Dinner Gone Awry

I managed to get a Studio 30 Plus prompt done this week!!!  I picked back up with another serial on this one.  Studio 30 Plus gave us clever and/or adroit.  I'll be honest, I just couldn't figure out how to use adroit in a sentence that didn't sound overly contrived.  Maybe it's just not in my voice.  Anyway, I did get clever worked in.  The rest of the story is found under the Weather Riders tab up on top.  Let me know what you think!

Caiden must have picked up on my nervousness.  Maybe it was the way I stomped up to the table, or he caught that I’d come from the kitchen.

“Evening,” he pulled out my chair for me.

“Hi.”

“I assume you work here?”

I unfolded my napkin in my lap to hide my face.  So much for being clever.

“I’m a chef.”

“Interesting.  I wouldn’t have expected that.”

I arched a brow at him, “Why?”

“Because you seem to be more of the management type.  Albeit one who would be down in the thick of things willing to lead by example.”

I smiled, “I do get my way.  I just do so from the kitchen.”

“Executive chef, then.  Please, if you will, I would be honored if you ordered for us both as you know the menu in exquisite detail.”

I didn’t know how to take Caiden’s attitude. He was such the polite gentleman sitting here with me, but I know for a dead certain fact that polite gentleman was nowhere to be found during that storm a few days ago.  The small talk continued until after our food arrived.

After the first few bites Caiden set his fork down, “Is this a dish of your creation?”

I nodded, uncertain of my voice and having no idea why I didn’t trust myself to speak.

“It is amazing.  The way in which you balance the spices with the subtle caramel flavor while allowing the flavor of the steak to still dominate the dish is impressive.”

The look on my face must have said it all because Caiden started to laugh.  I stood, ready to flee the disaster this dinner was turning in to.

Caiden gestured for me to sit while he took several sobering breaths, “I am not what you expected.  Clearly.  I meant no insult by it and I apologize for your discomfort.  In all honesty, these manners are a bit of a stretch for me now, it’s been so long since I’ve had call to use them.”

“I can imagine from your line of work.”

“How long have you had the scar?”

“Three years.”

He nodded, “Young for one of us.”

I didn’t know how to answer.  Caiden saved me from trying to figure it out.

“You haven’t had much training with this particular job, have you?”

I shook my head, “My teacher went rogue about a year into my training.”

Caiden glanced up at the ceiling for several seconds, “Must have been Joseph Ramirez?”

“Yeah.”

“I knew the Monitor who confronted Joseph.  Didn’t end well.”

I snorted, “That’s one way to put it.  That Enforcer didn’t give Joe a chance.”

Caiden flinched ever so slightly at that, “There was more than you realize to what happened with Joseph.”

“Try me.”

“Joseph was looking for a way to take your powers as well.  He was looking for a better high from the storms.”

“Whatever.  I’m done.”

“Please, Shayna.  I’m not trying to speak ill of him.  You wanted to know.”

“True.  If you’re right, prove it.  How was Joe going to try to hurt me?”

“What did Joseph tell you of your ability as a Rider?”

“I had enough talent to train, that I needed to be trained so I didn’t hurt anyone.  I’d probably never be one of the great Riders.”

“That’s the first part of the proof.  You’re not just a Rider.  I’m guessing you’d make one hell of a Monitor.  You have an intuition about storms and Riders that few of our kind can match.”

That caught me off guard.  Caiden didn’t give me much time, though, to digest that news.

“The second part is that I knew one of the others who trained under Joseph.  I believe he would have been Joseph’s apprentice just before Joseph started to train you.  Michael?”

I nodded my head.  Joe’d told me about a guy named Michael, “I was told Michael’d burned himself out trying to take on too big of a storm by himself.”

“Not true.  The Master Counsel’s belief is that Joe was trying to ride the storm through Michael.”

“Thinking he could magnify his high because of the added ability from Michael.”

Caiden nodded.  He let me chew on that discovery for a few minutes before continuing.

“Now.  Back to what I said about your abilities.  Shayna, you need more training.  Your potential will not let you live in peace.  With talent like what you have, if you don’t accept the training, the chances of you ending up rogue are quite high.  And I don’t want to think of what it would take to stop you if that ever were to happen.”

I blinked.  What was there to say to that?  

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Random Sunday – Hangers, Cleaning, and Dinner

When we’re home, Sundays have become days we do chores.  One such chore is laundry.  With this next statement, keep in mind we've been gone quite a bit and/or had major events (like my brother’s wedding) on weekends.  So, we finally caught up with laundry this weekend.  Only to discover that the hangers have disappeared.  Now the scary part to me is that they have not reappeared as odd socks.  Which makes me wonder what have all the hangers morphed into and when will I discover them?  Seriously.  I haven’t bought a whole bunch of new clothes that need hangers, so where have they gone?

I decided I was going to do a bunch of cleaning today.  Specifically, I wanted to get my office space cleaned up.  It had become a catch all for anything that couldn't be out in the “public” areas of my house.  Needless to say it got rather piled up on my desk.  But, I feel much better now because I am sitting at my desk working on this and the surface is pretty clean!  It’s also amazing what you find when you start cleaning like that.  But that’s another story.

