Thread: English 2352 {DearestDarling & Dane Stalling}

She laughed at him about the capers and it made him relax a little. She could have thrown her water in his face or called security just for being a stalky fuck. He had an excuse to come back now. She had said it, but her band was good- she was good. And not just because he wanted to watch her mouth make words. She squeezed his shoulder and it made him shiver. He felt her nails briefly through the fabric of his shirt. He didn't hear it at first, the intro to the song was thoughtful and slow, but he felt a grin spread across his face as Rosalie sang the first line. A lot of the people around him didn't know it, probably thought it was an original. He wondered how she knew it, how she could just pull the complex lyrics out of the air like that. Caught between the Scylla and Charybdis He spun the ring on his finger with one hand, pushed it toward the tip of his finger until it threatened to fall off. He watched it, fascinated, orbiting the tip, hanging on his fingernail. He was tired of being caught between all the monumental pressures, the expectations, the soul crushing tedium of explaining art to people who could barely read. Explaining freedom to people in cages, explaining freedom to himself. He waited for her to finish the verse, waited until her eyes caught his, and he dropped his ring into the water Rosalie had pushed across the table to him. It looped to the bottom. He took a sip, his lips finding the same place hers had touched on the glass. A faint pink flavor from her lip gloss sweetened the water, and he drank again, his eyes never leaving hers. He drank at the end of each phrase, at the end of each chorus, and as the song ended, he finished the water and the ring slid into his mouth. He fished a pen out of his jacket pocket and wrote on a napkin. Mephistopheles drinks black coffee at the dive on 13th. He set the empty glass on the napkin and fished out the mint sprig, put his ring finger in his mouth and it came out wearing his ring again. He was back between the devil and the deep blue sea. He put the mint in his mouth to chew, folded his tie and left it on the table next to the note. He left his car windows down and the wind cleared his head a little. That was it. He had had his moment of madness, gotten it out of his system. Everything should go back to normal now. Isobel would get over it. Rosalie wouldn't come, of course, why would she go to a dingy diner to meet a professor when she could have her pick of the bar crowd? Any man in the place and a not insignificant number of the women would have jumped at the chance, if he was any judge. He parked in front of Cal's 24 hour diner, sat by the greasy front window so he could watch the car. He almost wished someone would steal it, just to get rid of the damn capers, but then he'd have to talk to insurance people, and the thought of that made his stomach knot up. This was a place truckers liked to eat, and the clientele favored flannel shirts and mesh backed ball caps with engine brands on their fronts. He would most definitely not meet anyone he knew. They all drank at Cliff's or The Gander. Coffee, black, he said when the server came by. Oh, and a dessert. Something pink.