Zac & Lila

Where was she? The hours felt like days, at the grocery store. Zac couldn't keep his mind on work.

In his head, he could see Lila coming to find him. Coming to have it out with him.

 He could even feel her sharp index finger press against his chest. Shouting into his face. "WHO IN THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE..YOU LIL' S H I T?"

But it was after lunch, she didn't come.

Was that subliminal... for something else? He winced at the matter, trying to drone on with the bagging. Not once did he switch with Mandy.

He didn't notice the perturbed look on her heart-shaped face. After all, he didn't really like her..until..until..

He didn't want to think about that now.

But Lila was a no show..and well..something needed to be fixed...

Because..when the male species..

He shook the thought from his head, as if he'd had to sit through an out-dated film strip on the matter of  s e x...

By 5 p.m., it was time to go and he needed to get out of here.

He grabbed Mandy's wrist, with his store vest in the other. He'd had enough. No overtime here.

"W..what.." She looked at him as if he'd lost it.

There was the old-timer to take over. Zac pulled her with him. They went straight to the time clock. He pushed in his code. He knew her's, just as well.

Mandy looked at him, as her little round mouth came open.

He frowned back at her, as if this was all her fault. He wanted to blame someone.

By the time they got to the hot parking lot, he snatched her keys from her geeky bag, which was full of Harry Potter paperbacks and a pink note book.

A part of him wanted to go through the note book.

"Are you writing about me!" He hissed as he pushed her into the passenger side of the old gray Toyota.

She kept a straight face, and kept quite while he got in, to drive.

He knew the car. This was much was true. She never really let him drive, but he did. OK, she never said he could. But it didn't matter.

He sped up before the light could turn red and made a left, going toward the city park. the entrance was a canopy of old trees, so nostalgic of generations past.

They went past the playground, past the old pool where the teen girls hung out, just to watch the college lifeguards.

Onward toward the river where the wild grapes grew along with other tangled things.

The breeze wasn't half bad from the car window, but it was still hot and so was Zac.

Finally, he stopped, put the car in park and took the keys out of the ignition and into the pocket of his nice tan pants (he always wore to work).

His sheepish grin shown as he looked over at Mandy.

Did he even know she was here?

He sighed. Sometimes, he had to use his imagination.