Legal Theft: Coffee Time (579 Words)

Free time was aas foreign a concept to Sadie as the jungle was to a zoo animal.  Something she had heard about and knew that some had the luxury of enjoying such things, but had never experienced for herself.  When it came to a barn lifestyle, there was never not something else she should be doing.  Even when she squeezed in a few hours of sleep, she could be cleaning those bridles in the tack room or she could have made herself eat more of a dinner than a few broken Oreos and a swig of Gatorade.  Perhaps it was this lifelong philosophy she had in her mind and maybe due partly to her poor nutrition and lack of sleep, but Sadie had instinctively laughed in the poor man’s face when he had asked her if she had some time for coffee.

A long two seconds later, her mind clicked into gear, shutting her mouth and looking appropriately apologetic.  “Sorry Eric, I’ve just been so busy lately,” she gave him what she hoped was a charming smile, placed a hand on his arm and promised, “but for you, I can make some free time, even if I have schedule it in, as backwards as that sounds.”

As Eric laughed, no only at her poor joke, but at her immediate laughter, Sadie had to bite her lip to keep herself from grinning like a mad fool.  “Sadie, are you ever not busy?” he asked in half seriousness.  “I’m in here a few hours every day and you’re always running off, full-speed ahead… like you’re determined to get three days’ worth of work done in three hours.”

Sadie smiled, “that sounds like me.  But leave me a post-it somewhere I’m sure to notice it or something and we’ll get that coffee, but right now, I’ve…” she jabbed a thumb over her shoulder.

“Got to run?” Eric finished for her, but with a parting smile, she was already half way down the barn

Eric didn’t show up at all for a few days, and by the third day, Sadie was thoroughly suspicious.  She was worrying about it enough, it wasn’t until her hand was grasping thin air, trying to grab a nonexistent coffee pot handle that she even noticed the entire maker was missing from the counter, a post-it note in its place.  “It’s probably 7pm by the time you’re reading this.  Come to the lower barn courtyard at 7:30, provided you no longer smell like the barn, and we can discuss the hostage negotiations.  Hurry up and relax already.  -Eric”  Sadie could see how he could go unnoticed in the lower barn housing all of the private boarders, and thus including an ornamental courtyard; she hardly ever ventured down the hill.  How he had managed to sneak past her and steal the coffee pot however, especially at her increased coffee intake hours, was a complete mystery.  One she intended to solve as she glanced at her watch- 7:15.  She smiled as she made a sprint for the stairs up to her barn apartment- hurrying was something she was good at.

Apparently I’m feeling the need for cute men to invade my stories this week… I’m not sure what that says about me, but I’m sure I’ll be back in full wacky next time!  😀

My original story for the Legal Theft Project this round.  Go see what happened when the first line was stolen from me here: http://thegateinthewood.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/legal-theft-schedules/
And check out the original story done with the first line I stole yesterday here: http://550wordsorless.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/challenge-legal-theft-unwanted-visitor-391-words/
And tune in same time, same place in two weeks for the next installment of *dramatic music* Legal!  Theft!  Project!  *bum bum BUM*

Legal Theft: Bar Encounters (864 Words)

An involuntary squeal leaps from her lips and she stumbles back, nearly slips, throws a hand out to steady herself against the wall.  “This is the mens’!” she squeaked, recovering her footing on the slick tile, looking back over her shoulder as if she would find a womens’ bathroom sign to blame her mistake on.  Somewhere deep in her mind, she knew she should be looking at her shoes, blushing an apology and leaving, but aside from the blushing, she couldn’t seem to get herself to stop staring at the shirtless celebrity she had just walked in on.  Flint Honnalia had glanced up as he heard footsteps and had quickly moved in front of the sink, blocking her view of it, but she suspected it was his shirt, given that her cheeks were reddening the longer she stood in front of his abs.

Her mouth made silent attempts at speech for several seconds before her bladder pleaded otherwise, “um, I’m so sorry… I’m so lost and I really need to pee,” and she made a beeline for the first stall.  Once she was safely locked behind it, she rolled her eyes dramatically, threw her hands in the air and made a few otherwise uncouth gestures at herself before taking the sixty seconds to regain her composure.  She heard the “unholy hot hunk of testosterone,” as she and a few friend had referred to on occasion, turn on the sink again and she had to wonder what sort of things could have happened to his shirt at a lonely bar uncomfortably north of Los Angeles.  Placing her hand on the door lock, she took a deep breath, planning to stride out of the stall confidently, but only managed a weak shuffle.

“Hi…” she chewed gently on her lower lip and took the second of two sinks in the small bathroom.  “So, I got lost trying to walk home, how’d you end up here?”

Flint laughed stiffly, “well, I was driving with a few friends and one of the guys had a few beers and neglected to tell us he gets minorly carsick.”

She grimaced knowingly, “and the combination of the two…”

“Yeah…” Flint honestly chuckled this time as he held up his red – or used to be red – button-up shirt, though it was only wet at this point.

