Hello again! Just as a fair warning, this chapter made me nauseous just to write, but I suppose it was necessary. It will get creepy (read: creepier), but I did need to get some of the pseudo-romance crap out of the way (you know, for those people who have never been stalked before and might mistake this for a cutesy romance story. I've done my civic duty for the year.) Anyway, on with the story.


Chapter Three

Mike, the guy who fixed my truck yesterday, came by my work today. I was surprised to see him. I hope I didn't offend him too much, but I was really shocked. I didn't know what to say. I didn't even ask him how he found out where I work. It was the whole car-wreck analogy, where you just stand there with a stupid look on your face, wondering why your body isn't reacting. I tend to do that a lot. Lance worries about me because of it. He says it'll get me in some serious trouble someday. I hope he won't be too upset, but I want to do something nice for Mike, to thank him for helping me. Maybe I'll just invite him out for drinks or something. Maybe he has a girlfriend or a wife, so we can make it a double date. No harm in that.

June 7th - Rachael

Rachael closed the cover on her journal and glanced out her bedroom window onto South Ashford Street. For three years, the whole time she had lived in Ashfield, she had sat here and wrote in her journal every night after work. Working at the hospital, she encountered plenty of interesting people and experienced a whole myriad of emotions throughout the day. After a particularly trying shift, she would immediately come home and write about it. It never failed to make her feel better. Today, however, was the first day she had ever written about something not directly related to work. She really did worry that she had come across as aloof when she met Mike today. She only hoped that she would be able to run into him again. Fortunately, Ashfield wasn't that large of a city.

"Now who could that be…" She rose from her desk chair at the sound of the doorbell outside, and rushed into the living room. Through the peephole of her front door she saw the familiar sight of the narrow chiseled face and lightly touseled sandy hair of her boyfriend Lance.

"Hey beautiful," he greeted her when she opened the door for him, and kissed her as he stepped inside. "How was work today?"

"Um…" She contemplated telling him, but something stopped her. "It was good. Nothing much happened today."

"That's good. My day was busy enough for both of us. I went to see those people at the gallery today. They loved my work. I think they're gonna buy."

"Really? That's great! I'm so proud of you." She hugged him.

"Yeah, I'm going to the show this Friday night. If only I can find a date though…" He rolled his eyes around playfully.

"Well, I don't think such a good-lookin' guy would have a very hard time." The pair dissolved into a fit of giggles, until it was interrupted by a heated liplock.

"Mmm…" he murmured in her ear. "Do you have any idea how bad I want you right now?"

"Yeah?" She brought her hands from his shoulders to the small of his back. "How's your back feeling?"

"Ugh…" He grimaced. "Still pretty sore. It's only been a week since I fell, after all."

"Well that sucks. Speaking of which…there are ways around that, you know."

He chuckled. "I like the way you think." He started to pull her in for another kiss, when the sound of a cell phone ringing disrupted them.

"Whoa, that's them. It's the gallery. I wonder what they want?" Lance took the call, pacing excitedly around the living room as he talked, but Rachael scarcely heard a word. The combination of Lance's back injury and the near-constant negotiations with the art dealer had all but brought their sex life to a screeching halt, and despite her mild-mannered appearance and demeanor, Rachael was quite the sexaholic. She had her ways of coping with the dry spell, but there were just some jobs that she couldn't handle by herself.

"I don't believe it! One of my pieces has sold already!" Lance announced as he dashed over to her. "I've gotta go now and meet the buyer."

"Right now? But I thought we were gonna go out tonight."

"Aw…" He kissed her on the forehead apologetically. "I'm sorry, baby. But I can't pass this up. I'll make it up to you, I promise." With that, he was out the door. Rachael wasn't too far behind him, but she was headed in a different direction than him.

