The Talk of the Town by Fran Baker

purposefully to where he sat.
    Surprise shot through Luke as he watched her approach. He tensed, unable to look away. The floaty skirt of her flower printed dress swirled about her slender legs with each step she took. The sight of it was enough to stir his imagination. After so many years with nothing but his own mind for stimulation and release, his imagination was incredibly forceful, uncomfortably so. He dropped his gaze and focused his thoughts on the faded denim of the old jeans he planned to replace as soon as he could afford to do so.
    She stopped in front of him, the scent of her rosewater further inflaming his imagination. He finished his coffee before finally looking up at her. The corners of her mouth wavered in a tentative smile.
    “How has it been going?” she asked, her voice cracking slightly.
    “Fine,” he said.
    “Good. Good.” She paused. “That’s good,” she said again, and fell into silence.
    They watched each other, neither one of them speaking nor moving. Roxie began to wish she’d just carried the hated pimento cheese back to her office and eaten at her desk. She could feel the heat of everyone else’s stare upon her back, and, worse, the suffocating expectation that hung in the air. It was clearly too late to leave. With all of them observing her so intently, she had to say something, do something.
    She cleared her throat. “Do you mind if I sit here?”
    He stared at her for a long moment, long enough for her heart to sink all the way to her soles of her T-strap pumps. Why hadn’t she left well enough alone? He flicked his gaze to the vacant chair beside him. Then he reached out and wiped the seat with his shirt sleeve.
    It was so unexpected, so curiously quaint, that Roxie didn’t feel as if she could take a breath or move a muscle, much less actually sit down. When she continued to stand immobile, he said, “If you don’t sit, I’ll have dirtied my sleeve for nothing.”
    He was teasing, actually teasing! It affected her in ways she couldn’t begin to explore. With every nerve jangling like the firehouse bell, Roxie sat on the just-dusted chair. “Thank you,” she said, and instantly wished she hadn’t sounded so prim.
    “Thank you,” he said in return.
    She set her sandwich and coffee cup on the table and then swung her gaze to meet his. He looked at her with admiration and an indefinable something else. “Why thank me?” she asked.
    “For having the courage to sit with me,” he said simply, and that fire bell clanged even louder in her ears.
    “Don’t be silly,” she demurred. “It doesn’t take courage to sit with you. Besides, I never do anything courageous. I just wanted to find out how things have been going your first day on the job.”
    There was no way for him to express the fears, the joys, the raw tangle of emotions he’d been feeling. He shifted. “Okay. Things have been okay.”
    “Good.” Wishing she could think of something more interesting to say, she smoothed out the waxed paper she’d bunched up around her sandwich and rattled on. “I usually bring a sandwich from home and eat it at my desk but I was running late this morning and didn’t have time to make one. What did you have?”
    He held up his empty cup. “Coffee.”
    The pimiento cheese remained an inch from her mouth. She gawked at him from over the bread. “That’s it? Coffee? Didn’t you have a sandwich to go with it?”
    “Just coffee.” He settled his gaze somewhere in the vicinity of her shoulder. “It’s free, and I’m watching the budget until I get that first paycheck.”
    “I could ask Mr. Stewart to make you a loan from the petty cash fund until then,” she offered.
    He refused with a quick shake of his head. “I just finished paying my debt to society. The last thing I want is to start out owing my employer.”
    She dropped her gaze to the bread in her hand, and then thrust it toward him. “Here. Take this. I’ll get something else.”
    “No, I—”
    “I