I’m a winner!

Today I was happy to hear that my story “November Heat” won the coveted LinkedIn Aspiring Writers writing contest for the month of May and is now in the running for the year-long contest which selects from the monthly winners.  The subject was Romance and my story reads thusly:

November Heat 

Romance was the furthest thing from Jill’s mind on that snowy, November evening. She had just piled the groceries into the back of her Suburban when she felt a presence behind her.

“May I take your cart, Madame?” He was dressed in a camel-colored wool overcoat and had eyes to match, they twinkled at her in the harsh parking lot lighting.

“Yes, thank you,” she said, thinking that he would walk away with her cart and out of her life. Instead, he took it to the cart corral and then returned. She should have been in her car driving back to her 2.3 children and dog in suburbia but instead she was standing in the wet snowflakes, getting damp and watching him walk back to her.

“It’s cold tonight, would you like to get a cup of coffee?” It was probably his brazenness that breached her defenses. Or his eyes perhaps, those probing pools of light brown that left her breathing like a teenager again even though she had teenagers of her own. The coffee shop was a short walk away and before she knew what was happening, she was ordering her usual and finding an out-of-the-way table.

He followed her with the steaming mugs and his eyes never strayed from her. When she looked back over her shoulder, she smiled shyly at the unusual attention. For awhile they simply looked at each other over the rim of their cups but eventually the conversation started to flow. He was in sales, she was a soccer mom, and fate had placed them together in the Walmart parking lot on a cold, November evening.

She could say nothing wrong, he hung on every word and offered precious few of his own, mostly encouragements to continue. He laughed at the funny bits and frowned at the parts where life had been less fair. She found herself responding to his subtle flirtations. Her hand found its way to her hair and she wrapped a wisp around her finger without knowing she was doing it.

He left the table for a moment on some errand and when he returned, he sat not across from her but conspiratorially next to her, their arms touched while they drained the last drops of the over-priced brew. She was fascinated by his lips, she found herself wondering what it would be like to kiss them and touch them and be kissed by them. Soon enough she found out; they sat kissing until they had the coffee shop to themselves.

He detached himself from their kiss long enough to whisper into her ear “Your place or mine?” Jill again found herself responding to his brazen assumption that she would capitulate. She did.

“Luckily for you, they’re one in the same” she giggled as she led him out to the parking lot by the hand. He opened the door of the Suburban for his wife, and then got into the driver’s seat.

The End

If you’re a LinkedIn member, feel free to connect to me and join the Aspiring Writer’s group.  This story will be available in “A Change of Briefs” coming in November from Marvcorp Publishing.  Watch for it!  Meanwhile, you can pick up a copy of “Briefs for the Reading Room” through this site or Amazon.