Michael looked towards her when she parrotted back the four letter word. Time made him forget so much, most of all how she hated that word. “That was meant as...” He tried to explain but then stopped and fell short. There was little point explaining himself to her. Why was he even trying? He didn’t answer to her, and she sure as hell wasn’t his responsibility but he cared. He made a phone call for someone to come get them. She looked adorable when she was mad but it wasn’t something he was about to admit outloud. Though he wasn’t even being pissy, maybe she needed her ears checked.

Maybe it was better they had gone their separate ways. They clearly didn’t know anything about each other anymore. That was when his phone rang. It was his boss. “Meriton speaking.” He flipped into the phone. “I’ve had a few boss and I’m not on call this morning.” Yes, so he was trying to widdle his way out of whatever it was. Clearly it worked. “Yeah, I will send Wilson down there and I’ll go in the morning after I’ve slept this off.” He ascertained. He hung up the phone and texted his partner.

The only way (unknown to him) to Rebecca’s street was blocked. They had just shut down the entire road. Some Navy guy had jumped (or was thrown) from the top of an apartment building roof and into the street. “Some people’s stupidity” he mumbled to himself as he took his jacket off and wrapped it around Rebecca. It was getting colder out, and she was hardly dressed for the weather.

Tag: Rebecca Jane Surber

Feeling her former boyfriend look at her, she ignored him for a moment before letting her own blue eyes meet his dark gaze. There had been a time in her life where she would have known that he had meant nothing by that snapped word, but with the years of separation and Tennessee whiskey blocked that logical piece of her brain. Her cheeks burned crimson whether from the chill outside or that four letter word would remain a mystery. Her brow raised in interest as he started to explain and then let his sentence hang as she blinked at him. Rebecca was giving him absolutely nothing to work with and she knew it. “Meant as what, please continue. I’m all ears.” Unballing one of her fists from her jacket pocket she put it up to her ear as if to hear him better.

Sneaking a glance at him as he gave up on her for the moment to make a call. Pulling out her own phone, she flicked through her contacts typing a quick message to one of her friends, even if she didn’t have service right now she would eventually right, and when she did regain service someone needed to know where she and who she had been with this evening. She typed out several messages and erased each of them how was she supposed to explain to anyone what was happening without seeming stupid and making Michael seem like a total douche of a control freak?

When he muttered she rolled her eyes, she hated mumbling almost as much as she hated the word fine. Usually, she hated it because everyone muttered just low enough for her to hear that something had been said, but not loud enough for her to work out what the person had actually attempted to communicate. She had heard what he had said though, he was annoyed someone and it was either the person that he had just been in communication with or the only person near him, which was herself. Accepting the jacket, slipping her arms into the sleeves balling the arms that were much too long for her own into her hands. He always had been like a heater and the jacket held his warmth not to mention his cologne lingered and it always had made her swimmy headed. “I’m going to assume you aren’t referencing me.”

Michael shook his head. “The joke was lost Rebecca. It was meant as ‘okay then’ as is okay then I’m not a cop, I’m a federal agent.” Maybe once upon a time it had been funny. Now him trying to be himself and make her laugh was just backfiring miserably. So much for trying to make her smile. She really had changed, when all he’d done grow more bitter and angry at things but she always managed to bring out the best in him. Michael opened the door of the cab when it arrived, still trying to be a gentleman. It was instilled in him, and it wasn’t going away anytime soon.

Then there was the phone call and Rebecca’s off handed comment. “Just work related, then again if weren’t for stupid people I wouldn’t have a job.” He was trying to make conversation but he couldn’t’ tell her anything about the case of what had happened. He couldn’t show up at the crime scene drunk or it would blow the whole case out of the water. He was pretty certain that fell under some rule the department had. He leaned his head back against the seat of the cab. Part of him wished this was some nightmare, because this wasn’t his Rebecca. This is what time had done to them.

The reality, he wanted to reach over and kiss her and tell her how stupid the both of them were being. As small as this town was, she had to turn up here. Michael could hear Karma laughing at him. He crossed his arms over his chest, the tell tale sign he had a lot on his mind and was thinking. Somewhere he’d heard the cab driver ask where they were going. “Wherever she’s going first,” he replied. Though he turned towards Rebecca. “Don’t worry, I just want to make sure you are safe.” He’d never forgive himself if he let something happen to her. Even if the underlying tension was high. In the end, he’d never stopped caring for her.

Tag: Rebecca Jane Surber

It seemed like eons ago, but there and been a point where Rebecca could have finished the sentence coming out of his mouth, and they could communicate through raised brows and shy glances unless her mind was making up all those wispy cotton candy memories. “I don’t even know what that means.” She insisted quickly her tone clipped with frustration all she had wanted was to go out dancing and drinking and here she was tossed out of a bar being carted off by her ex-boyfriend. Michael always had been the cherry on top. Having learned her lesson from the last encounter she did not protest the opening of the door, he wasn’t implying that she was helpless it was just a muscle memory thing by this time, you see a woman you open a door.

