Tear Away

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Once the film had finished Mark took Scarlett to the local Italian restaurant for dinner. They had the usual first date conversations where Scarlett learnt that Mark was the youngest of three brothers. His oldest brother was married with two children, but his second brother was currently serving time at her majesties pleasure. Scarlett didn't like to ask for details and for just a moment Mark looked embarrassed, almost like he'd wished he hadn't spoken. Scarlett quickly changed the subject.

"I've one sister," she explained over a slice of ham and pineapple pizza "she's younger than me."

"Are you the older and wiser one?" asked Mark,

"I'm not so sure about that, I've not seen Katie for about a year."

"That's a shame," said Mark, sympathetically.

"Not really, she's a cow." Scarlett laughed at the expression on his face.

"You can't say something like that!" Mark was shocked, she'd looked so serious.

Katie was an accident when she was born. Their parents had been told that they'd never be able to have another child so when she came along she was the best thing ever. Since then there had been nothing she could do wrong. And didn't she know it. Scarlett was treated as her sisters keeper, and always blamed whenever Katie did anything wrong. Scarlett finally had enough when Katie had crashed their parents car one winter night. Luckily no one had been hurt but somehow she'd managed to blame Scarlett for it and make Scarlett pay for the repairs. She'd never forgiven her sister. And as far as she knew Katie was still as irresponsible now.

At that moment the waiter came over to their table, "how's the food? Would you like anything else?" Both Mark and Scarlett had just taken a bite of food and so could only shake their heads. He walked away.

"Why do they always wait till you have a mouthful of food before they ask you that question?" asked Scarlett, "the only way you can answer is by spraying food everywhere, then they have gone by the time you swallow."

Marks raised his eye brows at Scarlett when she mentioned swallowing, "swallowing is often better than spitting, that's for sure"

At that, Scarlett, who had just taken a mouthful of her drink was unable to contain her surprise, and unfortunately splattered him across the table. Bright red she couldn't hide her embarrassment and burst out laughing again.

By the end of the meal they had both laughed so much that their sides hurt. They exited the restaurant holding hands, with Mark tucking the receipt into his back pocket.

"Thank you for a lovely evening," Scarlett said, looking up into his eyes. "it's been a long time since I've been out with someone so funny."

"I hope that's funny haha and not funny cookoo?"

"Only time will tell..." said Scarlett avoiding his question but smiling cheekily, finally feeling comfortable with him so close. "Would you like to come back to mine for a coffee?" Scarlett asked, she was sure that after tonight she wouldn't see Mark again but she was going to enjoy herself anyway. She was surprised however by his lack of enthusiasm when she'd felt sure that he wouldn't want the evening to end just yet.

He hesitated, then answered, "Sure, why not."

Suddenly Scarlett wasn't as confident as she had been, and began to wonder what had gone wrong. They walked a little way in silence before Mark began the conversation again by talking about the movie they had seen.

Scarlett wasn't following the conversation as fully as she had been before and so wasn't aware that it had stopped until Mark turned to her at her front door,