Trevor Fiction: Grace

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Note from Susan: If you’re looking for the Weekend Hangout, you’re on the right blog, wrong post. If you’re here to check out my Friday Flash, Three Word Wednesday, or fiction in general, you’ve hit the right blog, right post. Have fun.

“Grace?” Trevor said. He looked the girl over; she was too skinny to be considered thin, and was more jittery than a coke addict who’d just gotten all toked up. He couldn’t see her eyes; she was looking down, but she knew how to work those jeans, in a quiet, un-self-conscious way. It wasn’t enough.

“A woman named Grace ought to have some,” he said and walked away.

“Hey,” Mitchell said, his voice low but not concerned, “you’re passing?”

“I don’t do junkies,” Trevor said with a sniff.

Mitchell snorted, then wiped at the base of his nose with the back of his hand. It went horizontal, knuckles to wrist, and then disappeared into the front pocket of his jeans.

Trevor eyed him.

“Junkies. You’re sniffing. Oh, never mind.”

Trevor sniffed again. Just to prove the point.

He felt her hand on his wrist before he sensed she’d come near. Shit. Skinny, graceless, as jumpy as a junkie — and ghostlike.

This girl was not Trevor’s type. But here she was, grabbing at him, ready to protest that she did, indeed, have grace.

She got two words out before she tripped over something.

Trevor didn’t have a choice. He had to play the gentleman and stop her from falling, if only because she was trying to take him out on her way to the floor. He glanced down at her feet, hoping she’d tripped because it wasn’t easy to totter along in those heels his favorite girls wore. Then again, he hung out with strippers. They knew how to work a pair of heels.

Graceful, here, was wearing flat boots. Not even the clunky type that were easy to trip over. Nope. They were dainty, delicate.

Like a girl named Grace ought to be.

“I don’t want…” She blushed. Trevor stared, fascinated. He’d seen all sorts of shit by this point in his life, but girls who looked at him and blushed were a novelty.

“Well… I don’t want that.”

That?” Trevor folded his arms over his chest, the same way he expected Mitchell had. Mitchell was behind him, out of sight. It was only this ugly duckling mis-named Grace who had the front row.

Her blush deepened. “Yeah. That. You know. What most girls want from you.”

Trevor smiled. She’d managed to say probably the only thing that would save her from an immediate ejection from his personal space. “You’re not most girls?” he asked.

“Not that type,” she said and finally met his eyes. Hers were green, a bright emerald green. And holy shit, but if she gained some confidence and grew into her name, she’d be one of those chicks every man on the planet lusted after. He watched a backbone steel itself somewhere deep inside her. “I don’t even want to be. Not really. I just want to be…”

She broke their gaze and looked away. Her hands scrubbed her sides, looking for pockets.

“You want to be my steady girl? The one above all others? The one I call when it’s late and I’m bored and lonely?” Shit, how many times had he heard this song and dance?

“Cool,” she said, and this time, there was even more backbone in her eyes.

Trevor knew what this was costing her. He nodded. “C’mon, then. But here’s your first lesson. Cool? Comes from inside. From wherever it is you found the balls to tell me what you’re after, here. It’s there. You just need to let it out.”

Her eyes had stuck themselves to him. If they could have come out of her head and physically picked a spot where they’d live forever and ever, amen, they would have. For the first time, he got what it meant to have someone hang on his every word.

He put his arm around her. “Come with me, little Graceful.” He lifted his face to the ceiling and let out a delighted cackle. “Uncle Trevor here’s got a thing or two to teach you.”

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11 Comments

  1. Lara Dunning

    May 6, 2011 5:16 pm

    Seems like there is more to Grace than meets the eye. I like his back and forth banter inside his head. Get a look into his inner character.

  2. Old Egg

    May 6, 2011 7:17 pm

    A curiously engaging tale. The reader has to conjure up the back stories but still both main characters are engaging. Has she bitten off more than she can chew…will we ever find out?

  3. Deanna Schrayer

    May 7, 2011 10:34 am

    Susan, this is a favorite! I love how you show us who Grace really is, and whether or not she knows it is left for us to interpret, (hope that makes sense). Some really clever lines in this, I especially like the “backbone in her eyes”, original and intelligent!

  4. Imaginography

    May 7, 2011 3:19 pm

    So, Grace is going to be padawan to Trevor and learn from the King of Cool? Who better.

    Loved this piece. I needed a Trevor fix 🙂

  5. Alice Audrey

    May 8, 2011 9:12 pm

    OMG, I could so totally see him lapping up all that attention. But I still kind of prefer someone else for him. 😉

  6. carol

    May 9, 2011 3:07 pm

    Is Grace in over her head?

  7. Estrella Azul

    May 9, 2011 4:41 pm

    “Not that type” so cute 🙂 Loved this flash, Susan!

  8. Sheilagh Lee

    May 10, 2011 2:05 pm

    Hmm is she playing him?

  9. Ann (bunnygirl)

    May 10, 2011 2:21 pm

    Like Alice, I can see him enjoying the attention, but unless Grace has tapped into Trevor’s dormant shadow self, I don’t see her as his type.

  10. bluebell books

    May 15, 2011 11:05 am

    creative words.

    write on.

    check out short story slam and make a submission today.
    😉

  11. gel

    September 1, 2011 4:51 am

    Hey HI!
    I know I dropped out of blogging for so many months. I was just on a site and saw a badge with your book on it! WHOHOOOOOOO! I’ve been away for so many months (almost a yr I think): no time to read this blog entry of yours now, but wanted to congratulate you!!! Mazel Tov!(and I did finally post something for Thurs 13, so that’s how I saw your book badge from another person who participates in T-13, by visiting her blog about G. Islands.)

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