In the morning she would be mortified not being able to recall what had been said, but knowing Michael he would gloss over her attitude saving her from herself that was what Michael had always been good at, protecting her even if he was saving her from herself. Pulling out her phone again as inspiration struck her, “met someone, tell you all about it tomorrow. She added a winky face at the end for good measure. Tomorrow she would groan over Drunk Rebecca’s actions, but at the moment she was groaning over the feeling of the vinyl seat sticking to her legs. If this had been years ago, Rebecca wouldn’t have even been sitting in her own seat she would have been in Michael’s lap held safe in those arms that were currently crossed tightly over his chest. He was thinking and stressed out, those weird little wrinkles from his brows were forming even though his head against the seat and he looked a little like he was attempting to will himself out of existence.

When Rebecca wore jackets she kept at least a bit of paper in the pockets something to keep her hands busy during those boring conversations, like some form of a fidget spinner. Feeling around in the pockets she found nothing, no wonder he was always so stressed out. It was weird that he had absolutely nothing in his jacket pockets, not even a freaking pen. “How do you even exist?” She questioned out loud pulling her empty hands out of his jacket pockets and spreading her fingers and then looking him with a shake of her auburn head.

Zoning out was out a rare treat that Rebecca had rarely taken advantage of years ago when they were together, but it was a daily occurrence now. Space cadeting as Michael spoke but being jarred back to the present as he spoke about her street address, looking him dead in the eye “507 N. Central Street.” Twirling a strand of hair around her finger, Michael would probably explode. Her side of town was not what anyone would describe as safe, they called it "up and coming". The Greyhound Station was practically her next door neighbor and it no longer surprised her when she had to shoo someone off her front stoop after dark, or when she had to call the police because it looked like someone had tried to get in her backdoor.

Michael rolled over in his bed. There wasn’t much he remembered about last night. A familiar scent of lingering perfume from the night before. Clearly, he had taken a woman home. He opened his eyes to see who it was and if he even remembered anything from the night before. He rubbed his eyes and blinked again. Okay, no he was definitely not awake yet. Eyes glued to the frame beside him. Rebecca? No, this was some sort of fairy tale nightmare.

No, he didn’t want to reach out and touch her; the dream might poof away. No, this wasn’t a dream, they’d shared a cab the night before but he couldn’t remember why. Michael rolled upwards facing his ceiling. How was he supposed to even feel about last night? Hell, he didn’t even know how she felt about last night. There had been way too much alcohol involved to even begin to think straight.

He had to admit, this was something he missed. Being near her, though he was a fool to think this was anything but some sort of far fetched fantasy of his. The woman who had the strongest feelings for, the woman who had broken his heart was inches away from him and he didn’t even know how to react without sounding like a complete idiot or scaring her away. Though he wouldn’t blame her for just up and leaving. She’d just be gone another few odd decades again. Not like she hadn’t already done that to him once. In the end, he rolled over with his back to her as he faced the wall trying to sort through the emotions. It was too early for this shit.


Tag: Rebecca Jane Surber

It would be nice if Rebecca Jane could have convinced herself that is was a one time experience but it was not, this was a cycle that she had grown long ago grown cozy with. Being sober meant she had to keep her mind occupied, and that had grown to be too much work it was taking longer and longer for her brain to shut off and passing out drunk with some stranger was better than staring in the darkness completely alone.

Becoming aware of a chill in the air as her bed buddy shifted positions it appeared that he was moving away, and despite the goosebumps rising on her arms, she stayed where she was pulling the sheet over her bare shoulder snuggling back in place, prepare to drift back off to dreamland. That was when it hit her as the sheet touched her arm, she didn’t sleep with a flat sheet, they always managed to get tangled around her legs and send her into a claustrophobic panic, before that panic could set in however she remembered who had come home with and who’s sheets were wrapped around her body and that was the moment the panic set it.

Before she had a beat to recover she was up and out of the bed. “I don’t like sheets.” Was the sentence that fell out of her mouth. The only thing her scrambled brain could think to say, because that made sense, not liking sheets made people leap out of the bed like some sort of wild animal. Bits and pieces last night were blipping across her brain she remembered bits at the bar, she wasn’t sure how she had ended up here but she did vividly recall a moment when he declared he needed a shower and waltzed off and she had gone in search of something else to wear, and he had found her making tea in his kitchen. Snatching the discarded flannel as the pink patches flared up on her cheeks again as more of those fuzzy details grew sharper in her mind’s eye.