Sorry all, no prompts for this week. Hope you all are ready to do some reading! The 2015 Summer Anthology: Road Trip is NOW LIVE for your enjoyment. Eight new stories to help you get through the weekend. Don't forget to leave the authors a review to let them know what you think of their hard work. Now, what are you waiting for? Read!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The office in the back of the coffee shop didn’t have the space to take more than three medium-measured strides, if at all, otherwise you ran into one of the overflowing cabinets.

 

Jonah sat behind Romeo’s desk, feet propped up on a pulled out drawer, silently tracking his friend’s pacing.

 

Step. Step. Dodge the suitcase. Step. Turn.

 

“Maybe I should go up front and make you a valerian tea.” Not so ‘silently tracking’ anymore, but Romeo was starting to make Jonah dizzy.

 

Step. Step. Dodge the suitcase. Step. Turn. “What?”

 

 

“Jake, hurry and finish cleaning up your room.” I set my son’s bag next to the door and moved into the kitchen as I hollered to my son. “Your mom is going to be here soon.” No sooner were the words out of my mouth than the doorbell rang.

 

“I got it,” Jake yelled. I heard his footsteps running down the hall, followed by the barking of Murray, his nine-month-old puppy.

 

“We’ll both get it.” I followed him to the door. I should have once again reminded him he wasn’t allowed to answer the door by himself, but since I was right there I just let it go. I watched him open the door, but it wasn’t who I was planning on.

 

 

“Apologize to Mr. Miller right now Clay,” the social worker said, fluttering her eyelashes frantically. “We’ve talked about this before.”

 

Ben Miller watched as the woman’s hands sort of flapped as well. He thought Adelaide Getty was very bird-like in her mannerisms. She tended to preen and flicker quite a bit, especially when she was rattled like now.

 

“It’s okay…” Ben started to say, but was cut off.

 

“It’s not okay. Clay needs to learn manners and control his tongue. There are things it is simply inappropriate to say to people.”

 

Adelaide was looking around her as she talked, pointedly not addressing the teen directly. They were at Eastdale Mall getting a few clothes for the impending trip. Nothing the boy had was presentable in public, not really.

 

 

Pete pulled his silver Jaguar up to the hotel entrance. He exhaled sharply in annoyance at the two cars in line ahead of him. He checked his phone as he waited, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. It only took a few minutes for the efficient hotel staff to unload the luggage from the cars and move them to the valet parking lot, but it felt like forever to the impatient black-haired man.

 

He was annoyed to begin with. His employer required him to attend this conference every year, but Pete would much rather be in the office making trades and earning commission. “It’s about time,” he muttered as the valet opened the car door for him.

 

“My apologies for the wait, sir. Are you here for the finance conference?”

 

 

The bright sunlight sparkled on the waters of Hudson Bay below as Charlie Wagner stood drinking his coffee on the deck of the restaurant. The noise of the patrons as well as his own family dimmed as he felt two arms encircle him.

 

“So how is the sexiest guy in the place making out?” Scott Reeds asked huskily into Charlie’s ear.

 

Charlie turned and smiled at his boyfriend. He had learned to tease Scott and was getting pretty good at it. “I don’t know. I think the waiter is awfully cute. I mean, he is big, strong, and has all that nice hair.”

 

Scott’s deep blue eyes narrowed. “Don’t even think it,” he growled.

 

 

“Get up, we’re wasting daylight!” My sister’s high-pitched squeal issued from just beyond my bedroom door. Grumbling, I rolled over and sat up in the bed. My morning wood needed coaxing before it decided to behave. I didn’t have time to relax. Glancing over at the clock on my nightstand, I shuddered.

 

Too many days. Too many damn days of being on the road with my sister and her best friend, scouting colleges as far away from here as they could possibly get. The thought worried me a little. Growing up in the middle of nowhere, it seems easy enough to leave it behind. It is the rest of the world that may not wait around for the middle-of-nowhere people to catch up. To try in college so far away from rescue seemed a bit, well, stupid.

 

 

My lips cracked and bled, but I stretched them out in a parody of a grin. No one had anything to smile about… which made my expression all the more disturbing.

 

And likely to work. The bloody tang tantalized me when I licked at the cracks, darting my tongue in and out. I was crouched down, squinting at the dark figure backed by the setting sun.

 

“What you got?”

 

I cranked my head to one side, as if the question confused me. I placed my fingers on my lips, touching the wet spit and blood, smearing it back and forth. With my other hand, I scooped up a handful of the dry grit covering the old road.

 

 

“Mmm, I could get used to this. G’day, mate.” As I stretched my arms above my head, to help clear the sleep haze I was still trapped in, I rolled over in the large bed to look at my sleeping companion.

 

“G’day, Brett. All you have to do is say yes, mate. Say yes, and I promise you’ll wake up next to me every morning. Come on! Come fly with me. This could be our big break; it could give us the chance to go anywhere we want.” How the hell did Buck do it? The man had more alcohol the previous evening than I did; he expended as many calories as I did, and he went to sleep just as late. Yet here he was, clearheaded, with a smile as bright as the summer sunshine streaming through the flat’s windows.