She glanced over at his jeans, then resumed blushing profusely for being caught doing such a thing, “he missed your pants though,” she mumbled as she all but ran for the towel dispenser.

“Well, Alan gets a little huggy at the scent of alcohol, so…” Flint shrugged, turning and leaning back against the sink while his shirt dripped, hung over the edge.

“Gotcha,” she nodded back, “too bad for me or any other poor girl that stumbles into the wrong bathroom.”  It was a little early for making fun of the situation, but she figured she’d already made enough of a fool out of herself.  The two of them resumed their blinking stalemate for a long moment before she nodded once more and turned for the door and half stumbled over a leather satchel on the floor.  Glancing down, she realized she had dropped her shoulder bag when she had slipped on the way in, forgetting that she even had it once she saw Flint.  She heard Flint laughing behind her as she reached for the bag, heaving it up over her shoulder.  The bag’s contents shifted and she heard her make-up and pens falling to the uncharted depths of the bag and as she moved to readjust it on her hip, she caught sight of green fabric poking up between a notebook and a purple spatula.

She looked back up at the still laughing Flint, “how much would you bid for me saving your day?”  She asked, staring him down in all seriousness, “…er, night,” she amended at a quick thought.  Flint paused, eyeing her to make sure she was telling the truth.

“If you manage to have a man’s shirt in that bag of yours, I think I might just kiss you,” he grinned, “so long as you promise not to tell the tabloids.”

She laughed as she pulled a spare shirt she had stored in her bag for a guy friend a few days ago out of the corner of her bag.  A little wrinkly from doing battle with all of the various objects floating around her bag but certainly more wearable than his current one.  “I’ll take a hug,” she grinned back and held the shirt out to him, “but only if you keep it out of the tabloids.”  She grinned, handed him the shirt and quickly turned to flee the bathroom.  Why she left early, she wasn’t sure, but the whole thing was a hell of a story she’d never tell anyone.

It was almost a month later before a slim package arrived at her door containing the green shirt, a pair of red carpet tickets for his new movie premiere and a hand-written note: “come find me, we’ll avoid the media together and I’ll give you that hug.  (It took me long enough to track you down, do me at least that)”

I stole this first line from the awesome blogger over at http://550wordsorless.wordpress.com/ Go there tomorrow to see her original story with this line.  Check back here tomorrow to see my original story, the first line of which was stolen from me by an equally awesome blogger – see what she did here: http://thegateinthewood.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/legal-theft-schedules/
PS – bonus points if you can unscramble the hot man’s name…

Legal Theft: Shoes (698 Words)

It’s been said a girl can never have too many shoes (AN: or ‘whites,’ as autocorrect would have you believe), but Adrienne suspected her collection wasn’t what they had in mind.  To be particular, her largest collection were of round metal ones that were nailed onto the foot every four to six weeks.  Luckily, not to human feet, to the four-legged creatures that had occupied Adrienne’s every thought since she was old enough to say “howsie.”  She had started collection the odd horse show she found in the field in the odd hope the farrier could reuse them.  She would knock off the mud, thinking the farrier could bend them back into shape and tack them back on the hoof for another week or two of life and dave her a few bucks.  She would pile the shoes on a wide window ledge inside the barn and there they would collect dust, grow some spiderwebs and eventually completely rust.  Adrienne was thirty-four and had long ago learned that these lonely shoes never would never again be tacked on to a hoof, but still she picked them out of the grass and tossed it on the ledge’s pile.

Even Adrienne’s human closet was a dreary competition, horse clothes easily outnumbering their ‘normal person’ counterparts.  From bras to pans and socks, barn grime coating the majority of her wardrobe, but the greatest disparity lay in her shoes.  Bundled together in a tote bag were two pairs of heels, bejeweled dress boots, nicer clogs, flip flops some rarely-used water shoes and a pair of running sneakers.  The tote was unzipped on the rare occasion she would look uncomfortably out of place wearing some barn shoes somewhere.  Grocery stores and other likewise errands did not get that luxury – if someone minded the faint smell of manure while picking out cereal, they could wait thirty seconds and it would pass.  The floor of her closet, on the other hand, was overrun with summer boots, winter boots, schooling boots, show boots, paddock boots, tall boots and a few back-ups in case a pair needed mending and she didn’t want to dirty her show boots in everyday schooling.  She had muck boots for stall cleaning, cowboy boots for general barn work and rainy day boots to keep the worst of the mud off another pair when the barn yard turned into a lake.

While most of the population might get sore wearing dress shoes or heels for several hours, Adrienne lived her life in a boot heel.  So long as a dressy heel wasn’t too high, her feet didn’t mind, allowing her to dance at a club without the desire to kick out of the shoes and walk home barefoot.  Once or twice however, Adrienne had made a terrible decision to do her day of shopping in her tennis shoes and suddenly the unfamiliar desire to lose the shoes and grab something, anything else to wear was quite strong.  She nursed the bottoms of her feet that night, apologizing for abusing them, promising more comfortable shoes next time.  A passing thought whispered that she might have something insanely wrong with her that hundred dollar sneakers with arch supports, conforming structure and cushioning would make her so sore while her plain, flat-soled, stiff leather boots would let her walk for hours on end.