I’m trying to figure out what goes through the mind of an almost 2 year old at dinner time.  For a discussion point, tonight’s dinner was corn and pork chops.  My son thought he was dying of starvation and was begging for his milk before supper.  Now, I might be mean, but I didn't give him any because I know if he drinks a bunch of milk before supper he won’t eat well.  So I got his corn ready, got him into his booster seat and he started chowing down on the corn.  Then, when my husband poured milk, my son was dying for milk again.  A bit of patience would do this child wonders.  He got his milk.  Then he ate a couple bites of the pork chop.  For no apparent reason, after that he wouldn't eat pork chop.  He’d spit it out every time we tried to get him to eat a bite – regardless of who put it in his mouth, including him.  He ate a good helping of corn instead.  When I had wiped his hands and face to let him down, he started eating the pork.  Can someone please explain?

Not A Normal Dinner Conversation, Part 1

This week Trifecta gave us the word "manipulate" as in "to change by artful or unfair means so as to serve one's purpose: to doctor".

I decided to revisit my One Night in Dusseldorf series for this prompt.  It’s been a while since I worked on it.  James, Kris, and Emma are in London.  Emma is still trying to get answers about who killed her sister and how her sister died.  James and Emma are out at dinner after Emma’s discovery that Kris is a werewolf for real.  Emma is still trying to wrap her mind around all of that.  Then James tells Emma her sister is still alive.  And this is the next piece in the story:

I dropped my fork.  The clatter of it bouncing of the plate and hurtling to the floor seemed deafening, loud enough everyone should be staring.  But they weren’t even looking at all.

“What the hell do you mean?  If you knew she was alive, why didn’t you tell me that right away?  Back in Germany?”

I never wanted to throttle someone, to beat the ever living daylight out of someone as bad as I wanted to pound Kris at that moment.

“Stop and think, Emma.  You were notified by the police of her death.  You saw the photos.  You said so when we first spoke over the phone.  You would never have believed me had I told you then.  You needed to see the world Lauren inhabits now.  Only then would you believe me.”

I took several deep breaths.  That James was right wasn’t helping any.  I needed to think.

“So you’re saying you had to manipulate me into a position for me to believe you.”

It was ever so slight, but I spotted the hesitation before he answered.  There was more to this than he was saying.

“That is a part of it,” he finally sighed.

“And the rest?”

“We need you, Emma.  I know Kris tried to tell you that.  I don’t know that you really understood.  I still am not certain you understand.”

“Kris said something about some druid something,” I conceded.

“Not just something.  You are one of a small handful of people alive on this earth that can help our people maintain control, maintain balance.”

“So you needed to manipulate me not only to get me to believe you, but to get me to agree to help you, too?”

“We needed to manipulate the situation, not you.  We needed you show you how important you are.  We need you.  To turn away from us now is a death sentence for me, for Kris, and our people.”

“What about my sister?  You haven’t explained anything about Lauren yet.”

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Dinner Date

Studio 30+ gave us the opening line this time - "What are you doing here?".  I used it to further my Weather Riders story.  If' you've missed pieces, click here, or follow the tab above to be taken to the rest of the story.  As always, concrit is most welcome.

“What are you doing here?  I thought you were off until Monday,” Joe asked me when I walked into the back door of the restaurant.

“I’m not working.  I’m supposed to be meeting someone here.”

“Oh yeah?  You got a date?  Damn.  Never thought I’d see the day Shay agrees to go out with a real live human being.”

“Shut up, Joe.  Just because I turned you down doesn’t mean I won’t date.”

“I ain’t giving you crap because you turned me down.  I’m giving you crap because we’ve been cooking together for the last two years here and I have yet to see you out with someone.”

“Well, now you know I do go out.  And don’t spy on me!”

Joe just grinned at me.  I knew he’d keep an eye out in between the rushes.  To be honest, that was part of why I chose to meet Caiden at my restaurant.  I knew Joe was working and I knew he’d intervene if anything bad started to go down.

Now I just had to wait until Caiden got here.  Tonight’s house manager knew to watch for him and seat him before coming to let me know he was here.  Maybe it was stalkerish of me but I wanted a chance to watch Caiden for a minute before sitting down to dinner with him.  Something still bugged me about him.

Turns out I didn’t have to wait for the house manager to tell me Caiden had arrived.  Something in me knew before I even saw him following her to a table that he was here.  I didn’t think I liked that I was that aware of this man.  I still had no real idea of who he was, aside from the fact that he and his kind were essentially the boogie man to most weather riders.  The ripple of stares and hushed whispers that trailed behind Caiden was also a dead giveaway.  After all, even dressed as roughly as he was earlier today, he was one hot man.  From the service area outside the kitchen I could see that, cleaned up and dressed for a fancy dinner, he was Hollywood gorgeous.

I really felt out of place now.  Joe leaned in from behind me and whispered, “Damn, woman.  Now I know why you accepted this date.”

I elbowed him in the gut just hard enough to get him to back off but not hard enough to really hurt him.  I heard the rush of breath come out anyway.

“You’re not helping.”

“You losing your nerve?” Joe wheezed still catching his breath.

“No.  Just feeling a little like the ugly duckling at the grand ball.”

“Way to mix your metaphors.  Now go mix with him.  You don’t want to leave a man like that waiting.  Any available woman in the entire house will be on him faster than you can dice a carrot.”

Joe was right.  Even as I took a deep breath to steel my nerves, I watched as Caiden turned one woman away.  Another was already making her way to his table.  I brushed past Joe out of the service area.  Possibly to my eternal humiliation and doom.  Certainly to dinner.

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