A Summer Fling: Three Romantic 4th of July Stories Read online

  A Summer Fling:

  3 Romantic 4th of July Stories

  By Rusty Fischer, author of A Town Called Snowflake

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  A Summer Fling

  Rusty Fischer

  Copyright 2014 by Rusty Fischer

  Smashwords Edition

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  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Cover credit: © WavebreakMediaMicro – Fotolia.com

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  Author’s Note:

  The following is a FREE collection of short stories edited by the author himself. If you see any glaring mistakes, I apologize in advance and hope you don’t take it out on my poor characters, who had nothing to do with their author’s bad grammar!

  Happy reading… and Happy 4th of July!

  Enjoy!

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  Introduction:

  A Summer Fling

  You can’t have summer without a little heat, and nothing heats up the summer months like a little romance. In this collection you’ll find three holiday short stories centered around the 4th of July, where fireworks fill up the sky and, hopefully, heat up the pages:

  In our first story, The Third of July, Milo Regis is the newest assistant manager at Buccaneer Bob’s Raw Bar, so it’s his job to interview the nervous applicant who’s so clearly desperate for a job. But when it’s also clear that Elliot Avery just isn’t right for the open waitress position, Milo decides to create a job for her in this romantic holiday story.

  Our second story is called A Brief Intermission: As Flickers Cinemas empties and the whole town prepares to watch the 4th of July fireworks, Chance Prescott interrupts the horror flick in Theater 4 to surprise the movie’s only patron with a rooftop view of the town’s fireworks display. Will romance blossom under the stars? Or will Chance’s risky proposition fall on deaf ears? You never know what might happen in the summer heat...

  Finally, in our last story, The Elf in Summer, he shows up at Dale’s Diner on the 4th of July, a slight little guy with a wink in his eye and a T-shirt that says, only, “Believe.” By the time summer is over he is gone, but Holly Day will never be the same. Nor will her year-round Christmas diner, inspired by the elf who worked for her all summer!

  I hope these three romantic summer stories help make your 4th of July sizzle – with or without the fireworks!

  Happy reading… and Happy 4th of July,

  Rusty

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  Story # 1:

  The Third of July

  “Why me?” I ask, stretching out the collar of my new special edition “Third of July” Barnacle Bob’s Raw Bar T-shirt.

  Eva looks at me, pug nose crinkling and bright green eyes winking with delight.

  “You’re a manager now, Milo,” she reminds me, straightening her red, white and blue headband. It has glittery red stars that bounce on glittery blue springs whenever she nods or shakes her head. “Time to earn your keep.”

  “I’ve been a manager for, like, three days,” I remind her, but it’s no use. She’s drifting away, handing me a crinkled Barnacle Bob’s application before rushing to check on the delivery of red, white and blue glow sticks for the night’s festivities.

  I sigh, tuck my new shirt into my blue cargo pants and poke my head around the service bar. There, seated at a table for two in the corner – the same one the servers use to roll clean knives and forks in white paper napkins at the end of their shifts – is a woman waiting nervously.

  She’s in her mid-40s, maybe. I dunno, she could be older judging by the single gray streak running through her long black hair, but she has a younger look about her. Thin and wiry and alert, or probably just anxious, she’s biting on a nail and I smile as my finger is halfway to my mouth, about to do the very same thing.

  She spots me, peeking around a stack of iced tea glasses and slips her finger from her mouth. I smile and clear my throat and walk toward her, trying to look confident.

  “Ms. Elliot?” I ask, barely glancing at the top of her application while reaching for her hand.

  She chuckles a little and says, “Oh, did I fill that out wrong? Elliot is my first name.”

  I slide down into the wooden chair across from her wearing a curious expression. “It is?” I ask, cocking my head.

  “Yes, it is,” she says, voice hoarse and raspy and just a little sexy. “Elliot Avery.”

  “I love that,” I say, stupidly, so stupidly, glancing at the rest of her application to avoid making eye contact after saying something so stupidly stupid.

  “Thanks?” she says, with a question mark in her tone and I’m sure if I was brave enough to look up I’d see a big, fat smirk on her face.

  I don’t blame her. Then I realize: I never introduced myself.

  “I’m Milo,” I say, jutting out my hand again, even though we’ve already shaken and there’s a Barnacle Bob’s nametag right over the ship’s wheel logo on my chest. “I’ll… I’ll be conducting your interview today.”