Bar Southfield was not terribly crowded for a Friday night. Rachael was grateful for this, and she parked herself at the most secluded end of the bar and ordered up her usual, White Russian. After about twenty minutes or so, she was even more grateful that she was not bothered by half a dozen people who recognized her from the hospital and wanted to ask her obnoxious questions about her job, which ranged from everything to "So do you ever see any dead bodies?" to "Have you ever had sex with a comatose patient?" Thirty minutes and two drinks later, however, she did have a visitor.

"Well, fancy meeting you here. And alone, nonetheless."

She whirled around to find a familiar face behind her. "Oh! Mike, hi," she blurted awkwardly. "What are you doing here?"

The older man, now clad in dark jeans and a tight white t-shirt, smiled amusedly. "Well I'm either an undercover cop or I'm here for the same reason you are."

She laughed in spite of herself; it only took a couple or so drinks for her to become a complete airhead. "It's good to see you. I was hoping I'd run into you again."

"Is that so?" He parked himself on the stool beside her and leaned in attentively, sipping on a rum and coke as he did so. "Why's that?"

"Well, I wanted to thank you again for helping me the other day. I hoped I didn't come off as being a jerk, you know? I was just surprised. No one has ever stopped to help me when my truck broke down before."

"Well…" he droned in a deep throaty voice that, she reluctantly admitted, was pretty damn sexy. "No one knows about that better than me. People only think about themselves, you know? All wrapped up in their own little world. Well I like to think that sometimes you're placed in a situation because you were meant to be there, you know what I mean? You were 'the one' at that given moment. I like to think that I was meant to be there that day to help you."

She smiled. "That's a really nice way of thinking. I wish more people thought that way."

He shrugged. "That's okay. As long as other people continue to be assholes, I'll continue to have my appeal."

She couldn't help laughing…and staring. He was somewhat older than her-she estimated around 37 or so-but he wasn't unattractive. Even if he wasn't the typical cute guy, he still had a way about him, charming and sincere. She couldn't believe she was thinking things like this. For now, she would blame it on the alcohol.

"Hey, I'll be right back, okay?" he said. She nodded, and he headed in the direction of the men's room. No sooner did he disappear than a large and rather unpleasant man ambled to the bar and seated himself beside her where Mike had previously sat.

"What's shakin', cutie?" he slurred in her ear, and the stench of booze and cigarette smoke nearly choked her out.

"My friend is sitting there," Rachael said as forcefully as she could.

"Oh, I'm sorry…was I supposed to give a flying fuck? I've seen that guy before…I'll wipe the floor with his pansy ass."

"Okay, whatever. He'll be back any minute, and you'll be in some real trouble then."

"'Okay, whatever'? You got a pretty sassy mouth for a broad who's hangin' out with such a loser."

"What's that?" a familiar voice intervened as Mike returned. "Friend, if I were you I'd leave the lady alone."

The man stood up, casting an ominous shadow over the smaller man as he did so. "Alright, 'friend', let me tell you something…if I want any lip from you, I'll check your neighbor's zipper, okay?"

"Is that so…"

"Yeah, that's so. Get it through your head, man. You're a loser. You're never gonna get a chick. They don't want anything to do with a loser like you. So why don't you go home before your mama starts callin' wonderin' where you are? I think it's past your bedtime anyway."

"You son of a bitch…" With that, Mike drew his fist back and slammed it right into the hairy man's throat. As he reeled over gagging, Mike dashed across the room and snatched a cue stick from the nearby pool table, brandishing it expertly. "You wanna say that again, you inbred hick? I'll fuckin' kill you if you try that again, mother fucker."

The man had no reply to this, aside from bending over and retching all over the floor. Mike took this opportunity to shatter the cue stick over his head to little effect, but that did nothing to deter him.

"Come on, any of you other mother fuckers wanna take me on? I'll take all you fuckers on." He grabbed another stick and held it poised over his shoulder, striking an oddly comical pose straight out of a bad ninja movie. At this point the bartender was ready to intervene, and Rachael couldn't help from busting out laughing.

