Kara smiled back at the guy, brushing back the long dark whips of hair that had escaped from her ponytail. “Yes, I’m the one who found him. Are you interested in giving this little guy a home.” Nick laughed raking a hand through his hair, a nervous habit he’d picked up years ago.
“I wish I could but I can’t.” Kara’s mouth turned down in a disappointed frown as she stooped to give Toby a hello pat, Nick squatting down beside her. Before she could say another word to try and convince blondie to give Toby a home, a voice behind her made her stomach lurch.
“Long time no see.” Standing up Kara groaned.
A guy was standing there with a bushy blonde mustache, shoulder length hair parted in the middle and feathered down the sides and way too tight jeans. Nick looked up at him thinking the guy looked like an extra from some low budget 70’s horror movie.
“Hey there Kara.” It was the stripper from the bachorlette party. How the hell had he found her here?
“Oh hi.” Kara looked surprised and a little embarrassed that the guy was talking to her despite the fact that, to Nick, they obviously seemed to know one another.
“I tried to call you this morning but you weren’t home. Your roommate said you might be here. You forgot something last night.” Sticking out his hand he twirled a pale pink lacey bra around his index finger.
“Jesus.” Nick said under his breath laughing in to his hand.
“Oh my God.” Kara grabbed at the bra pulling it from his finger and hiding it behind her back while making a mental note to kill her roommate when she got home.
“I was wondering if maybe you wanted to get together again sometime?” The guy cocked his head and winked at her making Nick laugh even harder.
“Did you say something kid?” Shooting Nick an irritated glance the guy raised his eyebrows at him waiting for a response.
“Nope, I was just clearing my throat. I had a little tickle in there.” Nick gave him a wide innocent grin as he went back to scratching Toby under the chin.
“So whadda you say?” The guy turned his attentions back on Kara who was horrified by the whole exchange. “Maybe this time I can buy you a little dinner before we do it?”
“Why don’t you just kill me now!” Kara mumbled, feeling Nick’s gaze on her from where he was crouched on the ground below.
“Hey there……” She couldn’t even remember the guy’s name?
“Roy.” He jumped in helping her out.
“Yes Roy. I knew that, I knew that. Anyway Roy, how about we just leave things the way they are for right now. You know the mystery and all that, I wouldn’t want to tarnish what we had.” Her sarcasm was lost on the dumb ass as he pointed a finger at her and gave her a cheesy wink.
“You aren’t the first girl who has said that to Roy and you definitely won’t be the last baby. All the girls love the mystery of a one night stand with Roy.” Backing up he licked his lips and winked for about the twentieth time in the short span of their conversation.
“You have my number if you ever want to give me call.” Kara nodded at Roy, Nick nodded at Roy hell even Toby nodded at Roy. “I’ll see you around baby.”
“I hope to hell not.” Kara muttered under her breath spinning on her heel and walking as far and as fast away from the “Mystery of Roy” as she could get.
Nick gave Toby a final scratch under the chin and stood up following the girl who had stormed off in a huff.
Damn, that was the best laugh he had, had in months. When that guy pulled out her bra and twirled it around his finger he thought he would wet his pants. He walked quickly to catch up to her as she weaved off towards a garbage can and discreetly lifted the lid dropping her bra inside.
“Hey what did you do that for?” Nick asked stopping when she spun around a wicked look in her eyes. “No need to throw away a perfectly good bra.”
“Oh quit following me!” She said, hands on hips. “As if that wasn’t embarrassing enough without you following me around reminding me of it!” Nick put his hands up with a grin.
“Hey I’m not the one who put on my tight sexy jeans and twirled your bra around for everybody to see! If you’re going to be pissed be pissed at The Mystery of Roy not at me.” Kara stood for a second, biting her bottom lip to keep from laughing. But when she looked up into the dancing blue eyes of the dog lover, who was trying to keep from laughing himself she had to smile.
“You’re an idiot.” She said with a grin.
“That’s what everybody is always saying.” He replied his nose wrinkling slightly when he smiled. “And since I’ve seen your bra you might as well tell me your name.”
“ I’m Kara.” She said sticking out a hand.
“I’m Nick.” Nick answered back grabbing her hand and pumping it up and down in a light friendly shake.
* * *
Nick and Kara walked along the tents side by side, Kara munching on her apple.
“Do you want one?” She asked pulling the extra apple from her pocket. Nick nodded holding out a hand as she tossed the apple to him.
“I’ve never been much of a fruit fanatic.” He said sinking his teeth into the ripe red skin. “It just always seems easier to get fast food.” In fact he couldn’t remember the last time he had even had any fruit. That was unless you counted Fruity Pebbles in the morning drenched in chocolate milk as a fruit?
"Wow, I can’t even imagine. When I was little we lived with my Grandparents on their farm so if it wasn’t fresh it wasn’t allow in the house.”
“Yeah well when I was little if it wasn’t stale and or in the ninety nine cent bin at the Quick Mart it wasn’t allowed in our house.” Nick said rolling the apple over to start in on the other side.
