Happy Friday everyone! It’s time to kick off the weekend right with another wonderful flash fiction story from our contest winners! For those of you who are new to the site, each week on Monday we post a different writing prompt. Contestants have a full week to develop and submit their story. Winners will then have their work and bio featured on our blog! So be sure to tune in every Friday to read Literative’s latest and greatest!
This week’s winning entry comes to us from Tammy Mack! Tammy not only stops in from time to time to write us story, but she has also published her first novel, The Killing Retreat. Check out last week’s prompt and the winning entry below!
Prompt:
Boredom comes quickly during the winters of Northern Canada. This is especially true for newcomer Pete Sache, who by his own will and volition had decided to leave his fast-paced New York lifestyle for something a little more humble. With little more to do than spend his free time honing his sketching skills in his small apartment above the village general store, Pete decides to head to the nearest neighboring community fifty miles south. There Pete becomes silently infatuated with the diner’s afternoon waitress. Over the next several weeks he makes a habit to travel there almost daily. As the winter reaches it’s peak, Pete discovers he will not be able to make the trip back home. Now, stranded with no where to go, will Pete finally declare his love?
What happens next? Does Pete end up spending the night in his car? Or does he find some shelter (and perhaps a new romance)?
[x_line]
Northern Lights
By Tammy Mack
Sarah Monroe sighed as she wiped down a recently cleared table. She saw him out of the corner of her eye, and it wasn’t the first time she had caught his stare lingering on her. The attention felt nice, which was why she was always a little more flirtatious toward him. It had taken a few days before she had even learned his name, Pete Sache, or that he wasn’t originally from Canada, but from New York.
“Hiya, Pete.” She offered, before standing beside his table. “The usual?” She asked with uplifted eyebrows.
Pete nodded, “Sounds nice.”
She had waited for him to make a move, even if she wasn’t technically single, it didn’t mean that she couldn’t dip her toe in the water. Sarah had been married for five years, and in a few months she would be completely single again. That was the problem with Jacob, he didn’t look at her like Pete did. He never had looked at her, but they had been high school sweethearts, and in a small town, it was just inevitable that they would marry each other.
“Coming right up,” Sarah sighed, as she turned to walk away. When she turned to face the door, her face scrunched up.
It hadn’t been snowing only an hour earlier, but now it was coming down in thick, puffy streaks of white. The road was littered with the white stuff, and while most Canadians knew how to drive carefully in the stuff. She knew that when the snowstorms started off this thick and heavy, that it wasn’t going to be long before some of the more narrow passes in the small town were impassable. If her diner patrons were going to make it home before they were stranded, that she was going to have to close down the diner.
“Sorry, Pete. Storms blowing in, we’re going to be shutting down the diner.” Sarah pointed at the door.
“Oh, geez. I’m never going to be able to make it back home in this. Do you know if there is a decent hotel in town I can grab a room in?”
Sarah sighed, but nodded. “There’s one, but it’s been booked for weeks. This is our busy time. People love coming to the smaller Canadian towns during winter, mainly to get a better view of the mountains. How far of a drive do you got?”
Pete shrugged, “Fifty miles, and I’ve never been very good at driving in this stuff. It’s fine, I’ll just crash in my car for the night, hopefully it’s clear out enough by morning for me to drive home.”
Sarah shut her eyes, knowing that she was going to regret what she was about to say. Not because she wasn’t willing to help the potentially stranded man before her, but because of the attraction she felt toward him. “I have an empty couch. If you don’t mind sleeping on a couch that is, it’s yours for the night if you want.”
Pete smiled softly, his fingertips grazing her arm, “Thank you, Sarah. That’s very generous of you.”
She smiled back, “Well, I can’t have my best customer freezing to death in his car, now can I?” She asked with a wink. “I just gotta finish cleaning up, and we can head out.”
Sarah sighed, cleaning must have taken longer than she thought, even with Pete’s offered help. What had been little more than a dusting of snow the last time she looked, with at least a good couple of inches. Nothing that she was afraid to drive in, but it definitely meant she had been right about how bad this storm was going to be.
“Do you mind walking? I didn’t know a storm was going to be blowing in, and I left my car at my apartment.”
Pete looked at the fluffy white snow falling hard and fast, “How far of a walk?”
Sarah shrugged, “Less than a block and a half.”
Pete nodded, “Best put on my thicker jacket.”
The walk had been shorter than Pete thought it would be, and soon he found himself standing in Sarah’s apartment. The couch was fairly small, and he knew that he would be fairly uncomfortable on it, but it beat sleeping in his car. He removed his jacket and sweater, folding the latter up and sitting on the edge of Sarah’s coffee table.
“Here a few blankets and a pillow. I’m sorry I don’t have anything more comfortable to offer you to sleep on.”
Pete smiled softly. “You didn’t have to offer at all, so I appreciate it.”
He took the offered items, and noticed the way that she was staring at him. To be fair, the t-shirt he had been wearing under his sweater was tighter than he generally liked to wear them, but this was his favorite t-shirt, and he didn’t think that anyone else would be seeing it.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.” Sarah mumbled, even as her eyes were continuing to take in the view of Pete’s large biceps, and the very trim muscles of his stomach. She had expected it to be fair, but she was a grown woman staring at a man.
“It’s okay.” He whispered, even as he felt himself moving closer to Sarah.
She looked up, just as he reached out his hand to graze across her cheek. All she had to do was say no, and push him away, but looking into his light blue eyes, she couldn’t find the words. Instead, her lips grazed his, and she knew that giving into temptation for one night couldn’t hurt. If anything, it could only bring her one night of happiness … maybe even more.
[x_line]
Love this story? Check out Tammy’s new book on Amazon, The Killing Retreat. You can also connect with Tammy on Twitter at @tjmack1986.
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