Picture Perfect

f i v e

Brad hadn't been able to stop thinking about Rachel all week. Every stop he made he would sit there with her business card in his hand. Trying to think of something to say to her when he called her. Every time he laid down for a short nap he thought about her and her face and their kiss swirled through his mind. She was the only thing that he saw when he closed his eyes.

He had tried to scroll through Facebook but that only made him want to look her up on and search her profile for the hundredth time this week. He liked looking at her tagged photos. He saw a picture of her between her two brothers. They all looked alike, it was clear they were siblings. In the next picture it was she and whom he figured was her dad, a salt and peppered haired guy with glasses. He stared at her smile in all of the photos wishing that they were aimed towards him.

As much as he didn't want to admit it, he missed her. He barely knew her but Brad missed her. This week was going so slow. He wanted to be back in Hampton knowing that he could probably see her. He hoped at least that he could see her. Every time his dispatcher called and told him he was going somewhere that made him farther and farther away from where Rachel was. Throughout the day he wondered what she was doing. He wondered what she did when she got home at night and when he was driving late into the night if she was sleeping? What bothered him most was that he wondered if she was thinking about him too.

Brad crawled into the bunk and flicked off the light. It was late and the sky was dark. He was so tired but again his head was not anywhere but on Rachel. The truck was bouncing around from the forklift loading shingles onto his flatbed trailer. He knew that it was pointless to try and close his eyes and go to sleep but he wanted to at least lie down. His body was tired for sitting the same way for hours. The forklift would be finished soon and he would have to go out and throw his tarps. He groaned, usually he didn't mind. Throwing the tarps stopped him from having to go to gym when he was home. They were heavy and he usually sweats through his shirt even when he was up north in the dead of winter. Now, he didn't want to get out. He just wanted to drive; he wanted to go home. He wanted to see Rachel.

When the forklift driver slammed his hand into the side of Brad's truck it started him. He must have dozed off. He sat upright and yelled, "YEAH!" He grabbed his phone that had fallen onto the floor. It was almost midnight on Thursday. He knew that he would get home at an okay time on Friday. He pulled on his work boots and threw a sweatshirt over his head and climbed out of the truck. The shingles were piled up on the flat bed. With a heave he climbed up and started to unstrap his tarps. He knew if he got his head in the game and started working he would get to head out of here and towards home.

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It was Friday morning and Rachel was happy to know that today meant that she would be able to lounge around in her sweatpants tomorrow. She had plans to hang her bathroom decorations and to bake cookies or maybe she would finally sort through the box of pictures her mom had mailed but that was about it. It sounded like a relaxing weekend to her. For the first few days of the week the workdays drug on with awkward team meetings with Madison who didn't talk to her. When she was home in the evenings she watched her phone hoping Brad would call but he never did. By Wednesday she assumed that there was really no spark between them and he had decided to just forget about her. She accepted that now. That was fine. She told herself this every time she checked her phone but no one had told her heart that. She was thankful for the distraction of work.

As she was answering some emails her desk phone started to ring. It rang twice and paused, than rang again. She knew that it wasn't a call from inside the building. Rachel cleared her throat and picked up the line.