I wrote this chapter quickly before work this morning, but I wanted to keep my hand in play.

It is short but might be important later, depending on my muse. I hope you enjoy!

DD

Chapter 23
“... and then you add the egg mixture and treat it like a scramble, cooking gently until it's fluffy.” I finished describing on of my favorite breakfast recipes to Carrie.

“It sounds great!” she trilled.

“Oh, it is, and by serving it with different garnishes you can....”

Carrie spun in her chair to see what had caught my attention to the point that I had stopped talking. By the time she turned back to face me, I already had my laptop packed and my orange mocha in hand and was standing. “Where are you going? Are we leaving? What did you see that made you get up so quickly?”

I handed her her coffee cup and grabbed her gently by the upper arm and propelled her to the nearest door and towards my car.

“Don't worry about that. We'll go get your car and go to your house. Maybe I'll show you another recipe when we get there.”

Carrie put on the brakes and grabbed the door frame of the coffeehouse door with both hands. “Wait juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust a minute! Why are you pushing me out of the coffeehouse? We just got here are I'm not ready to go home, yet!”

I pushed past her and said, “If you must know, it's the smelly ape that tried to chat me up in here the other day. I don't intend to deal with him right now.”

“So you are just going to run from him? I thought smelly apes didn't scare you and that you could handle any of them!” She had an odd gleam in her eyes.

“Do you want me to handle him?” I put enough venom in my voice for her to realize what a bad idea that would be, even though I was in no mood to do any harm, or even cause trouble. I just wanted to relax with my coffee and chat with my adopted sister.

“How do you know what he is going to do?”

“How do you know what is going to do?” I finished unlocking my car and plopped down into the driver's seat. “If you want to go finish our coffee, not to mention get a ride back to you car, you might want to get in, now.”

She sighed and stomped around and got in. “Can we at least go to the bookstore? I've run out of anything fun to read.” And so we finished our little jaunt perusing used paperbacks and CDs.

The smelly ape was not further mentioned. I thought.

Chapter 24

Expect more on the other groups here, when I get a chance to write again