Free Fluke by David Elliott, Bart Hopkins

was a light tap, gentle enough to not seem rude, but hard enough for me to know it was there.   It felt like a woman’s tap, I thought, irrationally.   How does a woman tap, Adam-boy? I turned around and saw Heather standing there.
    Shit .
    “Hey there, Fluke,” Heather said, crossing her arms over her chest.   She was staring at me with a look that could have been either angry, aloof, or a combination of both. She was wearing a denim skirt with a green T-shirt, and I briefly thought to myself that she looked really good in it.  
    “Hi, uh, Heather,” I said, feeling very close to the edge of something.   “Enjoying the carnival?” I asked her, feeling stupid but not knowing what else to say.
    I saw her peer over my shoulder to where Sara was getting her pink and blue cotton candy.   She looked back at me.
    “Is she one of the things you’re working on right now?” I thought she sounded a bit hurt.   Or maybe that was just my recently inflated ego talking.
    Look, Adam-boy, you lucked into Sara.   That doesn’t make you some kind of heartbreaker.
    I started tap-dancing.   “Look, Heather, I didn’t mean…”
    “Here, Adam, hold this,” Sara said in my right ear.   I glanced over to her, and she was holding out a wad of pink cotton candy.   She was struggling just a bit, with cotton candy in each hand, and a few dollar bills sticking out from between her fingers.   She looked up and realized that I was talking to someone.   I reached out and took the pink cotton candy from her.
    “Oh, hi,” she said, smiling at Heather.   “I’m Sara.” Sara wiped the residual sugar from her hands onto her shorts and held her hand out.   Heather reached out and gave it a small shake.   Two women that I could have taken out tonight, standing within five feet of each other, shaking hands, me in the middle.  
    “I’m Heather.   I work, well…worked, I guess, with Adam at the Pizza Palace.   Nice to meet you.” Heather smiled and I grasped at a fleeting thought: maybe this won’t go so bad.
    “Well, I guess we sort of have something in common.   You worked with him, I was his last delivery,” Sara joked.   She moved a hand to my back, and I felt fingertips begin to rub up and down my spine.
    “Really? I didn’t know that,” said Heather, shooting me a quick glance.   Actually, it was more like a glare with sharp teeth.   Heather had never asked me why I quit Perry’s so suddenly, and now I think she was starting to understand.
    Feeling extremely uncomfortable and not knowing what to do, I shoved the cotton candy into my face, tearing a hunk off with my teeth and letting it hang.   The sugary sweet substance melted the instant it hit my tongue, and a large portion stuck to my lower lip and hung down to my chin.   I let it rest like that for a moment and looked back and forth between Heather and Sara.
    “Is there something on my face?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
    Sara started laughing at my joke; Heather glanced at me and shook her head.   One woman that I chose to take out, and one that will probably no longer talk to me, standing within five feet of each other, me in the middle, I thought.
    Sara reached up and pulled the sticky candy from my chin and popped it into her own mouth.   I watched her eyes close and her tongue move out to lick her lips and realized that I was with the woman I wanted to be with.
    “Well, we’re off to the Tilt-A-Whirl,” I said, ready to move on from this awkward moment.   “It was good seeing you, Heather.”
    “Yeah, you too.   Nice meeting you, Sara,” Heather said, turning to walk away.   “I’ll talk to you later, Fluke.” It sounded like a threat when she said it.   Sara and I stood eating cotton candy as Heather walked off in the direction of L’Amour .
    “She was nice.” Sara said.   Either she had missed or was choosing to ignore how strange that situation had been for me.
    Yep, I thought, Heather is nice. But she was no