Please Don’t Look

Another challenge found at Be Kind Rewrite. This time the prompt I used was “Please don’t look.” No hard and fast rules. Not sure how happy I am with this but it’s something.

 

Kath paced back and forth in front of the alley’s mouth. She would walk the length of the opening, check her watch and sigh loudly. After performing this ritual five times, she headed down the dark, narrow alley looking for Tim.

She found him past the open door to a Chinese kitchen, wedged in the corner of a dumpster and the brick wall, his tie thrown up over his left shoulder.

“What is taking so long,” she asked.

Tim looked up in surprise.

“Cheese and crackers, Kath,” he said. “I almost had it.”

“Can we go already? The play’s about to start.”

“Yeah, just a minute, I’m almost there.”

The two of them stood there for three minutes. Kath was losing her patience quickly.

“We won’t be able to get in if we are late,” she said, checking her watch for the tenth time in half as many minutes. “And we promised Isabel we would be there.”

The mention of her name pulled down at the corners of Tim’s mouth.  Isabel, the actor, with her husky voice, deep brown eyes and adventurous hands. She had cornered him in the kitchen one night a few weeks ago.  Her fingers trailed down the front of his shirt as she ground against his hips.

“I saw you first,” she had whispered, smelling of vanilla and rum. “But Kath fell in love, so I let her have you. But the more I think about it, the more I regret it. You’ll be mine soon enough. Kath might start to hear rumours, maybe something about you and the new blonde girl at work. You know she’s already worried about her.”

Tim was about to say something when Kath had hollered from the living room, and Isabel backed away from him, her hips swaying slowly as the tip of her tongue licked at her lips. He tried to tell Kath what happened later that night, but couldn’t find the words. He knew if it came down to it, she would believe Isabel over him.

Tim shook the thoughts away and tried to concentrate.

“You know I can’t go with you looking at me,” he said over his shoulder to Kath. “I’ll meet you on the street in a minute.”