Grace Kelly By Mika

Dave has always had a lot of girl friends. Not "girl friends" girl friends but girls who are just friends girl friends. Thirty-seven of them to be exact and he hates it.
He is the one they all call and tell him about the terrible men they're dating, and how come they can't find a nice guy like him! Whaa WHaa WHAA! It gets to the point that he wants to scream at them that he is right there for the dating, taking or marrying if any one of them will have him!
In his heart he knows what they really want. If they truly wanted a nice guy it would have been him. If they had really wanted a sensitive guy it would have been him. But no they all want the bad boys. The ones that treat them like disposable Tupperware. Good for one use or maybe leftovers but as soon as you lose the lid...you throw it away.
Dave has heard the line "you-are-such-a-great-guy-and-i-really-like-you-but-i- don't-feel-that-way-about-you-but-let's-stay-friends" so many times that he hears it in his sleep. He thinks to himself sometimes that the next girl he meets that he's even a little bit interested in he will treat like crap and maybe then she will stay and he won't be alone anymore... but he never does.
Because deep down Dave believes there is some nice girl out there who really does want a nice guy and not just a shoulder to cry on when some other guy treats her bad. A girl who looks at the bad boys and sees them for the users they are and not the fixer-uppers of the great man they could be if the right girl could just love them enough. Some nice girl that will want to be more than just his friend.
Dave and Grace met at the bakery on a lazy Sunday. They got there at the same time and he held the door for her. She smiled her thanks and they stood in line together. the place was popular and crowded. They exchanged polite chit-chat about the weather, how great this bakery is and numerous other little details while surreptitiously checking each others ring fingers for that telling band. Each smiling wider when discovering the other appears to be free.
Grace orders a banana nut muffin and a light toffee mocha and waits to the side for it be filled while Dave order his croissant and a Turkish blend tall black coffee. Both pay and shuffle about looking for a place to sit. Grace asks if he would like to sit with her and holds her breath for his answer. Dave smiles and suggests they get out of the crush and take their morning pastries to the nearby park. They spend the whole day together and fall in love over green grass and warm danish.
They make plans to meet up again tomorrow, both walking away on air and a little dazed at the good fortune that has finally found them. Dave pulls out his phone to call Grace, even though they have only separated not an hour ago, to see that she has already tried to call him! He returns her call and they talk on the phone for six more hours.
By 2:00 AM Dave knows he has found the one. They're both getting a little loopy so laughing a sweet goodbye with promises to see each other in less than five hours they hang up. Right before Dave falls into a blissfully dream of a nice girl named Grace he deletes thirty-seven useless contacts from his cell phone directory. #behindthemusic

Retribution Red

“Well, I’m ready to start the living room this week,” Tessa announced. Her husband, William, murmured something from behind his New York Times.

Tessa quietly continued, “I’d like your input on the color. I have some samples.”

“Tessa, Tesssss. . . a, how many times do I have to tell you, I really don’t care what color you paint the living room. I can’t understand why you haven’t employed an interior decorator to deal with all this—or, at the very least, hired a professional painter.”

“Oh, but I do love to paint, and I do a good job if I say so myself. Here, here are some color samples.”

William threw each sample on the floor as he read its label, his voice full of ridicule, “Sky Blue, Sea Foam, Buttercup, Nearly Beige, Touch of Taupe, Soft White, Tawny Tan, Daylight Blush, Gentle White, Winter’s Day, Subtle Sage, Sublime Sunrise . . . . Good grief, Tessa, just paint the blasted room.”

“It would mean a lot to me if you took some interest in these projects, Dear.”

“Enough!” William bellowed.

“Please William, could we just sit down together for a few minutes and . . . .”

William got up from his recliner and stormed out of the room.

Two days later, Tessa smiled mischievously as she popped off the lid of the fresh can of paint, stirred it briskly, and dipped her brush in the quart of Pulsing Red.