14. Breaking the quarantine - BRADGA

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Hey, guys!

Just another silly story. I forgot to mention the masks on this. Please, never forget them and stay home if you can! Enjoy!

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Bradley snapped awake, still feeling a little dizzy from all the sleeping

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Bradley snapped awake, still feeling a little dizzy from all the sleeping. He squinted at the clock, and 11:07 glowed at him. Sunlight was forcing its way around the bedroom windows' heavy curtains. Bradley stuck a foot out from under the warm blankets testing the temp. Finally, no cold toes. The weather took its time progressing away from winter, and now the sun's rays warmed the earth, the birds screamed outside Bradley's window, and the other half of the bed was empty.

Stefani was probably up. Bradley slid a hand along the sheets on her side. Cool. She'd been up a while. It was nice of her to leave him to sleep. He got up and worked his feet into his frayed slippers. He called them 'houseshoes,' and Stefani had given him shit about it, calling him an old man and a bitch because his tootsies couldn't take the cold wood floors. But that was a year back when they started living together. Now she accepted it with a roll of her eyes.

He walked to the living room/kitchen/dining room of the small apartment they were renting in Miami. Stefani sat at the table with her hands curled around her pink mug as the steam rose from the coffee. She peered at the screen of their battered laptop, and Bradley knew she was actually working, not just playing online. Stefani would have used her phone for entertainment.

"Oh, you're changing it up?" Bradley asked. She was sitting in 'his' spot at the moment.

She glanced up from the screen and took a sip of her coffee, a frown plastered on her face.

"Every. Day. The. Same." she said and clicked on the wireless mouse.

"How much work do you have today?" Bradley asked.

"I'm done in about twenty minutes," Stefani replied, "And then I'm set for the day. Work's barely trickling in, and there's not that much. Plus, I've been up since 5:00 or so, and I already got a few hours in."

Bradley winced and poured himself a coffee. He decided to jazz things up by selecting one of the mugs they used to eat ice cream instead of his usual scarlet and gold coffee cup. He moved Stefani's chair halfway around the table, away from 'her' spot, and sat. Stefani looked at the cup, then at the chair, and then at him without moving her head and flicked her eyes back to the screen.

"Today will be different!" Bradley proclaimed, throwing his arms high in the air in a wide "V."

"No, it won't," Stefani said, "COVID says so."

"It will," Bradley insisted, "You just watch."

"Every day, the wait for it... and then... same happens."

Bradley was saddened to see his girlfriend's slow descent into sad complacency. Stefani was usually a vibrant, excited, happy woman, but the COVID-19 quarantine had slowly been crushing her soul. The light Bradley had grown to love over the past two years flickered nowadays. He needed to take action. His relentless enthusiasm wasn't enough.

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