  She smirks a little, but keeps it professional. “Thanks?” she says again, the same question mark lingering in her tone.

  I chuckle to myself and scan her application, stifling the frown that’s so busy tempting my lips to turn downward.

  “How do you like it at the Buccaneer Arms?” I ask, noting her current residence.

  She arches one eyebrow, thin and black, and I smile. “I recognize the address,” I explain. “I live at the Silver Seagull, just down the block.”

  “Oh, the blue ones?” she says, her voice a little lighter, smile a little brighter. “With the white trim? I checked those out, but I only needed a one-bedroom.”

  I nod. “Me too, but I turned the second bedroom into a media room.”

  She cocks her head quizzically and I explain, “You know, big screen TV, recliner, old monster movie posters on the wall, DVD library featuring the worst, most cheesiest horror movies of the 70s and 80s, that kind of thing.”

  She nods. “Like a home theater.”

  I nod back, looking through the large window behind her as one of our new servers spills a tray of “Red, White and Boom” frozen drink specials all over her table. I stifle a groan and turn back to Elliot with a fixed smile. “So… I see here you haven’t been in town long?”

  She looks down at her hands, a fresh coat of maroon polish on her nails, already bitten to the quick. “No, I haven’t,” she answers directly, looking back at me. Her eyes are brown, soft and clearly wounded. The rest of her seems brittle as well, and subconsciously I wonder how she’d handle a table for four, all wearing a tray full of spilled drinks.

  Not well, I imagine. Not well at all.

  “I needed a fresh start,” she explains after an awkward silence, when it’s clear it wasn’t a rhetorical question and I’m actually waiting for some kind of an answer. “Someplace with no memories. A blank slate, you know?”

  I smile reassuringly. “Egret Cove is a great place for a fresh start,” I say. “I moved here from Tennessee myself.”

  “Really?” she says. “How long ago?”

  “Five years now,” I say, remembering how I sat in her very same chair, getting interviewed for her very same position, once upon a time. “Think you’ll be around here that long?”

  She smiles, wrinkling her straight nose. “I hope so,” she says unconvincingly.

  I glance back down at her application before asking, “What was so bad about… Alabama?”

  “Nothing,” she lies, avoiding my eyes. “I just alway
s wanted to give Florida a try, you know?”

  I nod. “I didn’t have much of a reason for coming down here myself,” I confess. “Like you said, new start and all.”

  She smiles and looks gently away and I can feel the desperation coming off of her in waves. I look at her slacks, nice and gray, but worn; like maybe she packed them knowing she’d have to find a job and go on interviews. Her black blouse is shiny but out of fashion, her purse small and battered.

  She catches me looking and I glance back down at the three rectangles on her application under the heading “Experience.” Only one has been filled out.

  “So, you were a librarian back home, huh?”

  She smiles, blushes, meets my eyes again. “I know that doesn’t count for much when applying to be a waitress,” she says, “and there wasn’t room on the application to explain but I worked in the children’s section, and I’m real good with kids, and I see kids running around all over the place here and…”

  Her voice trails off and I nod, understanding. “So, you’ve got this great job in Alabama, you’re great with kids and one day you just decide to drop it all and run away to Florida?”

  “I wasn’t running away,” she says, a little harsh, a little quick, voice cracking on the last syllable or two, like maybe she totally was. “I wasn’t,” she insists, voice breaking completely when the first tear drops start to fall.

  Oh. My. Sweet. Jesus.

  “Elliot?” I ask, instinctively reaching for her hand.

  She pulls it back, not harshly, but only to wipe away the tears. “Oh dear,” she says, snorting a little. The next table looks over and she snorts some more, laughing, I guess, to keep from crying some more. Although now she’s doing both. Laughing, crying, softly, but crying just the same.

  “I couldn’t stay there,” she says, talking gently with her hands. “Too many memories, you know?”

  She sits back, and I know; I know it’s the minute she gives up on working at Barnacle Bob’s. And she knows I know it and, somehow, it makes everything that comes after easier.

  Not easy, exactly, but easier.

  “I do know,” I tell her, not going into detail. “And I wonder if, well… maybe those memories didn’t follow you down here. To Florida.”

  She doesn’t quite roll her eyes, but I can sense her wanting to. “Wherever you go,” she clucks, “there you are.”