She waved at that thought as it passed by, stared out the window at the rain and wondered if the mud would persuade another steel shoe to loose its grip.  That old stone ledge was beginning to fill up, out of room for bent nails and rusted steel, but there were other windows, other ledges and she had no intention of ever stopping.

This was my original piece for the Legal Theft Project this round.  I would tell you to go see what was done with my first line, but autocorrect deemed it would not be so, but if you want to see what happens if you turn the word “shoes” into the word “whites,” go check it out at http://apprenticenevermaster.wordpress.com/2013/05/09/legal-theft-flash-fiction-whites-357-words/
Tune in same time, same place in two weeks for another crazy installment of Legal Theft Project without any autocorrect mishaps (I hope)
And yes, this post may or may not be a little autobiographical… okay, pretty much all of it is 🙂

Legal Theft: Persuasion (728 Words)

“Samuel. Come on. Tell me what we’re doing,” Rhiannon ordered as she shoved a toothbrush in her mouth.  Samuel watched, leaning against the doorway and merely smiled, raising an eyebrow, refusing to answer for the fifth time.  It was the eleventh time she’d asked, but he’d surrendered the hope a cryptic answer would subdue her.  She stared at herself in the mirror for a minute and tried again, with a sweet smile she managed even with the toothbrush, “at least tell me what I should wear?”

“You’re trying twenty questions now, eh?” Samuel smirked and paused, considering an answer.  “Well, honestly, you can wear just about anything, from jeans to a ballgown and you’d fit in,” he told her, shrugging.  Rhiannon’s eyebrows furrowed and she stared her reflection down for another minute.  “Well, maybe not actually a ball gown… or your birthday suit,” Samuel amended.

“Helpful,” Rhiannon said dryly, foaming at the mouth.  She brushed another second then bent to spit out the toothpaste.  She glared at Samuel as she pushed past him into her bedroom, heading for the dresser.  “Well, you know you have to have me back by six, right?  I have to feed the horses and where are we going anyway?” she blurted as she grabbed a nicer-looking shirt and some non-barn jeans and threw them on the bed.

“You mean feed the horses like I do with you every night and have for five years?” he taunted, deliberately ignoring her veiled attempt at getting a location out of him.

“Rhiannon grabbed a few other things, picked up the clothes and headed back for the bathroom, “well, can you tell me if I’m going to like this surprise or not?”

“Um… both?” Samuel told the bathroom door.  “You’ll either love me or hate me, probably both… maybe or maybe not at the same time.”

“Hm… Is it someplace nearby?” she called out the door, determined to pry every bit of information he would give.

“Yes, it’s pretty close… and we can get whatever kind of dinner you want, there’s just about anything and everything available nearby.”

“Intellectual task or physical task?”

“Both?” Samuel tried, “it could be whatever you’d like it to be.”  He shrugged despite the fact she couldn’t see him.

“Social focus or academic?”

“Both.”

“Wild or boring?”

“Both,” Samuel chuckled, “I’m not trying to be this cryptic, you just keep choosing the wrong questions.”

Rhiannon laughed, “well, you’ve successfully confused the squirrels out of me.”  The bathroom door opened and Rhiannon emerged again, now looking rather respectable – Samuel didn’t often get to see her outside of the barn grub look.  “Now let’s go so I can interrogate you some more – you can’t get away from my poking in the truck.”

On the road, Rhiannon pestered, poked, prodded and finally resorted to tickling, but only got several more answers of “both” and other non-answer answers.  Rhiannon perked up when Samuel took exit 641 of the highway and she recognized a sign.  “What?  No… Samuel!” she swatted his arm.  “I told you I didn’t want to go to any college this year, I was going to take a year or two and work at the farm before going to college… maybe,” she sighed, knowing he was taking her to visit some campus that would bore her yet again.

“Sure,” he said, sarcastically.  They both knew that if she didn’t get to college right after high school, she never would and Samuel knew all too well the pitfalls of not going to college.

“Samuel, I’ve been to four campuses – college isn’t really my style, can you just let it go?” she asked gently, slumping in her seat.

Samuel grinned as he made a left at a swing dance club, “that’s because you haven’t been to the right one yet.”

Rhiannon glanced out the window and sat up curiously, staring out the window at a group of girls walking on the sidewalk, two in cocktail dresses with vibrantly colored hair, one wearing an ornate cloak, three singing a Lion King song in harmony and another literally running circles in and around the group wearing a rainbow colored tutu.  Rhiannon couldn’t decide whether to be confused, concerned or excited, so just turned glance at Samuel.

As he turned left through the campus gates, he couldn’t resist announcing in a purposefully bad British accent: “M’lady, welcome to Noshill University.”