Denise (aka L'Aussie) & Francine, thank you so very much for starting this group, doing all the work to keep it going, and giving us such challenging prompts. This week, Challenge #18, is Lunch Date!
What could be better than a lunch date for a romantic liaison!
Oooh, oooh, is it a champagne picnic? Maybe it's a romantic lunch on boat, plane, train! Perhaps it's a spur of the moment lunch date! Could even be a Big Mac on the hoof date! Then again, it could be lunch ordered in and one hell of an office surprise! Whatever, feed the romance, play on the heartstrings, and let the LUV flow!
Word Count: 390; FCA (Full Critique Acceptable (and requested, thank you!)
These characters are featured in my WIP, CLOSE KNIT, although this is a prequel that won't be featured in the novel.
***
She looked across the noisy loft full of women working the sewing machines, and there he was. Very male, very Anglo, and very out-of-place, clutching a bedraggled freeway bouquet.Cristina’s cheeks grew hot as she walked over to him. “Hi, Jimmy.”
“I, uh, thought I’d surprise you,” he thrust the flowers at her, “and take you out to lunch. You do get to take a lunch break, don’t you?” He looked around nervously.
The women stole glances at him, whispering things like “que bueno!” “sexy!” and “hombre muy macho” to one another and tittering. Someone even let out a low wolf whistle, though each time Cristina looked at a woman directly, she seemed entirely focused upon her work.
“Gracias, I mean, thank you, Jimmy.” She kissed his cheek, too self-conscious to kiss his lips in front of the employees she supervised, and took his arm as she headed to the employee break room, where she secured a vase and placed the flowers in it. “You certainly have surprised me. Don’t you have to work today?”
“We were having a slow day, my sister suggested I take the afternoon off, and I couldn’t wait till Friday night. I wanted to see you, now.” He looked sweetly worried. “ I hope I’m not getting you into trouble.”
Not unless being teased to death in the upcoming weeks counts as trouble, she thought. Or if her supervisor - well, she’d deal with that, if she had to. “Noooo, but we had better leave soon. I am supposed to take my lunch when my girls do.” The lunch whistle blew, and the floor vibrated with the tread of many feet racing for the stairs, restrooms and lunch room.
They ducked out past the crowd, hand-in-hand to a small café that Cristina knew.
Only dating for six weeks, and Jimmy was full of surprises and small kindnesses. Cristina kept her eyes mostly on her plate, but looked up to find his blue eyes intent on her face.
“You even eat prettily. Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”
She shook her head. “I’m not beautiful.”
“You are to me. I feel like the luckiest guy in LA.”
“Perhaps I am the lucky one,” she said. And the way he kissed her goodbye, before she floated back upstairs to her afternoon shift, she felt even luckier.
***
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Your thoughts?
Thanks!
Please feel free to offer any and all criticism. I'd like all my work to SELL, so if there's anything that took you out of the story, anything my male character said that you don't find believable coming from a guy, passive voice, present/past tense goofs, misplaced commas, repetitive vocabulary, or other flaws not listed here, please let me know.
