Laughing Fate (36 page)

She had asked questions about the constellations, and he had made up answers that sounded as if they could be true. He had never really studied much about stars, but he did appreciate their beauty. If Puck had noticed that he was lying threw his teeth, she hadn’t mentioned it. Potter grinned just thinking about it. She may be a man hater in general, but she was really good about preserving his pride.

At some point she had fallen asleep, her face turned towards his and cushioned by her arms. She had been sleeping quite peacefully, her gentle snores amusing Potter, but then she had started moaning. She had thrashed around and seemed to be gasping for breath. He wondered what she had been dreaming of. She looked so embarrassed when she woke up. Her face had turned beet red and her eyes had looked alarmed. What had she wanted to hide from him?

Potter had an
idea
of what she’d been dreaming of. Of course his male pride liked very much to think that she’d been dreaming of him, but with Puck one never really knew what she was thinking. Either it was a sex dream or ninjas attacking...

Potter shrugged and resumed his study of the stars. Puck could keep her little secret. Whatever secret she was guarding it was an embarrassment to her. She had broken into a run the second she had thought she was out of eyesight. He hoped it was a dream about him. What were they doing in the dream?  He threw that thought aside and reminded himself that he was letting her have her secret. He had no wish to embarrass her.

He shut his eyes and thought of how she had smelled. She’d smelled slightly of the diner, but for the most part she had smelled of flowers and her new shampoo. He loved the way she smelled. Potter felt sleep slowly overtake him- thoughts of Puck keeping him company into the land of dreams.

****

The next day at work, Puck threw her apron on the counter in disgust. She had just finished giving a large table the best service they could ever wish for and they had tipped her 35 cents and a button. Puck glared at the group as they filed out of the diner. She fingered the button and contemplated throwing it at them, but she doubted they would even notice.

“
Stupid old people and their buttons…” Puck grumbled as the door swung shut after them.

“
Puck put down the button and give table 2 their drinks, will you? They’ve been yelling for you for the past ten minutes.”

“
Sure, whatever,” Puck said as she sauntered over to table 2. The mayor of Sunny Cove and the town doctor sat talking politics and staring morosely at their empty coffee cups.

“
Howdy, Mr. Mayor, Doc. How you two doing?”

“
Hi there Puck, how’s your ankle?”

Puck smiled at the balding doctor and displayed her ankle and her new high heels. “Just dandy, it hasn’t hurt in at least a week.”

“Good to hear. Good to hear.” The doctor was an aging man with a kindly face, bald head, and spectacles that habitually slipped down his nose. Today he was dressed in a green sweater vest and old man pants. The man had come to know Puck very well through the years as various adventures went wrong.

“
How’s the parking tickets coming along?” asked the portly mayor. He was the stereotypical small time mayor, with a big belly, snooty mustache, and a comb over that didn’t really fool anyone. All he was missing was a top hat and tuxedo and he’d look like a weird looking penguin.

“
Parking tickets?”

“
Yeah, you know the five tickets you got for parking in no parking zones? You still owe the town five-hundred dollars.”

“
Oh…right. Those parking tickets.” Puck dug into her pockets and pulled out the worthless button the last table had left.

“
Here you go; it’s all I have right now.”

Puck walked away quickly to escape the lecture the mayor had tried to start. She didn’t really agree with the tickets that she had received. She had been caught parking in a fire zone on several occasions. What the cops didn’t seem to realize it that the parking area reserved for firefighters was the best parking space in the whole town. So she would smile sweetly at the officers, accept the ticket meekly, and then shove it in her glove box along with all the other unpaid parking tickets.

Puck was busily wiping down a table when she felt her skin tingle. She looked up and smiled at Potter. Memories of her dream last night made her blush, but she brushed all those thoughts aside. It had just been a dream for heavens sake! She would not let her embarrassment show!

He waved at her and came over; sitting on the table she had just cleaned. She narrowed her eyes at him and whacked him with her towel.

“And what do you think you are doing Mister? I just cleaned that table! People don’t want to eat on your butt germs.” Puck inhaled deeply and caught the whiff of his cologne. Damn he smelled good today! Looked good too.  Okay, she just had to get her hormones under control!

Potter folded his arms and grinned, “Is that anyway to welcome your man?”

Puck grinned and shoved him off her table. She grabbed his hand and laced her small fingers with his strong fingers.

“
Who says you’re my man?”

“
The whole town, they see the way you chase after me.”

Puck raised an eyebrow skeptically and looked him up and down. “If anyone is chasing after someone- it’s you. All I have ever wanted is a play partner.”

“Ouch.”

“
Well, it’s true.”

Potter rubbed his chest absently and put on his best abused face. “You sure are ornery today. What’s up?”

Puck frowned over at the Mayor. “I was just reminded that I have some unpaid parking tickets.” Puck stopped with her mouth open. Oops. She REALLY had not meant to tell Potter that. It was things like that that made him think she needed to be watched over.

She cursed herself for a fool, why oh why had she answered him honestly? She could have lied! All she had to say was that it was ‘that time of the month’ and he would have left it alone. But NO, she just had to open her big old mouth with out thinking and tell him what was really on her mind. How could she be so stupid?!

“Unpaid what?!”

“
Umm…maybe you misheard me. Let’s not make a scene in the diner okay?” Puck asked hopefully. One look at Potter’s face let her know he wasn’t going to drop it.

“
You know damn well I didn’t mishear you! How many unpaid parking tickets do you have? Do you realize your breaking the law? There could be a warrant out for your arrest!”

“
Uh…just the one unpaid parking ticket. I’m paying it tomorrow.”

