Page 9 of Pete and His Precious

See you then.

I do a little fist pump, and then, push myself out of my chair and head to the booth. I want to redo the kiss scene from the day before. I just wasn’t happy with the way it turned out. It doesn’t sound realistic. Maybe two...dramatic. Not tender enough. I can’t quite put my finger on what I did wrong, but when I listen to it, it just wasn’t giving me the feeling that I wanted. Once I finish, I can get back to what I do on the side when I don’t have any work coming in, which is recording public domain works and putting them up on my social media channel, and putting short teaser snippets on social media. I did Pride and Prejudice, and it was a lot more popular than what I anticipated. I didn’tmake bank or anything, but if it continues to grow, I might actually be able to pay my rent out of it.

Chapter 4

Pete

I had another one of those days.

I knew it was going to be one of those days before I even went into work in the morning. I had court today. I hate it. Mostly because I come face-to-face with some of the people that I’ve given traffic tickets to, parking violations, and that type of thing. I hate it when they’re old, and I know they can’t afford to pay. What am I supposed to do? It’s my job to ticket people who are parked illegally or who let the meter expire. That’s my job. The police department in Mistletoe Meadows is responsible for everything, since we’re such a small town. We don’t have a meter maid, or anything like that. The department does it all. And I don’t mind doing it. I just hate the feeling that I’ve taken food out of someone’s mouth so that they could pay their parking fine. I just... Wish that they would obey the laws in the first place, so I didn’t have to give them a ticket.

Plus, I had to arrest my cousin again. I hate doing it, and it’s kind of a joke at the station. Since I’m a police officer, and my cousin is the most frequently arrested citizen of Mistletoe Meadows. He has a drinking problem, and I’ve begged him to get help, but unless the person wants to be helped, it’s impossible to help them. I’ve learned this the hard way.

Regardless, Dan and I grew up together, and he’s like a brother to me. We were the same age, with one of my brothers being older and two being younger, and Dan and me in the middle. His mom wasn’t married, and my mom ended up taking care of him a lot. But, she couldn’t overcome the demons that he had from the way he was shuffled from house to house, and the “dads” that went in and out of his place.

Anyway, I’m so happy to get home, and I’m hoping, really, really hoping, that my neighbor is working at her job. I need her voice.

“Leo and his love bunny! Leo and his love bunny!”

“Pete. My name is Pete.”

“Leo and his love bunny!”

I give Trixie a baleful glare, but it’s actually nice to have someone in the apartment when I come in. I should consider getting a pet. The apartments are all pet friendly. I remember that being billed on the advertisement, but it didn’t mean a whole lot to me. Since I didn’t have any at the time. I can understand the appeal though. After a day like today, I wouldn’t mind having a dog look at me like he loves me more than anything else in the world. A cat...? I’m not sure about that.

I sit down, and immediately I hear her voice.

I close my eyes and leaned back and let it wash over me.

“Precious. You are my precious. I do love you and worship at your feet. You're the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, and I can’t wait to kiss your beautiful, cherry red lips.”

Okay. The writing in this book stinks, but she almost makes it sound like it’s completely feasible.

“You’re my precious, my very most precious love, and if I can’t be with you, I would rather die!”

All right. It’s getting to be a little bit much. Maybe I’m a twelve-year-old at heart, or maybe I’m just not mature enough to have any kind of romance. My love life would tend to verify that statement as truth. But, I want to giggle.

Instead, without raising my head or opening up my eyes I say, “And I feel the same way about you. Only, I think we should be eating while we talk about this.”

There is silence from the other side.

Yeah. I feel guilty already. I should have just kept my mouth shut. I was here, enjoying her voice, feeling soothed and warmthe way it always does, and I ruined it with my inability to squelch my junior high kid.

“All right. I think that’s a good idea. We’ll eat while we talk. As long as you remain my precious.”

Something tells me that line wasn’t in the book. It seems a little bit better written than the rest of the story.

“That sounds good to me,” I say, hoping, truly hoping, that she went off script like I think she did. And then, I do something that if I thought about it, or if she was standing right in front of me, would have taken a lot of nerve. With the wall between us, and this little game that we seem to be playing, the words almost come effortlessly. “I’ll take you out Friday night. Restaurant of your choice.”

“Oh precious, my very precious. I would love to go out to you with you on Friday night. Let’s go to The Food Shack. It’s almost like The Love Shack, only better, my precious.”

The Food Shack is not exactly a fancy restaurant, but they have really awesome food. It’s appropriately named, and the most popular place in town.

“I’ll meet you there on Friday night,” I say, thinking that I could offer to pick her up, since I obviously know where she lives, but I’ve never even seen her. This could go very, very badly. But her voice sounds young. I assume she’s around the same age as me. And, so what if it turns out that she’s fifty years old? Will have a nice lunch together, laugh, and maybe we’ll have become friends.

“That sounds good. You sit in the corner, with a single red rose on your table.” Her voice changes for a minute. “You can get them pretty cheap at the grocery store.” Then she goes back into her regular, narrator voice, sultry, like melted chocolate flowing over my skin. “I’ll look for you, and meet you there, my precious.”

I smile at the total change in her voice. I think she has a sense of humor, and I really think I like her. But, knowing the kind of job I have, and that sometimes I don’t get off work when I think I’m going to, or sometimes I have to work doubles, I give her my phone number, “Just in case you need to get a hold of me.”

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