Free Territory - Prequel by Susan A. Bliler Page A

her head and laughed throatily.  “That is fucking great!”
    “ It’s not funny Marissa!” Chloe pouted, “It was humiliating.  I’m supposed to be hating the guy and there he was catching me and carrying me around the damn supermarket parking lot for the whole town to see.   Then when I saw him again…”
    “Wait!” Marissa held up a hand.  “ You saw him again? ”
    Chloe nodded.
    Marissa still had her hand up when she turned to find the bartender and shouted across the room, “Celeste, we’re gonna need some shots!”
    Rolling her eyes, Chloe shook her head at her friend.  Good ‘ol Marissa, she could always rely on her friend to make a mountain out of a mole hill.  She smiled.  Marissa may have been a bit of an exaggerator, but it was nice to finally talk freely about what was going on in her life. 
    When Celeste returned with two shots, both Marissa and Chloe picked up the glasses and eyed each other silently before downing the dark liquid without even knowing what it was.  The amber concoction burned and Chloe coughed and sputtered, barely catching Marissa’s order of two more shots and two more beers as she placed a twenty on the bartenders drink tray.
    “Okay,” Marissa took a deep breath ready to continue, “now when exactly did you see him again, and what exactly happened that time?”
    Still disgusted from the foul tasting shot, Chloe took a drink of her beer and swished it around her mouth before she spoke.  “Needless to say, we didn’t get any shopping done, so I went back to the market the following day .  I was in the frozen food section and he came up and wanted to talk. ”
    “About what?”
    Shrugging , Chloe took another sip and realized she was getting buzzed, “I have no idea.  I walked away when he tried to touch me.”
    “Touch you where?” Marissa’s eyes widened and she smiled perversely.
    “Not like tha t!   He tried to grab my arm.”
    Marissa fell back against the cushion of the booth staring whimsically over Chloe’s head, “I’d so let him touch me anywhere he wanted.”
    “Marissa!”
    “What?  The guy’s a fucking God. ”
    “ Anyway, he followed me out to the parking lot and said that something was happening and we needed to talk, that our confrontation was coming.”  She dipped her eyes to her bottle and used a polished finger nail to start peeling the edge of the label.  “He’s really kind of freaking me out.”
    “Well what did he say was happening?  What does that even mean?”
    “I don’t know.  It’s just…weird stuff’s been happening around him , and I…”
    Marissa cut her off, “Weird stuff like what?”
    Chloe chewed on her bottom lip before blowing out a breath, “When he touches me it feels…different.”
    “Whoa, whoa, whoa.”   Marissa leaned forward, “Touches you?  You said he tried .”
    “Look,” Chloe eyed the bar, annoyed that the bartender wasn’t back with the distraction of shots, “I don’t know what’s going on.  I just know that things are getting weird.”
    Marissa screwed her face into a look of skepticism, “Well you said he spoke of a confrontation.  What’d he mean by that?”
    “Again, I don’t know.”
    “You know what we should do,” Marissa eyed Chloe intently; “we should get a restraining order.”
    Chloe laughed, “A restraining order?  And what are we going to say when we file for one ? ”  She changed her tone to sound mocking, “This man has been catching me when I faint Officer, I demand you keep him away from me!”
    Marissa started laughi ng and was distracted when Celeste came back with their round, “Okay, you’re right that’ll never hold up.”  She took the shots of f the tray and placed one in front of herself and the other in front of Chloe before she snatched the beers off the tray and eyed the change that remained before smiling at Celeste and pushing the tray away, “Keep it.”
    Alone again, Marissa took up her shot glass and clinked it off