Revved Up Soul

Chapter 6

Jasmine

The man had a scraggy white beard and sad, sleepless bags for eyes. He was practically dressed in rags, aside from his nice but well-worn sneakers – the man had taken care to wrap up his dirty gold Labrador in a great big towel, holding it to his chest.

Jasmine stepped under the concrete awning of the restaurant, the rain picking up a bit. It was good that she brought her umbrella. She padded over to the man and sat beside him, trying to politely ignore his smell.

The scraggy bearded man looked over to Jasmine, the dog whimpered and glanced over as well. "Hi there," he offered, his voice sort of hollow, "whose that? Huh Jasper?" The man pet the side of the dog's face affectionately.

The corner of her mouth lifted, "Hey, that's a cute dog you have there. How long have you had him?"

"Going on four years now," he gave Jasper's head a soft series of pats.

Jasmine reached over and scratched underneath the dog's neck; it raised its chin in response, letting her fingers dance where they pleased. "Well you're lucky to have him, he's beautiful. How long you been on the streets, if you don't mind me asking," Jasmine wondered how long it might take her date to arrive. She hated being the only punctual human being in her social circles.

"Six years now, heh, it ain't easy . . . cold but it's still beautiful out. How I like it, even when I had a home, would always sit on the stoops and listen to the rain."

"Yeah," Jasmine agreed, looking out at the lazy gray sky, "there's just something about the rain," she inhaled, catching the wet and earthly scent.

The homeless man nodded his head, playing with Jasper's ear now.

Something pricked at Jasmine's heart as the moments ticked on by, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her wallet producing two twenty dollar bills. "Here," she said gingerly, offering the paper to the man.

His eyes went wide with appreciation, his hand hesitating a moment to take it from her own, "Hey now that's—you don't need t-to do that."

"I don't need to," she said, "I want to." Jasmine pushed her hand out further, stretching as far as her arm would allow.

A couple of heartbeats later and the man resigned, carefully accepting the bills from her small hand. "Thanks ma'am."

"You're welcome, I know what it's like to be down on your luck," that wasn't entirely true, her parents had been there for her plenty, she hoped it would make him feel better about taking the money. The two continued to chat for a brief while. It had been a month since she'd seen Luke, the grey clouds looming above her made her think about what had happened – how she slipped up and it costed a man his life. He wasn't going to make it, she knew. It had already been twenty minutes. Just leave it alone, stop beating yourself up over this . . . give yourself a break. But she couldn't. It reminded her of too many things, and too many things reminded her of it.

He's not coming, she thought, getting up from her spot by the homeless man and stepping out into the sidewalk.

Rain pattered softly against her yellow umbrella and a smile walked across the lines of her face when she saw Dale coming around the corner. Jasmine had only met him a couple of weeks ago when she took her Rav4 in to get looked at – the two struck a quick bond. He seems sweet, even if the bastard did keep me waiting, Jasmine thought. She moved over to meet him.

Dale walked over to Jasmine, moving along with her underneath the protection of the concrete canopy above. It had a simplistic red covering and a decidedly fancy black font. Dale wrapped up his umbrella and looked over at Jasmine. He had simple green eyes, caring ones, and a nice oval face with surprisingly pretty white skin. For some reason Jasmine expected him to show up with oil stains, but he was anything if not clean – his beard shaved neatly and his hair parted with gel to one side.