Free Rise of the Dunamy by James R. Landrum

zone. The very limited experience she had with these situations consisted of boys and men that she had no interest in dating approaching her with the exception of Mateo; and she was just as awkward about it then. She hadn’t spent the years perfecting flirting that others had, which stunted her growth in the area. In every situation since her high-school crush she was perfectly capable of keeping her cool as she shot men down, and the three experiences she had allowed since finishing college hadn’t been with men she was so enamored by. Those interactions had done nothing in the way of preparing her for what she would do if confronted with someone she was actually interested in.
    Sofia didn’t even feel like she knew how to stand normally, and kept twisting her toes into the ground like a child. In an effort to stop her toe-twisting, she began moving around the room, which produced a new nervous twitch. As she moved about she began touching anything that she could reach and either stroking it or playing with it in some way. Everything that she was doing now felt very uncoordinated and strange and she knew that it looked even worse than it felt.
    Realizing how awkward things could become if he didn’t allow her an easy out, Lucian continued to keep his eyes down and focused on his work. His efforts paid off as they effectively kept him from seeing Sofia make a complete fool of herself.
    Sofia finally regained some level of composure when she realized that Lucian’s averted eyes weren’t due to his concentration on his work, but that he was keeping himself occupied in order to keep from watching the train wreck that was taking place. She snapped herself out of the awkward meandering and tried to regain a tiny bit of dignity as she straightened up and cleared her throat.
    “What I meant was, that is very nice of you and I would love to.” Lucian finally seemed comfortable enough to take his eyes off of the victim’s intestines. Pulling down his mask to expose a comforting smile, Lucian continued to try and ease Sofia’s nerves.
    “Good deal. I’ll swing by and grab you at your place if that’s cool. Does six o’clock work for you?”
    “Perfect,” Sofia responded quickly. She was now eager to leave the room, hopefully leaving behind the embarrassment she now felt.
    “Just text me with your address when you get a chance, I can’t really write right now.” He explained, holding up his bloody gloved hands.
    Still mortified from the scene she had just put on in front of him, Sofia became completely focused on keeping her answers as brief as possible to keep from recreating that moment.
    “I’ll see you tonight.” She said politely. They each gave one another a nod of agreement before Sofia turned to leave.
    “And Sofia.” Lucian added as she turned to leave.
    “Yes?”
    “Don’t sweat it,” he said with a wink. Lucian left his comment vague in order to keep Sofia from feeling even more embarrassed about the way she had just reacted to the situation; and it had worked. A tight-lipped smirk slid up the corner of Sofia’s lips as she turned to leave once more.
    Sofia wanted so badly to skip gleefully out of the morgue, which she actually would have done had she not allowed herself to act like such a child only moments ago. She did allow herself to burst through the swinging double doors that led into the hallway, though. Something had to be done in order to release some of her excitement.

10
    U pon returning to her desk, Sofia did everything that she could to try and get some work done. She was able to get some paperwork taken care of which was normally something that she would never even bother with until a job was closed, but she couldn’t concentrate enough to do anything else. Going through pages of documents, she filled in her name, badge number, and any other generic information that she could as she began creating a mental checklist of things she needed to do in order to get home and ready by six