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him. Or maybe I do. He didn t seem too happy last night about having to work with the newbie tonight. Lucas kind of came off as closed minded, and Phil was planning on having Sue stop by tonight.
Gloria nodded as they made it to the edge of the parking lot and stopped under the glowing OneStop sign. They make a cute couple.
Cute s not the word I would use for it, but they do couple.
That s not a visual I needed.
You re the one that thought they were cute.
So are we going to stand around flapping our yaps or were we going to go do something? Gloria asked.
Well, first thing we need to do is go back to my apartment, Caleb said.
Gloria s eyes went wide. Whoa, hold on, I don t know what you thought was going to happen tonight
We need to go to my apartment because I forgot my duffel bag, dumbass. Again he felt like smacking himself in the forehead. This was definitely not the way he should be talking to his date. If Gloria hadn t been that upset by his first flippant comment, this one at least made her glare at him. Remind me again why I m hanging out with you tonight?
Okay, that wasn t good on several levels. Not only had he already managed to piss her off less than a minute into their first date, but she now didn t even seem to be calling it a date. If he didn t do something this night wouldn t end well. He racked his brain trying to think of some way to placate her that might have worked in the past, but it had been some time since they had worked with each other and her visits to the OneStop Mart since then had been sporadic enough to not be helpful at all.
Sorry. I m just Just what? Did he really want to admit he was nervous? It might soften her up quite a bit if he made just that small confession, but he couldn t bring himself to swallow that much pride. Instead he just let his words trail off, and there were several seconds of incredibly awkward silence.
Right, Gloria said. Let s just go get your duffel bag and then find some place to hang out or something. Something in her voice made Caleb think that she just wanted to humor him for a while and then leave. He might as well just call it off right now and go home to listen to Led Zeppelin records by himself and play video games. That s certainly the way it would all end anyway, so there was no use denying the inevitable.
Except that was stupid, and he hated himself for thinking like that. If he could stop the world from ending three times a week at the store in between refilling the soda cooler and placing the ice cream order then he could sure as hell at least get through an already less-than-perfect date. Couldn t he? That said some very disheartening things about him as a person if he couldn t.
They both walked back to his apartment in silence. Caleb tried to think of something to say that would bring the mood back around to something better, but he found himself with few things to talk about. He could talk about work, but would Gloria really want to hear any of that? She would probably be bored to tears talking about the newest hot doglike product for the roller grill, or the latest flavors of Mountain Dew in stock, or the homeless goblin junkies he had found trying to sleep in the bathroom last week. He knew he would be in her position at least. So he didn t say anything at all, and the tension just felt like it got worse with every step. With the sun fully down, the Hill had completed its nightly transformation and there were signs of things not quite human all around them. Down the street on one of the corners three women in skimpy and tacky dresses made passes at the occasional passersby. Two looked human, while the other was only eight inches tall and had dragon-fly wings poking out her back. A car drove past with gansta rap blaring from the speakers, and although it went by too fast for Caleb to be positive, he thought the people inside might have all had red skin and horns sticking out on their foreheads. Caleb and Gloria passed by an alley where two figures stood