"Alright, I think you've done enough damage," she said as she grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to the door. As they made their exit, a handful of slack-jawed onlookers watched, some snickering at the ongoing display of the oversized tough guy puking on the floor beside the bar.

Once they were outside, the pair eventually recovered from their uncontrollable laughing fit, and Rachael released his arm-albeit hesitantly.

"Do you do that often?" she asked between giggles.

"No, actually, I've never done that before, but I always wanted to," he said. "I mean, I've had plenty of people to fight, but I've never had anyone to protect before. That's the only way I would fight."

She couldn't help smiling at this, and she couldn't help hating herself just a little bit for it. She knew from experience what would feed a man's ego, and at the current moment she was the all-you-can-eat buffet. At the same time, though, she didn't really care either.

"Well, where do we go now?" she asked. "Is there anywhere else in town where you won't eventually be thrown out?"

He chuckled. "Well, with any luck, I won't be thrown out of my apartment anytime soon. It's at South Ashfield Heights. You know that place?"

Her eyes lit up. "Hey, I live there too. I'm in 106." As soon as she said this, she knew she had broken some kind of unspoken law for women living alone, but she really didn't care.

"Is that so? Well, I'm in 301, so if you're ever looking for a party…"

She lowered her head and gazed up at him coyly. "I'll keep that in mind." She paused for a moment and added, "So what're you doing tonight?"

He laughed again, eying her playfully. "Well, unfortunately I'd better get home and get to bed. I've got a lot of work to do tomorrow. But…that won't stop me from walking you to your place."

She immediately agreed, while the entire time the rational portion of her brain screamed, "What the hell are you thinking?" She often chose to tune out that portion of her brain.

The ten-minute walk back to the apartments was fairly uneventful, but by the time they arrived at room 106, the butterflies started to settle in-for the both of them, it appeared.

"Well, that was fun. We should do it again sometime," Mike said, and she laughed awkwardly.

"Yeah. Who knows, maybe next time we'll get arrested."

"Maybe. That would be a story to tell, wouldn't it?" They both laughed at this, but their giggles soon subsided when their eyes met, and all fell silent for what felt like an eternity.

"I really would like to see you again," Mike said. "But…"

"What?"

"I don't know…I mean, your boyfriend and all…"

She thought about this. She knew there was nothing wrong with her having male friends just the same as there was nothing wrong with Lance having female friends. But she knew how she was; she was as boy-crazy as any 27-year-old woman could be, and as much as she cared for her boyfriend, she found it difficult at times to be with such a career-minded man, particularly when his career was so touch-and-go. She didn't even know what Mike did for a living, but it didn't matter because he obviously liked to go out and have a good time, which was more than she could say for Lance. She wanted to hate herself for thinking this, but she just couldn't.

"Well…" she began after a long silence that she did not intend. "The way I think about it, what he doesn't know won't hurt him."

"I'll keep that in mind."

She giggled. "So what about you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah. Don't tell me that you don't have someone in your life."

"Well, I don't…sad but true. Not for a lack of trying or anything, you know, it's just that I'm a pretty busy guy."

"Right." She fidgeted now, shifting from foot to foot and entangling her keys in her fingers until they dug into her skin, but she barely noticed. "Well if it means anything, I don't think you'd have any trouble. Any woman would be lucky to have a nice guy like you."

"Thank you, I appreciate that." He stuffed his hands in his pockets. "Well…I hate to run, but I'd better or else I'd never leave."

She nodded, and let out a sigh of disappointment. "Yeah. Well, good night."

"Good night, Rachael. Take care."

"You too." She smiled over her shoulder at him as she unlocked her door, and continued doing so once she was inside, leaning against the door and clutching her keychain to her chest, smiling from ear to ear like a lovesick schoolgirl. Meanwhile, out in the hall, Mike stood outside her door for a long while, eventually reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small velvet box, which he opened. Inside, his grandmother's engagement ring shimmered at him, with one small alteration-an engraving-that he had had done to it that very day:

My beloved…always with you