  I chuckle. My grandmother used to say that. I look down at the silverware on the table in front of me, wrapped gently in a white paper napkin. I unroll it and hand her the napkin.

  She accepts it gratefully and wipes her eyes, then her nose. She’s not wearing much makeup, so nothing’s running, but she checks her face in a compact just the same.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, leaning forward and speaking more softly. “Do you want to stop?”

  She chuckles, a little harshly, but mostly at herself. “Don’t you?” she blurts, and it’s so sudden, so unexpected, I laugh myself.

  “Listen, maybe it’s too soon for you to be looking for work,” I say. “Do you have any savings?”

  She sniffs and smiles back at me. It’s a pretty smile, open and warm and vulnerable. “Is this still part of the interview?” Her voice is soft and husky.

  “No,” I admit.

  “I’ll be fine,” she sighs, grabbing her purse and drawing it close to her, as if she’s about to get up and leave any minute now.

  “Well, wait, I mean… do you have any experience waiting tables?”

  She sighs, shaking her head. “I’ve had one job for the last twenty-two years, Mr. Regis—”

  “Please,” I interrupt her, holding up my hand. “Call me Milo. I always feel funny when someone… well… you know…”

  I inwardly groan. Nice one, Milo.

  She just snickers. “You mean when someone older than you calls you ‘Mr.’?”

  “I, no, I mean… well…” Even as I blather and mumble, I can feel my whole face growing hot.

  She sighs and returns to her tale, ignoring my blushing red cheeks. “Well, Milo, I’ve had one job for the last twenty-two years, and yes I loved it, and yes I left it, and here I am. I’ve never waited on a table in my life, but I’m smart and determined and I know I could fit in here. I just know it. But I understand if I’m not Buccaneer Bob’s material…”

  As if on cue, a cluster of waitresses in their red, white and blue tank tops and clingy spandex shorts saunter inside, giggling over some cute guy at one of their tables. They’re all in their 20s, and sound like they’re in their teens.

  “No, no,” I rush to caution. “It’s not that at all. It’s just… it’s summer here, things move fast, usually folks who apply have at least a little experience in their background?”

  I’m throwing her a line, her chance to fib a little and tell me she served turkey dinners in a soup line on Thanksgiving or something. She just smiles. “I wish I had, Milo, but I haven’t. And I understand, really.”

  “No hard feelings?” I ask, reaching to shake her hand.

  She shakes her head, then takes my hand, tugging it strongly, meaningfully. “Before I go, can I ask you… would you hire me even if I had experience?”

  She’s still clinging to my hand, palm moist as our fingers finally untangle. “I’m not sure,” I lie and then, unable to avoid her wounded brown eyes, blurt suddenly, “not really, Elliot, no.”

  She nods. “Can I ask why?”

  I nod. “I’m just not sure you’re ready for this kind of work yet.”

  She smiles, at last, eyes moist again. “Thanks for your honesty,” she says, and I can’t tell if she’s being ironic or sincere. “Can I… can I ask you one last thing?”

  I nod. At my back, I can feel the restaurant getting busy, and outside on the deck, the sun is setting, our special holiday celebration about to begin. I’m antsy, but I owe her this much at least.

  “Sure,” I say.

  “Is this… I mean… have you ever interviewed anyone before?”

  I snort, blushing and laughing at the same time. “No,” she says, hands up defensively. “I mean, don’t take that the wrong way, but…”

  Her voice trails off and I nod. “Yes, Elliot, you were my first interview as a new manager here. Is it that obvious?”

  She bites her lip and nods. “I guess I can say this now, since I’m not getting the job, but… I hope one day when you’re a little older, and have lived a little longer, and maybe suffered more, you’ll give folks a chance. Not me, maybe, but… sometimes folks just need a chance, you know?”

  My throat is dry and when she stands, I follow her to my feet. We face each other awkwardly, her eyes wide and moist, chin trembling. I feel something crisp and stiff in my pocket and almost gasp with relief.

  “Oh,” I say, reaching for it. “I… this may sound weird, but I hope you can stick around.”

  She gives me a “seriously?” expression as I hand over the cardboard invitation. “It’s a ticket,” I say, “for the Third of July event happening tonight.”

  “The Third of July?”

  I nod, and explain for the thousandth time all week, “The city does their big fireworks display on the Fourth of July, so all the restaurants here around Heron Cove get together every year and put on our own show, on the Third of July. It’s a little tradition we have…”