“Ewwww, that’s icky.” Kara laughed. A light sweet laugh. The kind of laugh Nick hadn’t heard in a long time. Most of the girls he met laughed with loud annoying cackles from too much alcohol or too much sex or something in between.
“Hey I want to go and check out those pictures.” Tugging on the hem of Nick’s shirt Kara weaved across his path walking in the direction of one of the smaller tents that had a dozen or so watercolor paintings on display.
“Hey Kara.” Nick began as she paused in front of a beautiful painting of a sunset. A sunset almost identical to the one he had witnessed the night before.
“It’s wonderful isn’t it?” She asked, noticing Nick staring intensely at his memory brought to life on the canvas before him. He nodded silently reaching out to touch the incredible colors.
“Hey, were you going to say something?” Kara finished her apple tossing the core into a trashcan beside her.
“What?” Nick looked up, his fingertips just short of connecting with the swirling firestorm of oranges and pinks.
“A second ago you said Hey Kara.” Nick backed away from the painting his hand moving again to the comfort zone of his hair, tugging at the short tips as he looked around.
“Well……I was going to ask if you really slept with that guy cheesy guy? But I changed my mind I don’t want to ask now.” “
Too late you already asked.” She said moving away from the watercolor tent. “And if you must know if I really slept with Roy or not the truth is, I don’t know?”
“What do you mean you don’t know? How can you not know if you slept with somebody?” He asked as they continued walking along in tandem steps bumping hips.
“Well, let’s see. Bacholrette party,” she put one hand out “Lots of alcohol.” she put the other hand out, and then she put both hands together. “Viola’” Nick winced.
“It’s just that….well…you don’t seem like that type of girl.” As he said the words he let his eyes travel over her from head to toe. She had beautiful chestnut colored hair and piercing green eyes. He liked the shape of her slightly up turned nose smattered with light freckles, as well as her long lean limbs clad in a modest blue and white striped tank top and cut off shorts.
Kara laughed slugging Nick in the arm making him drop his apple
“I’m not that kind of girl!” At least she didn’t think she was, but losing one’s parents did strange things to an otherwise sane young woman.
“Hey you made me drop my apple, you owe me another one!” He whined turning his mouth down in a frown that hadn’t even worked when he was three years old let alone twenty-three. Stooping to retrieve it Kara shoved him playfully from behind.
“Oh quit your pouting blondie. There’s plenty more where that came from.” She said hooking her arm in his “Follow me.”
* * *
Kara zipped quickly in and out of the crowd in the direction of her Grandparents fruit stand. Once close to the stand she ducked down behind the crowd of people vying for the best positions to shout out their requests for the ripest produce. Popping her head up once to make sure that her Grandparent’s and sister were busy filling the orders, she grabbed hold of Nick’s hand and made her way between the two tents to where he Grandfathers truck was parked.
Nick followed close on her heels, enjoying the feeling that he was on some sort of Mission Impossible with the way Kara kept swinging her head around to check over her shoulder. He wondered for an instant if they were going to hot wire the old blue pickup truck and go for a joyride when Kara stopped short, Nick bumping into the back of her with a dull thud.
Leaning over the tailgate of the truck Kara grabbed two apples tossing them to Nick and then she grabbed two more and signaled him to follow her as she ran in the direction of a large vacant field to their right.
Once hidden by the tall grass Kara stopped running and tumbled to the ground, laughing as she sunk her teeth into one of the apples in her hands. Nick rolled to the ground beside her gasping for breath.
“Did we just steal?” He asked polishing the apple on his T-shirt. Kara kept laughing as she pointed at Nick a wonderful twinkle in her eye.
“You should have seen your face!”
“What about my face?”
“You had this look on your face like if we got caught taking some apples we were going to end up in jail!”
“Wait a minute,” Nick held the apple up inspecting it from all angles. “This is from your Grandparents farm. They sell fruit here don’t they?” Kara nodded with a loud snort that made Nick snort back.
And suddenly he felt like he was eight again, running and playing make believe with a childhood friend.
“Okay Nicky let’s play cops and robbers. I’ll be the cop and you be the robber.” The little girl was as new as he was in the neighborhood so neither one of them had any friends.
“But I’m always the robber.” Nick sighed tugging on one of the little girl’s ponytails with a grin. They had formed a close bond in the two months they had know each other. And together they had done a pretty good job of warding off the neighborhood bullies who liked to zero in on the new kids and make their lives hell.
“But you’re a good robber Nicky. You can run real fast like a good robber.” She grinned at him poking her tongue through the missing space of her two front teeth, a trick that always made Nick laugh.
“Okay, okay you win. Let’s pretend that I stole some fruit from a market and I happen to pass by you while I’m running from the guy who owns the store?” The little girl nodded, always in awe of Nick’s crazy imagination.
There used to be a time when Nick could make anybody believe anything if he really put his mind to it…………….even himself.
But a few months ago that all changed.
“What are you thinking about?” Shaken from his childhood Nick turned to see Kara staring at him with questioning eyes.
“Cops and robbers.” He said with a smile