Free Hidden Gem Short Story Collection (9781301405985) by India Lee Page A

say
that?”
    “ Where did you really go this morning?”
Mike said. “Were you meeting someone?”
    “ Why would you ask
that?”
    “ Because you came back
with this expression on your face that I haven’t seen in
awhile.”
    “ No I didn’t.”
    “ Uh, yes you did,” Mike
laughed. He tried to recreate whatever expression he claimed Tyler
had returned with, twisting his face into his best impression.
Tyler squinted at him, smiling with an uncomfortable
amusement.
    “ I wasn’t intentionally meeting
with someone. But I guess it ended up being sort of something,
maybe? God, I don’t know.”
    “ Oh my God, man!” Mike punched Tyler in the
shoulder. “Who was she? Why didn’t you say something earlier? Is it
someone I know? Oh my God, it wasn’t Azura was it?”
    “ No!” Tyler said, shaking
his head. “She’s back in L.A. as far as I know, anyway.”
    “ Well? Then who is it? And
when are you seeing her again?”
    “ I don’t know,” Tyler
shrugged. Mike’s excitement was causing his heart to speed up,
racing without the caution that he had since forced upon it. It
made him feel nervous, unprotected. He inhaled sharply. “I went
back to the restaurant to ask our waitress, Sophie, if she was that
last fan that had gotten injured at the concert.”
    “ What?” Mike raised an
eyebrow. “Why? I told you, if she was the girl, she would have been
flipping out over you. That’s how they all got hurt to begin with,
remember?”
    “ Yeah, except it was her. It was the same Sophie.”
    “ What? Seriously? How?” Mike leaned back in his seat, rubbing his
chin in thought. “She didn’t say anything to us about that. She
barely even acknowledged you.” Tyler shrugged, concealing the smile
that crept up on his lips. Sophie had acknowledged him, but in a way
so subtle that he had thought he was imagining it. Throughout their
dinner, she had shot him quick glances whenever appropriate, but
always left the table to tend to others before Tyler could get in a
word.
    “ She had driven down to
the concert on her own,” Tyler recalled their conversation. “It was
a long drive. Her grandpa had to come pick her up afterwards and
she left before we got to the hospital. She helps her grandpa run
the restaurant.”
    “ That grumpy dude was her
grandpa?”
    “ Yeah.”
    “ Damn!” Mike said.
“That’s so weird.
You don’t think so?”
    “ I mean. I guess, a
little.” I mean, it’s all weird, Tyler thought. Everything from his first bout
with performing on stage again to the fact that Sophie was a fan of
his, enough of one to go to a concert of his on her own , and not be the type to
freak out over his presence. Tyler wasn’t sure if his ego was
bruised by the fact. He had never considered himself the type to
care too much about it, but Sophie was throwing him in for a loop.
She didn’t make a whole lot of sense to him, but that only made him
all the more intrigued.
    “ Was she pretty? I don’t
remember,” Mike asked.
    “ Seriously? ” Tyler stared at him,
mouth agape. He had recognized the general lack of reaction from
Mike, Rufus, and Moss when Sophie had first come to the table. They
had apparently only seen a girl in a sling and not the absolutely
gorgeous woman that had suddenly sidled up to their
table.
    “ So she was pretty,
then?”
    “ She was breathtaking, ” Tyler
exhaled. As soon as he said it, he knew he was in too deep. You’re doing it again, Tyler. That thing where
you fall too hard, too fast.
    “ Damn, well, okay,” Mike
laughed. “Guess I missed it. Or was still hung up on our mean
waitress before her, Jana. Was she really that great? I feel bad
for not spotting it now, you know, since it’s clearly such a thing for you. ”
    “ I seriously don’t
understand how no one else saw it,” Tyler said. “She had this
beautiful golden hair, these sparkling blue eyes, the sweetest pink
lips. She couldn’t be more obviously beautiful.” He stopped for
a moment, recalling