crème glacée [the fate of coincidences 1]

19: Glen

Glen's eyes flew open and he lay still on his bed for a minute, just breathing. He just had another nightmare about Thomas the Banana, and he didn't know what it was, but something about that talking fruit was scary. He blamed his grandma for telling him horror stories about giant fruits when he was little. It traumatized him so much that he was having occasional nightmares about it as an adult.

Glen shifted in the sheets and grabbed for his phone from the nightstand. He blearily stared at the glowing screen, trying to make sense of the numbers with his half-asleep brain. 6:28, just two minutes before his alarm was supposed to go off. He fell back on his pillow and groaned. It was Monday again and he didn't want to go to work. He didn't want to go back to Thomas the Banana either, so he dragged his body out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom.

Fifty minutes later he was fully clothed in a suit, hair styled to perfection, with a piece of toast in his mouth, looking nothing like he just had a recurring nightmare about a talking banana. Just when he decided to make himself another piece of toast, his phone rang. He grabbed it off the counter and brought it up to his ear.

"Good morning!" Jade's over-enthusiastic voice came through the line.

Glen cringed at the volume. "Good morning."

"I'm here."

"I'll be right out."

He hung up, grabbed his suitcase and was out the door in 3 seconds flat.

As he got into the passenger seat of the beat up little Honda, Jade smiled, showing all her bright white teeth.

"Would you like some ice cream with that?" she asked, laughter in her eyes.

He took the forgotten piece of toast out of his mouth as she held out a tub of red velvet ice cream at him. 'Kiss you' by One Direction was playing on low volume, but he was so used to their poppy voices by now that he didn't even notice nor care. He shrugged and dipped his toast in the ice cream because sugar was energy, and with no coffee around at the moment, he needed to feel awake somehow.

"That's kind of gross." Her nose wrinkled and the car pulled out onto the road. "Ice cream with bread?"

"You suggested it first," he said, still chewing. "It's actually not bad."

He didn't even question the fact she was eating ice cream in her car this early in the morning. By now he'd learned not to question anything Jade did because it would just make his brain hurt.

"Really? Can I try?"

Glen ripped off a piece of toast, dipped it in ice cream and was about to give it to Jade, but she opened her mouth instead.

"I can't use my hands because I'm driving," she offered as an excuse.

So Glen just shoved the toast in her mouth, and started looking for napkins because the ice cream was melting all over the place.

"They're in the glove compartment," Jade supplied helpfully.

The glove compartment was overflowing with papers and a few wrinkled napkins.

"Don't worry, they're clean," she reassured when her gave her a look.

After Glen wiped the mess and closed the ice cream, Jade gave him another almost psychotic smile. It was probably the sugar rush.

"What are you so happy about?" he decided to ask anyway.

"It's Monday!"

"And that's a good thing?"