Wednesday, like Monday, just keeps happening each week. This week’s #1lineWed prompt left a lot of room to work. With the multiple choice THEME of *DAZE, DAZZLE, or DOZE**, I decided to be bold and see if I could incorporate all three words. I started out in sort of a “free write” exercise with no idea of which characters, and only a setting. Poor Shannon, but maybe this is the wake-up call Mick needs to get off his arse and claim the girl!
****
Sunlight glinted off the pond in the Boston Gardens and she blinked away the sparkles. An old man sat on a park bench, a bag of nuts in one hand. He dozed beneath the warm sun while two squirrels wrestled up the nerve to steal from the bag. She’d been walking for what felt like hours, lost in a daze of memories and emotions she couldn’t quite sort out. Up ahead, a sharply-dressed man approached and Shannon regretted she hadn’t grabbed her sunglasses when she’d run out of the bar. Of course, it had been dark then and now she had to squint. She would not shade her eyes to get a good look. Tall, broad-shouldered, close-cropped light hair. It’d couldn’t be…

She held her breath as the man neared and then he passed by her without a glance. The breath she exhaled could have been a sigh of regret or one of relief. A rustling sound caught her attention. The old man was awake and he shook his bag of nuts at her.

“Come sit beside me and feed these miscreants,” he invited, waving the bag at the chattering squirrels now perching on one arm of the bench.

She eyes him narrowly and he laughed. “I promise I’m harmless but you look like you’ve lost your last friend, girl. Come and sit. If these mischief makers can’t tease a smile back onto your face, then you can tell me why you’re in such a tizzy.”

“I’m not in a tizzy,” she groused but sat beside him.

“Man troubles?” he asked, looking at the squirrels instead of her.

“Not any more.”

“Ah.” That’s all he said before offering a peanut on the palm of his hand. One squirrel, bolder than the other, grabbed it and skittered off.

They sat in silence for several minutes. “It’s stupid,” she huffed out, as angry with herself as she was with Mick. “It’s not like we were together or anything.”

The man still didn’t speak or look at her, offering a second peanut to the shyer squirrel. He eventually set it down on the bench and withdrew his hand. After a moment of stare-down, the squirrel snatched it up and ran off.

“He made me no promises. I’m just mad that I was such an idiot. What would a man like him want someone like me anyway. I’m a waitress in his bar.” Shannon leaned her head back against the top of the bench, eyes closed, soaking up the sunlight. “But did he have to flaunt that bi—” She snapped her mouth shut. “Sorry,” she muttered. She sighed again. “Me and my girls, we got out of the neighborhood. Went someplace new. It was fun. Good music. New men to dance with. And then he walks in like he owns this place too. And that…that…” She sputtered, trying to come up with an appropriate word.

“Floozy?” the old man supplied.

She burst out laughing. “Yes. Floozy. She was all over him. I’ll bet he had to throw his shirt away because there’s no way to get that lipstick off.” She banged her head against the wooden slat a few times. “The nerve of him. He looked right at me and…and…”

“And what?”

Those two words in that deep, sexy voice sent liquid fire through her veins while at the same time she felt like someone doused her with a bucket of icer water. She opened her eyes and glared at the man who haunted both her dreams and her every waking moment. “And you didn’t didn’t do a damn thing.”

“Are you jealous?”

“No,” she lied. “And I suppose that now you’re going to dazzle me with your razzle.” She lowered her voice to mimic his. “Oh, sweetheart, she’s a nobody. Just a bit of fluff on me arm for the night. I was just out for a night with the boys and she latched onto me.”

Mick crouched in front of her, ignoring the old man. “She was business, Shannon.”

“You freaking paid her?” Her hand darted out and she slapped him before she could stop herself.
****
There’s more but this scene just kept rolling and I figured you didn’t really want almost a chapter worth of snippet. Still, it was good to get some words down. There’s hope for Iffy yet. 😉 Writers, any dazed, dazzled, or dozed words to share? Readers, any books left you dazed, dazzled, or dozed lately?