Cancelled by Elizabeth Ann West

door, he locked up for the night and directed Kellie to the back entrance that emptied into the shared parking garage. It would shave half a block off their walk.
     
     
    Alexis stared at Johnathan's office through the blind slits on her internal window. She watched as he prepared to leave, escorting a young woman. Her speculations were interrupted when Eric popped his head in.
    “Want to hit Monster?” Eric named their favorite bar to celebrate their successes and wallow in their troubles.
    “Who's that?” Alexis continued to stare at the back of the woman's head.
    Eric swiveled his head in the direction of Johnathan's office.
    “Hmm, not sure. Johnathan didn't introduce you?” Eric tried to return the favor of Johnathan covering for him earlier. He wasn't stupid. Alex may say nothing was going on, but her concern over Johnathan leaving with Kellie confirmed his suspicions.
    Alex grabbed her pocketbook and shut her desktop down.
    “Let's go.” She smiled at Eric and the two of them walked out of the front entrance, towards their bar that was two blocks down.
     
     
    The park in Mount Vernon square provided perfect privacy in plain sight. Johnathan's sweat glands worked in overdrive mode. He tugged off his tie, stuffed it into his bag and opened the top two buttons on his shirt. Kellie appeared cool and breezy in a pale yellow sun dress with pockets over a pair of lemon-yellow tights that ended at her mid-calf.
    Squirrels darted from trees to the benches and traschans in a hunt for lunch leftovers. Johnathan guided Kellie to a bench near the middle of the park.
    “How are you feeling?” He turned his upper body towards her, but decided against putting his arm along the back of the bench behind her. He settled for resting a crooked elbow on top of the bench.
    Kellie put her hands in her dress pockets, and shrugged her shoulders. “Pretty okay. I can't handle greasy foods. I'm tired all the time, but my parents haven't really noticed since I slept all the time before.”
    “You live with your parents?” How old was this girl? He never bothered to check the morning after. He knew nothing about her.
    “Yeah. I skipped the college thing. I work in cosmetics at a CVS in Fairfax, but I'm studying to be a pharmacy tech. Supposed to finish certification in September.” Kellie sighed.
    “Are you from Fairfax?” Johnathan asked.
    “I graduated from Fairfax. We moved here when I was in middle school from Louisiana.”
    “Hurricane Katrina?”
    Kellie laughed. “Nah, we lived upstate. I get asked that all the time. I was a sophomore here when it happened.”
    Johnathan performed quick math in his head. Sophomore in 2005, graduated in what? 2008? She's twenty or twenty-one.
    “How old are you?” Kellie asked.
    Slightly taken aback by her forwardness, he decided to be a little sly.
    “Annandale High School, Class of 2001.”
    “You're thirty?” Her eyes widened.
    “No, twenty-seven.” Johnathan laughed at her failed mental math skills.
    “I don't know why I added nine to 2001,” Kellie laughed with him, “that doesn't even make sense.”
    Clatter made talking impossible for a moment, as the traffic noise and a large truck passing revved up the decibel level. An opportunistic entrepreneur pushed a silver ice cream cooler, the kind that litter the Mall in summer, to the far corner of the park in anticipation of rush hour.
    “Can you eat ice cream?” Johnathan asked as he stood and motioned towards the new interloper in the park. Kellie beamed at him and jumped up from the bench.
    Neither felt like sitting once they each held a chocolate crunch bar in their hands and instead walked the long lap of the park. Kellie licked the length of her popsicle's melting left side.
    “Thanks for the snack.”
    “You're welcome.” Johnathan use a tiny white napkin to wipe his mouth. He swirled possible questions in his mind, but didn't know how to approach confirming that the baby was his. She seemed to like direct