Picture Perfect

t h r e e

It had been two weeks since Rachel made her move down south, leaving everything she knew for this brand new life. She was adjusting well enough. The people on her team at work were nice. They had started to hit it off; they welcomed her and tried to include her when they could. She was starting to really enjoy this life. She seemed to always have work to do on weeknights so it was no big deal for her to sit in her apartment and work in front of the TV, just like she had imagined herself.

Last weekend, she spent it roaming interior decorating stores, Wal-Mart's, Kohl's, and some craft stores looking for things to spruce up the place. She found curtains for both the living room and her bedroom. She found a boxed bar height kitchen table that took her hours to put together in the dining area but she was happy almost three hours later when that space was filled with something other than her boxes. She made a deal with herself to unpack at least one box a day until they were all gone. She had pretty much done so. Anything else she stuffed into the hallway closet, hoping to one-day get the courage to unpack it.

Now she sat at the bar of local place that one of her co-workers had told her about. She had agreed to meet Rachel here about twenty minutes ago. Madison, a girl on her team lives about ten minutes from Rachel's apartment and they had started to hang out a bit, going for coffee or lunch. Rachel was excited when Madison had suggested that Rachel meet her and her girlfriends for a couple drinks tonight. She had texted Rachel the address and after getting ready she plugged it into her GPS and this is where it brought her.

It was a typical local bar, they had tons of them back home; a place where you had to be twenty-one to enter but they served good food and of course, drinks. High tables littered the bar behind her. A room off the side held what looked like three pool tables. There were a few groups of people, Rachel looked over her shoulder to see if she might have missed Madison and her friends. She scanned the room. There was a couple on their cell phones at one table. Another table held a bunch of guys slapping hands, and the only other occupied table held three guys and one girl who all seemed to be having a good time. She turned back around and looked into the drink she was nursing. Maybe she had the wrong address, but she had checked on that a couple of minutes ago. Maybe they are just running late, its only twenty minutes. Rachel decided to settle on that, but as the night wore on she realized they weren't coming, but that didn't stop her from ordering another drink and snapping her head to door every time it opened.

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The group had just sat down at their normal table and everyone ordered a round of drinks when Brad had seen her walk in. She caught his eye because she was alone and someone that he had never seen around here before. Most everyone who came in was a regular or a local. She took a seat at the nearly empty bar and ordered a drink. He felt a stir in his stomach as he watched her kick her boot off the stool rung and then back on while nursing a long neck bottle. He wondered why he was so interested in her. She wasn't his normal type. He seemed to go for the girls who were tall and skinny, almost too skinny. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail that fell just below her shoulders and while it was dark she didn't seem to have caked on the make up. Most of the girls around here spent hours in front of the mirror making themselves all dolled up for bar or like Jenna, a party. He never saw her without a painted face and spiral curls. Maybe that was why he was drawn to this girl, she was different. Her short athletic build was calling to him. It was weird. He tried to look away and rejoin his friend's conversation but Bradley couldn't focus on anything but her.

As the night wore on her noticed that not one person has joined her. He watched her as she scanned the room, almost looking for someone. Her head turned every time the door opened. He figured some son of a bitch stood her up. He wondered why anyone would do that to her, she was...