FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

~ Chapter 9 ~

"All fall down."

"What?" I mumbled, lifting my muzzle off the tabletop and looking up at Tiffany. She smiled, bemused. Taking the rather weak gin and tonic with the lime slice eaten down to its rind, she replaced it with another gin and tonic with an even larger slice of lime.

"I can't stand this, too bitter," she commented.

"I can't either. Don't change subject," I chided grumpily.

"All fall down," she repeated, smiling, "I was going to ask why you look so ashen-faced and down, and it reminded me of the nursery rhyme. You know, 'Ring around the rosies, pocket-' "

"Yeah, I know that one," I interrupted her from reciting the entire rhyme.

Tiffany just smiled widely. "I'm sure you do," she said with a wink, "Otherwise I'd have to beat your -" she stopped.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.

"We all fall down, babe," she leaned over and gave my shoulder a squeeze, "I'll be back in a few to check on your progress with," she gestured towards my drink and wrinkled her nose, "that."

She left with a smile, but I could tell. The parting smile, the one she always gives to me no matter how shitty her day has been, was always like a brief gust on a sweltering afternoon. Not like we've had any of those recently. I looked down at my glass, sweating already. A ring of water suctioned my glass to the wooden table. More crystal-clear beads grew and shimmered. If Tiffany's smile this time was anything, it was anything but shimmering.

I hate people feeling sorry for me.

I laid my head back on the table not touching my drink. Yet. Instead I closed my eyes and listened to the music, getting lost in the ambience; not quite dozing off but certainly not paying any mind to the moving, seething sea of bodies to my right.

"Not now," I react a little more grumpily than I wanted as across from me someone shuffled into the vacant seat. "Sorry Tiff, didn't mean to bark at you."

A faint smell of smoke drifted between us. It wasn't the cigarette-kind that tended to hang around Tiffany vaporously. After all, she waited here and a large portion of the regulars smoked like fish. This was a woodsy-smell. The kind of smell that drifted from burning oaks and ashes that mixed with the earthy smell of dirt and decaying vegetation. It was something almost pure compared to the now-claustrophobic atmosphere of the club. I opened my eyes and stared into a pair of golden-orange eyes that definitely weren't Tiffany's. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end and my whole body tingled.

"I'll tell her that when she comes on by," winked a wide-eyed and disheveled Cade, "I can't believe you drink those things," an obvious shot at my choice of drink this night. I tried to speak but nothing got past the stupidly huge grin that was forming on my face. He was dirty and smelled a little but otherwise he seemed healthy, in good spirits, and obviously excited. Wherever he'd been it certainly wasn't in a ditch or at the bottom of a river. "Hey, stranger," he said with longing contentment.

"Cade! Where, uh... where've you been? How're you doing? What've you been up to lately?" My mind raced but never settled on another coherent thought. It was busy trying to take in the sight in front of me as well as processing what just happened.

Cade chuckled and I sensed a whiff of mint on his breath sending waves of nostalgia throughout my body. It was a smell that I hadn't realized I had missed until I took it in after so many days. The room seemed less oppressive. "Sorry I've been out of touch lately, my family decided to go to our cabin and I forgot my cell phone."

"Heh, that's fine, that's great!" I fumbled for words, "Glad you had a good time."

"I always do when I go there. It's a place where I can go to get away from everything. I don't have to think about anything and just focus on that moment, you know?"

I nodded mutely. His family owns a cabin? Where? Who cares!?

"How about you? What have you been up to, this past week?"

_Week and a half,_I almost corrected him, "Not much, just taking it easy. Relaxing." I continually curled my toes under the table not wanting to hop over the table right then and there and either slap him or kiss him.

At that time Tiffany decided to make an appearance with a drink in hand. Sweeping the cherry-red drink to Cade, she greeted him as usual and with a wink towards me, she returned to her duties.

"You know what?" Cade looked up at me after taking a thirsty gulp, "It's still early. Want to go somewhere else for a bit tonight?"