He wandered over to a rack of brochures. She came to her feet and joined him.
“Wanderlust, I guess. I feel the need to take a vacation somewhere exotic.” He flashed a smile.
Carly relaxed. Donald wasn’t her favorite person in town, but he wasn’t so bad. And the whoopee cushion incident had happened when she and Ria were still in high school.
“The Caribbean? Barbados?” she asked.
“Yes, Barbados, maybe. Ocean breezes and piña coladas.”
“It sounds great,” she told him.
“I’ve always wondered why you work here but you’ve never gone anywhere exciting.”
“I guess I enjoy living vicariously through my customers. I’m a nervous traveler.” And she wished he hadn’t mentioned that she never went anywhere. She certainly didn’t need anyone reminding her. “Ria and I are planning to take a trip. She hired Katie as her new assistant. I’m sure she’ll have her trained by the time fall gets here.” Then Carly would have someone to go with and she’d finally get to travel. They could take a cruise somewhere. She closed her eyes and for a moment, pictured them landing in an exotic port filled with sexy, half-naked, male bodies.
Donald cast a look of pity in her direction.
“What?” She suddenly had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach that she wasn’t going to like what he was about to tell her.
He pointed out the window as Ria and Kristor passed. Ria looked up, and Carly waved. Ria waved back and smiled, but they didn’t stop. Kristor frowned at Donald, who took a step back.
“It would seem Ria might be planning a trip with someone else.”
Carly stiffened. “I doubt it. She just met the guy.” But he had spent last night with her, and that never happened. Not that she could blame Ria. Kristor was damned good looking. But anything permanent? No, Carly didn’t think so.
“Wasn’t it just a day or so ago that Ria claimed the guy was crazy?” Donald laughed. “An alien?”
Ria had done a quick about-face. Carly’s stomach rumbled. She watched until they turned the corner. They seemed awfully chummy. Holding hands and all.
“More friendships have broken up over a man,” Donald said.
She straightened. Why was she even listening to him? “Well, it won’t happen between us. We’ve been friends since almost forever. Even if Ria does fall in love with someone, we’ll still be friends.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Ria seems to be getting pretty close with the guy. But don’t worry, even if they went back to his country, or wherever he came from, there are always e-mails. If his country has the Internet, that is.” He glanced at the brochures he held. “I think I’ll just take these with me. I’m not exactly sure where I want to go.”
“Yeah, that’s fine.” Please leave quickly. Her stomach had gone from rumbling to churning.
As Donald walked out the door, Carly went back to her desk. She’d never really thought about Ria getting married and leaving town. Carly had always thought they would fall in love with the perfect men, marry, and settle down in Miller Bend to raise two children each.
Had she really been that naive? Apparently.
Was Kristor the one who would steal Ria away? Whisk her off to another country? Ria was her only friend. They always shared everything.
But she hadn’t told her anything about Kristor except that she was trying to blackball him. She’d been afraid of the man. Apparently, that was no longer the case.
And then there was this morning. She’d sensed Ria wasn’t telling her everything. Just as quickly Carly dismissed the idea that Ria wouldn’t confide something to her very best friend.
But what if Ria was already pulling away? A cold chill of dread wrapped around her. What would she do without her very best friend in her life?
She slumped down in her chair, and stared out the plate-glass window until the bell over the door jangled, alerting her to a customer.
Carly painted a false smile on her face and pretended nothing at all was wrong. But it took every ounce of her sagging energy to pull it off.
Ria flattened the Dairy Queen sack the burgers had come in, and dumped all the fries on top of it. “Community fries,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow.
She grinned. “That means we share.”
“I was going to take you somewhere nice,” he told her. “I have money.” His brother had told him people from Earth held the paper in high regard, although Kristor still hadn’t figured out why.
“Isn’t this nice?” She waved her arm, encompassing everything around her. “We have the whole park to ourselves. Besides, Donald owns the only nice restaurant in town. I don’t think you two get along.”
“It’s very nice here.”
She laughed. “Yeah, I kind of thought you would feel that way.” She took a bite of her burger and chewed, then followed it with a drink of her soda. “Donald isn’t so bad.”
“Yes, he is. I think he could be very cruel if he doesn’t like someone. You should be careful around him.”
“Trust me, I’ve known Donald all my life. He’s a little prissy….” She caught his expression. “Okay, he’s a lot prissy, but he’s mostly talk. If cornered, he’ll run the other way.”
“I think he would lash out as he ran.”
How often had she thought the same thing? Ria had never spoken the words out loud though.
“We have parks on New Symtaria,” he said, changing the subject.
“Like this one?”
“There are more people outside enjoying the day on New Symtaria. When Old Symtaria released poisonous gasses into the air, it was said everyone stayed indoors or only went out with air-supplied masks. When New Symtaria was discovered, it was ordained by the old ruler that part of each day would be spent outdoors enjoying the fresh air.”
“We don’t spend enough time outside,” she sighed. “It’s the age of technology and I’m afraid when people do go outside, they’re still busy talking on the phone or texting someone.”
“Is that why you run? To enjoy the day?”
She picked up a fry, but it had already grown cold so she put it back down. “Partly,” she told him. “I like to feel the wind on my face. I feel free when I’m running. As though I have no troubles in the world.”
“It is the same when I shift and Labrinon soars through the sky.”
“You can feel it, then?”
“Yes.”
“Then does he feel what you feel?”
“Yes.”
“Even when we…” She felt the heat rise up her face.
“He sleeps, giving me the privacy I need.”
She let out her breath. She was so not into threesomes, especially when one of the partners was a bird.
They finished eating in silence. She bagged up their trash and they walked it over to the barrel, dropping it inside.
“Look.” Kristor pointed to a hawk flying high in the sky.
“Someone you know?”
“Only a hawk, but watch it.”
She did, wondering what it was he wanted her to see. After a moment, her neck began to ache. “What am I supposed to get out of this?”
“Just watch.”
The bird seemed to lazily float in the air, slowly circling in the sky. No cares, no worries. “Okay, it’s beautiful.” She’d give him that, at least.
“You could be flying right now.”
“No thank you. Not on a full stomach.” Or any stomach as far as she was concerned.
“I will stay with you the next time you shift. I would fly with you.”
“I’m not ready.” She glanced in his direction, then quickly looked at the hawk again. It would be too easy for him to sway her into doing something she wasn’t ready to do. “But it’s a beautiful bird.”
The hawk suddenly swooped down like a bomber plane. For a moment it was lost in the trees. What the hell was it doing? Had it crashed? When it reemerged, there was a wiggling tail dangling from its mouth.
“Eww.”
“The hawk has great visual acuity. It can spot prey from a long distance.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I really don’t want to talk about it. And if you continue to talk about it, my lunch will come back up.”