“
You said unpaid parking TICKETS. Plural. How many do you have, Puck? And for God’s sake don’t lie to me!”

“
Hey! I don’t recall asking your opinion! You have no right to yell at me!”

Potter wiped a hand over his eyes and visibly counted to ten. “Alright. I won’t yell. See? I’m talking in a perfectly normal voice. How many parking tickets do you have and why haven’t you paid them? Do you like the idea of going to prison and becoming some chick’s bit-

“Potter Sanders, that is enough! I don’t want to hear it okay? I’ll pay the dang tickets. I still don’t think I quite deserve them- I personally think the cop that gave them to me is racist, but I’ll pay them just to get you off my case. Now was there a reason why you came or did you just want to piss me off for the heck of it?”

Potter shook his head, trying to clear it of Puck’s nonsense. She was pulling the racist card? How?? Potter did his best to forget the entire conversation they’d had up to this point. Trying to understand her reasoning was giving him a headache. As it happened, he did have a reason for coming.

“A bunch of fellas are going to play volley ball at the park. We’re invited. So what time should I pick you up?”

Puck frowned at him. “There you go; forgetting how normal people ASK instead of assuming the answer is always yes. Maybe I have plans today.”

Potter rolled his eyes and asked, “Do you have plans today?”

“
No.”

“
Would you like to play volley ball?”

“
Sure.”

Potter fought back a smile and asked Puck what time she would like to be picked up. They stood with their fingers entwined, haggling over what time to leave. Puck insisted that he pick her up after dinner and Potter insisted that he pick her up before dinner so they could have a bona-fied date.

“Hey, you two! Stop flirting and let Puck get back to work!” Sandy called from the counter.

Puck blushed and quickly stepped away from Potter. He grinned and tweaked her nose. “So I’ll pick you up at three? We’ll go eat and then play volley ball?”

Puck glanced at her watch. She’d be getting off at about 2:30, that wasn’t a lot of time to walk home and get dressed. Plus who wanted to leave a diner just to return to a restaurant a couple of minutes later? She really had meant it when she told Potter no.

“
Sure whatever,” she said, still backing away. Her cheeks felt like they were on fire. She could feel the indulgent glances of all the diners focused on her. The whole stupid town seemed curious about her relationship with Potter. She did NOT want the town focused on her!

Chapter 13: Not in a kabillion years

A couple hours later Puck stood on the volleyball court glaring at Potter. They had gone out to eat at a little bar and grill, where Potter had lectured her about the dangers of parachuting, the big stupid dolt. She
knew
she shouldn’t have mentioned that!

The argument had ended with Puck telling Potter that she would never ever marry him in a kabillion years (not her most mature moment) because he was a boring stupid ape man. Needless to say the dinner had not gone well. Now Puck stood on hot sand watching Potter flirt with the skank from the beach.

The stupid man probably wouldn’t call it flirting. Puck narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. Potter may not think he was flirting, but he totally was! He was kicking sand at her and high fiving her every time she hit the ball…it was disgusting.

Puck was busy glaring at the bimbo and wishing she could tackle her. She was so engrossed in glaring at them that she lost track of just where the ball was going. Luckily, her team was doing a pretty good job of picking up the slack.

“Puck! Rotate!”

Puck turned to see Dave pushing her towards the other corner. She thought briefly about kicking him, but she didn’t harm innocent people. Puck trudged to the other corner and tried to get her head back in the game. She would just ignore the stupid jerk and the hussy on the other team.

“Let’s go team! We’re two down, we’ve got to turn it on! Dave, is it on?” Brad, who was also on her team, was hopping up and down and hollering playfully at the team.

“
It’s on!”

“
Shannon? Is it on?”

When Shannon just looked at him funny, Brad kicked sand at her. “Turn it on!”

“Sure whatever, it’s on.”

“
Puck? Is it on?”

“
It’s on,” Puck grumbled. She had meant to say it playfully but the bimbo had just pulled off her white Nike shirt to reveal a pink sports bra and a tiny heart tattoo next to her belly button. Oh, Puck was so going to spike it on top of that skank’s head.

“
Yeah! It’s ON! 10, 12 serving!” Brad threw the ball up and did his superman hit. The ball soared across the net and was bumped by the skank. Potter set it high into the air and the skank ran up to spike it.  Brad tried to bump it to Dave (who was at the net) but accidently sent it to Shannon, who hit the ball with one hand, sending the ball flying wildly.

Puck would have known all of this if she hadn’t been so mad at Potter. When they had first arrived at volleyball, she hadn’t been talking to the big jerk. He had no right to ground her! She was not a little kid and if she wanted to go parachuting she darn well could! Needless to say, once she noticed the skank, she still didn’t know her name; the day had just gone down hill from there.

Potter had put on a huge smile for his friends, pretending like he hadn’t just given Puck the silence treatment for the past ten minutes, and had been flirting with the bimbo since then. It turns out that she was good at volleyball too. Dang good. So the two of them had partnered up, setting each other up for spikes and cheering each other on. Potter hadn’t even glanced at Puck since they’d gotten here. God she hated team players!

So it was all Potter’s fault that Puck failed to pay attention to the volley and failed to see the flash of the ball as it hit her on the head.

“Ooh! First head shot of the day!”

“
You okay, Puck? Walk it off!”

“
Man! We lost the ball!”

“
Sorry, Puck!”

Puck winced and rubbed her face. Ouch that hurt! She ignored her team’s shouts and picked up the ball. She threw it over the net and smiled when it hit the skank on the shoulder.