"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"I'm studying your rocks," she replied, taking a sip of beer to moisten her dry mouth, another symptom of the state of her nerves.
His smile disappeared, and his eyes widened. He glanced about and the...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
This chapter is dedicated to Grinstinctual for her encouragement & her support, via her votes, comments & msgs :-)! She started reading the story many months ago, and appeared to have given up on it - like so many other readers :-( - but picked it up again a few months back, which I was absolutely thrilled about :-)!
Thank u so much, Gayatri! I really appreciate it :-)!
She is an author as well & has 5 books on WP. Please check them out :-)!
Hurrying over to them, Samina said to Tom, "Sorry I took so long!" and then to both, with a giggle, "Phil is so crazy! He waits till the night before he's leaving to tell me all about his girlfriend – Mindy! And then he wants me to come up with ideas for what he can pick up for her. I mean, I don't even know her!"
Tom nodded with the sweetest smile that he could muster, drawing on all his acting abilities – he'd had drama right into high school – to present a happy-go-lucky face to Samina, despite the fact that he wasn't feeling at all happy about the conversation he'd just had with Chris. He was hoping to see a similar effort from Chris but was disappointed. Chris, appearing to be in no mood to accommodate Tom's wishes – really, what else was new? – acknowledged Samina's cheerful chatter with a morose nod – highly morose.
Samina, of course, noticed. How could she not? Chris looked so utterly down and out! Her brows creased. Her eyes lingered on Chris for a moment, before turning questioningly to Tom. Tom immediately saw where it was all headed, to accusations that he hadn't kept his promise to take it easy on Chris!
Before she could say anything, Tom quickly jumped in, "So did you come up with any suggestions for Phil?" adding, with a smirk, "I'm almost afraid to ask."
"Whaddoyou mean you're afraid to ask?" she frowned.
"Well, I hope you didn't suggest Phil get her a cotton nightie!" Tom winked, the latter gesture owing entirely to his acting classes.
Samina burst out laughing. "No. No, I didn't," she cried. Recovering, and glancing self-consciously at Chris, she cleared her throat, and said, "I thought maybe a T-shirt, you know, a touristy one. But Phil thought that was too conventional. Then I thought maybe a picture book of the area, one with some local history in it. But Phil didn't think Mindy'd appreciate that."
Neither Tom nor Chris looked particularly surprised about Mindy's predicted reaction to a picture book containing local history.
"Then I thought some jewellery, with semi-precious gems, like amethyst, or garnet. Phil thought she might like that."
"Do you wear jewellery?" Tom hastily asked. Not only had he never seen any on her, but he was determined to keep up the questioning, no matter how inane, till Chris had made some headway on that damn hang-dog look of his!
