This is a short prologue for a story that I'm writing. Seeing as the story was originally conceived for a classroom assignment, I'm hoping that I'll have it finished by the end of the year, though I won't hold myself to that deadline. I have yet to find a name that fits the story. Perhaps when I've finished a few chapters, it will jump out at me.

Anyway, read and enjoy.
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Restaurants were not Kaylee's favorite place to be. They gave too much time for talking, and she always felt awkward eating where everyone could see how she had never really learned how to cut a steak. Of course, the diners around her were not the least bit interested in her eating habits, or how she had chosen the least expensive item on the menu even though it was also the dish she hated most.

The roar of conversations around her was distracting as well. People talking about friends and family and past encounters and horror stories and comedies and every other aspect of life all in one place, all speaking at the same time. It was maddening.

But the worst part was that every time she went out to eat with someone, be it family or friend, they felt the need to corner her on some issue or other. It was almost enough to make her never want to dine out again, and she recited a pledge never to do so again as she closed her azure eyes in an attempt to block out the comment that she was loathe to hear.

“I swear, if I hadn't known you since childhood, I'd say you were the least interesting person on Earth. Where is your sense of adventure?”

Kaylee rolled her eyes. She and her roommate had been best friends pretty much since birth. Their mothers had been best friends before that and their mothers before that. It was a tradition that their families had been lying about for years. But they may as well have existed alongside each other for all of time considering how well they knew one another.

And Charlie was right. She was a fairly uninteresting person. Not because she actually had as flat a personality as he accused her of, but because she never shared any of herself with anyone. Kaylee, at the age of 23, had still never had a real, honest to god relationship. Her only healthy relationship remained with gay (both definitions) Charlie. Which really wasn't all that healthy.

“Look, I just don't see the point of quitting my day job just to do something that I'm only mediocre at. That's bad decision making,” she replied with a hint of irritation.

“Mediocre my a**! Almost all of the best site designs your boss has taken credit for have been yours. You're getting short-changed, and you won't even acknowledge it!” Charlie bit back. “You're the most talented person in your office. You could start up your own company right now and make ten times as much as you're already making if you'd just stop being such a wuss.”

Kaylee was stung. She didn't like the idea of leaving her job. It paid very well, in spite of Charlie's insinuations otherwise, and it was cushy to boot. There was no way she could give that up. “You can sing my praises 'til the cows come home, but I don't know the first thing about running a business, Charlie. It would be career suicide, and you know it.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? With your design skills, and my business brain, we could rule the world.” Kaylee grinned in spite of herself.

“Believe what you'd like, Brain. The fact is, I would never be able to carry out my designs without someone that's actually good at programming. Clients need someone that can set up back end databases, which you obviously don't know any more about than I do. It can't be done.” Ha. Kaylee, one. Charlie, zero.

Charlie ran a hand through his short-cropped, brown hair and crossed his arms over his chest. Kaylee could see the cogs in his brain finding an answer to her retort. She wouldn't give him the chance to say what was on his mind, however. “Look, can we just drop this. I'm starving, and all this talk is keeping me from my food.”

“You can't escape me, Pinky. We live in the same cage, remember?”


Charlie hit the red “end call” button as a curve cut ear to ear across his face. Having discussed the business model for his and Kaylee's new operation with a friend of a friend, he decided it would best to take matters into his own hands. If all went as he planned, he would be saying “I told you so” for the next several years. At least.