One of These Nights. Justine Davis

that he was different. In so many ways. What was so simple for them, that easy, warm charm, just wasn’t in him. He was a throwback or something, a changeling. It wasn’t bad enough that he thought differently than they did, he had to be different in every other way, too.

      A misfit, that’s you, he told himself.

      It was the only explanation he could think of for what had happened tonight. All Samantha had done was give a simple opinion, and he’d shut down.

      No color. Sounds kind of boring to me….

      He’d shut down because in that simple statement all the differences between them had leaped out at him, and he wondered what the hell he was doing. More than once over this past week he’d caught himself eagerly looking forward to seeing her. He’d had the thought that the timing on the breakdown of his car couldn’t have been better. He’d even started to leave work at a regular time, and that was a real first.

      And today, as much as he wanted to leave early, after a tension-filled day when he hadn’t been able to shake himself free of either Rebecca or Stan, he’d hesitated. He hadn’t wanted to miss riding home with Samantha.

      He supposed it was only to be expected. He’d been alone for a long time, since Colleen had given up on him and walked out. Dump him into close proximity with a beauty like Samantha and it was inevitable he’d be drawn like an already singed moth to a new, even brighter flame.

      But if he got singed again, he’d have no one but himself to blame.

      He rubbed a hand over his eyes. For a while longer he sat there in the darkness. Finally, for the first time in longer than he could remember, he went to bed early, and without even cracking a book.

      When the light in the converted living room never came on, Sam sat up straighter and watched the house intently. A short while later the upstairs light in the master bedroom came on, but only for a few minutes. When it went out, she expected the light downstairs to come on at last; he must have forgotten something upstairs.

      The house stayed dark.

      She looked at the clock on the bedside table. It was barely nine, and this time of year, barely dark. And Ian rarely went to bed before midnight.