the table.

  Darren opened his eyes, saw her hand, and took it in his. “About five years ago, I was trapped in a manhole for twelve hours.”

  Audrey gasped, her other hand going to her lips. “Oh my God, what happened?”

  Darren swallowed, trying to gather some sort of mental strength. “My mom used to make me go to the youth group at our church,” he said. “But I didn’t like the people-the others in class. So I used to wait until my mom drove away after dropping me off and walk down the street to the bookstore.”

  Audrey nodded, not an ounce of judgment in her face.

  “I had to cut through a small alley between two buildings to get there, and this particular day, there was a pair of men in the alley,” Darren said. “They had been drinking, but I don’t think that they were that drunk.” Darren shook his head. “Anyways, they started to yell at me, calling me a terrorist, a rug-hugger, and fifty other insults that I had heard before.”

  “Oh, Darren,” Audrey said, squeezing his hand.

  “I turned back and tried to run away from them, but they caught me,” he said. His heart was beginning to speed up in his chest, pouring sweat down his armpits. “They spit on me, hit me, kicked me, told me they were going to kill me like I killed all those on nine-eleven.”

  Audrey’s eyes welled with tears, one hanging on the brink inside of her left eye.

  “They pulled open a manhole cover in the alley, and dropped me inside.”

  Audrey gasped.

  “I broke a rib in the fall,” Darren shrugged. “I didn’t hurt that bad though. I tried to climb up the metal rungs in the dark after I thought the men left, but I couldn't get the manhole cover to even budge. It was too heavy.”

  The tear fell from Audrey’s eye, leaving a glistening streak on her cheek.

  “I yelled and yelled, but it was twelve hours until the owner of the bookstore I was going to went to work in the morning and heard me. The police came, got me out, and I think the rest is rather self-explanatory.”

  “That’s horrible!” Audrey said. She squeezed his hand tighter. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’ve gotten used to being treated that way,” Darren said. “But that was the first time I was ever afraid of dying. Seeing that hatch just kind of reminded me of it. It isn’t the same thing, but I can’t shake the feeling I got when we climbed down there.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me before?” Audrey asked. She wiped her cheek, removing the streak of water, but her eyes were still growing red.

  “Because I didn’t think it mattered. It’s not the same thing, and I know what.”

  “Yeah, but still, I never would have talked you into going down there if I knew that.”

  “I made it out alright, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not the point.”

  Darren sighed. “Well, you know now.”

  “That must have been so-”

  “Can we change topics? Talk about something else?”

  Audrey studied Darren’s face and nodded. “Yeah, what should we talk about?”

  “I don’t know. How about why you chose creative writing as a major?”

  Audrey shrugged, swallowing at the same time. “I like to write. My parents always told me I was a bit over imaginative so why not use that to my advantage?”

  “You sure have the personality to write. Blunt and up-front, I don’t think you’d hold anything back.”

  “I’ve had a couple of stories published in a literary magazine, but nothing worth really mentioning. I just do it because it’s fun.”

  “You’ve been published?”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “There’s a lot of competition for short stories.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I read a lot.”

  “Well, it was only luck they made it into print.”

  “Most people call that skill.”

  “I call it luck.”

  “What do you want to do in the future? Write a novel?”

  “I’ve kind of toyed around with a few ideas in the past, but I haven’t had enough energy to put into something that long.”

  “With as intense as you are, I thought it would come naturally.”

  “My mind wanders a lot. It’s hard to give that much concentration.”

  “Well, I still think you’d write a damn good book.”

  “How could you know? You haven’t read anything of mine.”

  Darren shrugged. “I can just tell.”

  “Maybe someday I’ll make a serious effort, but not while I’m still in school.”

  “What do you want to do when you graduate?”

  “I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”

  “Then why’d you chose that major?”

  “Because it’s what I love to do.”

  “Well, I’m sure you could build a wonderful career as a novelist.”

  “You’re rather optimistic.”

  “I just want to be president of your fan club.”

  Audrey laughed with food in her mouth. She brought up her hand to her lips to block the view of her mouth. “I think you’d be the only member,” she said after emptying her mouth.

  “You should have more confidence than that.”

  “I don’t write to publish, I write for myself because I enjoy it.”

  “The best writers in the world write for the same reason.”

  “You sure know a lot about writing for not doing it yourself,”

  “I just read a lot of those afterwards where the author talks about writing the book. Some of Stephen King’s are better than the books themselves.”

  Audrey laughed. “I suppose I can agree with that, he is a rather wordy man,” she said. “Enough about that though, I want to hear more about you.”
<
br />   “Me?” Darren said as he swallowed a large sausage. “I pretty much told you everything there is to know.”

  “There is always more. No matter how insignificant some things seem, they still define who you are.”

  “Well, I’m not even sure what to say.”

  “What’s your favorite color?”

  Darren shrugged. “Red I guess.”

  “What kind of music do you like?”

  “Pretty much anything, not rap though.”

  “What day is your birthday?”

  Audrey continued to drill Darren with question after question. The smile on her face grew and grew with each answer, her eyes softening with each passing second. She seemed to like hearing Darren talk more than she liked the answers, because a lot of the questions she asked were just rudimentary.

  When they finished the meal and the check came, Darren paid without any protest from Audrey and helped her out of her seat-trying not to look down her shirt as he stood over her. He held her jacket for her as she slipped it on, and walked with her, hand in hand back out into the night.

  Audrey slipped her hand into Darren’s pocket and rested her head on his shoulder after they made it across the street. “Thank you for taking me to dinner.”

  “My pleasure,” Darren said. “I wish I didn’t have to walk you back already.”

  “No one said you did.”

  “Where else could we go? I don’t know what’s around here.”

  Audrey shrugged against his body. “I’m not sure. They have a movie playing on campus at nine I think.”

  “We can do that if you want.”

  “Don’t you want to?”

  “I just want to be with you, I’m up for anything.”

  “Would you rather do something more private?”

  “Like what?”

  “My roommate is gone for the weekend, we can go find a movie on TV there.”

  Her room? Alone? If one thing leads to another...

  But it was too soon for that. He just met Audrey, he just broke up with Rachel, and it had only been days since he had sex with her. It was way too soon to do that.

  What if she wants to though? What if that’s what she’s intending right now?

  There is no way Darren could say no. He knew he wouldn’t be able to resist her. But still, it didn’t feel right, it was too soon. He needed to get to know her better first. At least work his way around the bases one at a time. He doesn’t have the strength for a home run his first time at bat.