Class Reunion (6 page)
“Once again, we never got past the hors d’oeuvres. It seems that when we are in public in Aurelia we can never eat our entrée.”
“To say nothing of dessert.”
“Why don’t we skip the main course and go directly to dessert?”
“Great idea.” Dana paused for a beat before a smile spread across her face. “I haven’t had a Dairy Queen for ages.”
“Me neither.”
“Let’s do it.”
They scrambled into their clothes and, to avoid meeting anyone, ran hand-in-hand down the stairs and out into the night, hurrying along the two blocks to the rather decrepit stand where a teenager was just closing the service window. He reopened it and, yawning broadly, waited for their order.
“One chocolate with chocolate sprinkles, one chocolate with chocolate coating,” Nicholas said. “Make them extra large.”
He turned to Dana and put his arm around her shoulders. “I know you always wanted the sprinkles.”
She nodded. “And you wanted the chocolate coating but we couldn’t afford it. So we made do with one plain chocolate between us.”
“I was glad we had to share. That way I got to brush my hand against yours.”
Dana laughed. “I thought I was doing the brushing. I wanted so much to touch you.”
Nicholas scratched his head. “I would never have guessed that. Wish I’d known.” He grinned. “We could have gotten into serious trouble.” They both laughed.
“Nicholas.” Dana grew serious again. “When you were on WJBT why did you say you wanted to marry Patti Malone?”
“What?”
“Patti—you said you wanted to marry her.”
“Why on earth would I want to marry Patti? I detest her.”
“Because she’s so beautiful.”
“Beautiful? Patti?”
“Yes, in that interview you said you wanted to marry the most beautiful girl in Aurelia.”
“
You
are the most beautiful girl—well, you are a woman now so you are now the most beautiful woman in Aurelia.”
“Me?”
“Of course. Doesn’t everyone think so?”
“Uh, no.”
“Well, they must be blind then. You are the most beautiful woman I ever met.”
Well,
she thought,
they do say love is blind.
And then it hit her. She gasped and her heart bounced happily around in her chest.
He loves me! He wants to marry me!
He cleared his throat. “Well I’m glad that’s clarified.” He turned and the teenager handed him the extra large cones.
“Wow, that’s a lot of ice cream,” Nicholas said as he passed them to Dana. “Wouldn’t we have loved that much when we used to come here?” He reached into his pocket and handed the teenager the price of the two cones plus a hundred dollar bill.
“Thanks for staying open for us,” he said. “You have no idea how important this is.”
The kid stared open-mouthed at the bill and then at Nicholas, who sank to one knee before Dana as she stood with a cone of soft serve in each hand.
“Dana Mitchell, will you marry me?”
“Yes!” she cried. “I’d like to do that very, very much.” She giggled. “But you better get up and eat your ice cream because it’s melting all over my hand.”
Biography
Ex-fashion photographer Juliet Chastain says that, in a way, writing fiction is like photography. You have a few elements—the models and the clothes in fashion, a character or two and an idea in fiction—and you make them into an interesting story. Juliet loves to do that, and if she isn’t shooting a story with her camera, she’s writing one with her keyboard.
Juliet writes short romances—everything from the tale of a sweet-natured werewolf rescuing a nice woman in a bad situation, to that of a passionate gypsy singer disdaining a lord’s riches. Then for those want only the naughtiest bits, there’s Miss V of the Kink, Inc, series whose behavior would be banned in twenty states.
Find her online at:
www.JulietChastain.com
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