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Here are the first ten pages of a short story I’m writing, about a couple who go to Las Vegas and get married.

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Unbridled Fire

Jacob sat slightly higher at the table than his friend, Sunny, with whom he was speaking. Sunny’s hands were placed flat on either side of the cloudy orange tabletop as he listened intently to the dream being recounted.

“She was waiting for me in the back of a small restaurant, kind of like this one, at a table, opposite an empty chair, and her friend Barbara sat to her left. She was smiling a hidden kind of smile as I walked up to her.”

“You could walk, in the dream?”

“Yes,” nodded Jacob, “and when I sat down Claire leaned back and crossed her arms, like this.” He folded his arms against his chest and tilted his head back, peering at Sunny through distrustful eyes. “I don’t remember how it got started, but I had a book in front of me, uh…”

After ten seconds or so, Sunny said, “A textbook? A paperback?”

Jacob raised his eyes to meet his friend’s. “No. A schedule book, you know, a—what do you call those things?”

“A day planner?”

“Yeah, one of those, all filled with events and plans. Every day had a box filled with notes, the entire year was mapped out for us with dates, vacations, parties, family visits and stuff, even big celebrations like New Year’s Eve in Times Square. I kept flipping through the book for the best days, and reading the day’s events to her, trying to convince her, but she didn’t smile or move really.”

“Convince her of what?”

“I don’t know,” he laughed. “Impress her, maybe. To make her fall in love with me.”

“What was Barbara doing?”

“She might have been helping me look for days.” Jacob stared down at his plate, at the half-eaten pile of french fries and swirl of ketchup. “I woke up before Claire gave me an answer.”

Sunny followed him past the counter and register, then helped push his electric wheelchair over the ridge in the doorway. They listened to the Classic Rock station on the ride home while Jacob nodded to the music, throwing punches at the air and shouting, “Alright,” when the songs got good.

“God bless you, brother,” Sunny waved out the window and sped away, the taillights blinking on in the blue evening haze. Jacob watched the grey Chevy shrink and blur into the stream of humming vehicles, then spun and motored up the walkway toward the ramp and front door.

All he had to do for the rest of the day was shower, get dressed, eat dinner, and go to sleep before ten o’clock. His job at Makermart required him to be there at six sharp so he could scan the boxes after the flow team unloaded the morning deliveries. After work he had basketball practice on Wednesdays and Fridays, and if he didn’t get enough sleep he’d be drowsy and lagging on the court.

The simple task of showering and putting on clothes took Jacob approximately three to four times longer than an able-bodied person. Once he completed this process, he checked his phone, and seeing no new messages or calls, wheeled over to his desk, removed a bottle of tequila and plastic lime from the drawer, and commenced watching an episode of Attack on Titan on his laptop. A team of warriors flew through the trees raining hell on a malevolent giant who had the power to regenerate his limbs and organs. Jacob poured another shot, threw it back, and squirted some lime juice in his mouth. His thoughts drifted to Claire and the dream again. There may be some truth to it, he thought. Sometimes he felt like he was trying too hard, and if she wasn’t into it, so what, there’s plenty of fish in the sea. Then the green of her eyes washed over him, melted his indifference into a renewed determination to win her. “I love her,” he’d say to himself, “but she better know I’m liquid metal.”

The boxes dropped onto the conveyor and slid over the silver bars, the worn cylinders roaring, then faintly whistling, as the cardboard rolled past, and Jacob’s coworkers loaded the pallets on either side of the line. He used his manual chair there since it was easier to maneuver in close quarters. Once a pallet was ready to go out to the floor, the worker would raise a hand and he’d shoot over and scan the bar codes on each of the boxes. Not the most awesome job in his opinion, but at least he could listen to music, and the people weren’t all unbearable.

“But it don’t make no difference,” he sang under his breath, “Cause I ain’t gonna be easy, easy. The only time I’m gonna be easy’s when I’m, killed by death…”

“What you listenin’ to today, Jake?” his friend Shane asked, but he just kept singing and scanning the boxes.

When ten-thirty came around he grabbed his lunch and rolled outside to the employee smoking area on the south side of the building. Early December in Milwaukee, the clouds of vapor billowed out from Jacob’s lungs as the turkey sandwich on his lap began to freeze. He watched the cars gliding past beyond the creek encircling the hill on which the Makermart sat, and let his eyes drift down to the icy water. The edges were frozen, jagged white borders constricting the dark green current, winding through the dense woods before the highway. He didn’t move for a while, only sat, listening. Then, at ten fifty-five, he quickly ate the frosty sandwich and wheeled back in to help stock and zone items on the lower shelves.

The Dial n’ Go shuttle picked him up at two and took him straight to basketball, and his mother’s friend, Susan, the woman he lived with, picked him up from there. “How was practice?” she asked, folding the wheelchair and preparing to stow it in back of the van. “You look exhausted, did you eat your lunch?” Jacob hoisted his right leg inside and reached out to close the passenger door, pausing a moment to consider answering her question. “Never mind, then,” she said when the door slammed shut.

“I got you those elbow sleeves you asked for, the kind with the pad. They’re on your bed,” she called from the kitchen.

His head bowed, almost dropping on the empty plate. “How many times have I told you—politely—to stay out of my room?”

“Oh, I know…” Her attention focused on the task at hand, cracking and straining the yokes out of five large eggs for Jacob’s dinner omelet, part of a high-protein, low-calorie diet he’d started for basketball, and to help him get “insanely ripped” by New Year’s. “I thought it’d be easier than having to carry them yourself. Couldn’t help seeing those empty bottles in the trash. I wish you’d quit drinking so much, young man.”

He raised his head, stared wide-eyed at the ceiling. “Nine years, I’ve been old enough to drink. I’ll be—”

“Thirty years-old in March,” she finished the sentence with him, rounding the counter with a plate of turkey bacon and a glass of milk. “Please take it under advisement,” she smiled gently, “you drink enough tequila to drown a mariachi band each week.”

“And she’s racist, too.”

“Winters are rough sometimes,” she said, returning to the kitchen. “The soul tends to weep and yearn for light. Spring will be a time of waxing joy and renewal.”

“I’m happy to hear that, Susan.”

He deliberately waited until 8:05pm to call Claire. She picked up the phone after one ring. “Hey, Jacob!”

“Claire, how’s it going? How was—”

“Not bad, you know—sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt. I’m in the middle of inking the next SkyWench issue and it’s stressing me out.”

Jacob paused a second. “I saw the sample pages on your blog the other day. It looks amazing.”

“Well, thank you, sir. Should be one of the best ones yet. Now all I need is some readers.”

“Hey, Claire.”

“Yeah? Present.”

“Would you want to have dinner with me Saturday, at my place, maybe watch a movie after?” He almost added, “I can cook a mean roasted chicken with sauvignon blanc,” but kept his mouth shut.

A few hours passed, and Claire said, “Sure. I’d love to. What time should I be there?”

“Eight, eight-thirty. I’ll start cooking around eight.”

“Sounds great, Jake,” she said, possibly smiling. “I’ll see you, Saturday night.”

(Continued at link above)