Even Steven, Part 2 - Day 457: 5 Minute Freewrite: Sunday - Prompt: puppy love
Day 457: 5 Minute Freewrite: Sunday - Prompt: puppy love
@dranuvar
inspired me to revisit one of my old 5-Minute-Freewrite friends for today's prompt.
"Even-Steven" - Day 348 : 5 Minute Freewrite: Prompt: vinyl
EVEN STEVEN, Part 1, ended like this:
“Where are they?” Steve asked her in his quietest, scariest voice.
Stephanie just smirked. “Where is what?”
“If you sold them,” he said, “I will track them down, and I will get them back.”
... he stopped at the Salvation Army and inquired about his Budweiser stein collection. He’d guessed right. The boxes were still unpacked in the receiving area. Quartez knew the routine, knew what to expect before Steve even charged the door.
“You gotta put that woman in her place, man,” he advised Steve. “Let her know who da man of the house.”
Steve sighed. “Quartez, the 1950s is calling. Apparently you landed in the 1990s by mistake and they want you back.”
... With all 33 steins safe beside him in the passenger seat, Steve moved on with his mission.
... Beer and sausage sounded good after installing a floor. Hell, it sounded good any time of day, any season. Steve maneuvered the Airstream onto the street and headed to the Tallcorn Tavern where his buddies no longer expected to see him. He parked the mammoth right across from the open door of the tavern and unpacked two of his steins, one for his own beer, one just in case. Ya never know: a Budweiser kind of woman might be there at this very hour. She didn’t have to be a blonde bombshell with book smarts and a razor-sharp wit. But she would have to like him, as is. He wasn’t going to be anyone’s home improvement project again.
Through the door came laughter and warm light spilling onto the brick sidewalks. The old booths were still covered in red vinyl that was new when his parents were young. The brunette was at the bar. What was her name? Amanda. Mandy. She caught sight of him and laughed, tossing her hair over her shoulder, and called out his name, and everyone turned to look at the dusty construction worker at the door.
"Even Steven!"
roared a six-foot-six Viking lookalike, Jack Rothrock. With painfully blue eyes and a red beard and that mammoth physique, he and his half-dozen siblings intimidated all newcomers. If it weren't for football and other national pastimes, there was no doubt in Steven's mind that all the Rothrocks would be plundering and pillaging every town from coast to coast and all the plains and mountains in between.
"Jack-Rock," Steven replied, raising his arm above eye-level for a fist bump. He had to transfer his second stein to his left hand to achieve this token gesture. His gaze swiftly flew from Rothrock to Mandy at the bar.
"Steven the Uneven," she said with a smile. A sweet little smile. He wouldn't dare to call it a Mona Lisa smile because that was such a damn cliche, but damn, that little smile did something to him. How had he let Stephanie's high-beam smile blind him like a deer in headlights? Because that's exactly what he'd been--a dumb buck caught in the glare of Stephanie's brilliance and glossy-magazine-cover good looks.
Rock and his brothers and several of the old gang were hailing Steven and sloshing their beers over him, and he barely remembered to nod at them and raise his steins in greeting as he moved to the bar.
"Where's your better half?" one of the Rothrocks taunted him.
"Packing, I hope," Steven said. "I told her to move out. The wedding's off."
Someone fed the jukebox and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird" almost got lost in the uproar over Steven's news. Until a Rothrock sister started singing along. Suddenly the whole damn bar was a cacophony of Friday night beer guzzlers singing Lynyrd Skynyrd together.
How could he have stayed away from these guys for so long? Stephanie was soooo not worth it.
Finally he made it to the bar. Mandy let her cute little smile crack open a little wider. He plunked down his Budweiser steins.
"No need to ask what you want," she said, reaching for the Bud tap. "You want me to top both of 'em?"
"Only if you're off duty starting right now. Maybe you can fill it with whatever and toast my new-found freedom?"
He winced as the jukebox started in with Paul Anka's "Puppy Love."
"Sure thing." She squirted some soda water into the other stein and dropped in some bitters and a twist of lime.
"Amanda."
She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Or Mandy." That little smile again. "Either is fine."
He tried not to look like a lovestruck puppy as she clinked steins with him and drained her glass, then refilled half a dozen more steins as the Rothrock siblings lined up at the bar. All but one of them still lived in this podunk town, just like him. How could Stephanie possibly have imagined herself living here?
She would have left him as soon as she passed all the math classes he'd help her with on her way to that degree in architecture. Yep. That was it. She never would have lasted in this town.
He fished some quarters from his pocket and fed the jukebox. Barry Manilow's "Mandy" came next.
What a fine girl.
She caught his gaze and flashed a little smile at him, then shot a glance at the door and froze.
Stephanie.
He glanced at the jukebox hoping to find "This Town Ain't Big Enough for the Both of Us." The Rothrocks paired off and formed a gauntlet from the beer-wet counter to the front door.
The blonde bombshell sneered and raised her arm as if ready to pass a football.
"I missed one," she said.
A dark object cartwheeled through the air ....
source
Oh come on, you don't think her aim is good enough to kill him, do you?
The 34th Budweiser stein
missed his head by a mile, but Jack Rothrock caught it like a football, and....
...and my five minutes were up a long time ago.
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So my sister tells me BRANDY was the fine girl, not MANDY, but either way, Steven might sing "Mandy, what a fine girl," and bonked with a beer stein just fo calling her a girl.