Triumphant Return!

Or not.

I was reminded today of my lack of activity on this bloggy thing and checked the last post.  "Its not so bad," I thought, "November 9...of 2012!!!"

Yeah...

So, the Muffin is less of a muffin these days and more of an extremely speedy layer cake. Chubby, loud, and given to sprinting to the things he wants. He regularly runs so hard into the couch, he bounces back and lands on his butt. But, he has started this wonderful thing called 'independent play.' Never for very long, but enough that it only took me four separate sittings to write this post. :)

So, new resolve, appropriate for the new year! Now I must go. Silence has fallen and that's generally bad...

500 WC

Er...I'm getting to the end of stuff I already have written.  I'll have to get my butt in gear and start working on this again.  But I do have an excuse!  The muffin has learned to roll over.  So know I go around putting him on his back on purpose just to watch him flop over on his tummy and grin with elation at his new trick.  :)




Alice was dead silent for a good thirty seconds.

“Alice?” Colton chanced timidly.

“I don’t know whether to give you a medal or shoot you, Colton.”

“I had to!” he protested, trying to keep his voice down. “They were going to arrest her and Git-mo her no matter what the video showed.”

“And so you married her?”

“It seemed a good idea at the time.”

“And she’s pretending.”

“Yes.”

“And she’ll keep pretending until you two can divorce in like two years or something.”

“Yes.”

Alice laughed again. “Who knows, maybe she is gay?”

“Alice!”

"Colton Savage, you are a moron.”

Colton agreed whole-heartedly. “What do I do?”

“You’re asking me?”

“Please, Alice!”

She snorted. “Enjoy it while it lasts, I suppose.”

“Alice!”

“What?”

“I am not sleeping with Renee!”

“Why not?”

“Alice!”

“You’ve boinked every other girlfriend you’ve had.”

“That’s not true. And Renee isn’t my girlfriend.”

“No. She’s your wife.”

“Please, Alice-”

“Is that why that Felicia woman was so pissed?”

“I didn’t tell her the truth.”

“Even worse. You dumped a swimsuit model for some chubby holiday fling.”

“Renee is not chubby!”

“Oh? What is she, Colton?” Alice purred at him. “Do tell.”

He bit his tongue, hissing at her in his fury. “I’m hanging up.”

“Do what I said, Colton. It will make it easier on you both. Maybe.”

“Alice!”

“I thought you were hanging up.”

“I can’t just go around kissing her!”

“Why not?”

“It wouldn’t be fair.”

“To whom?”

“To Renee!”

“But you wouldn’t mind?”

Colton swore and jabbed at his phone. He was going to fire Alice the second he got the courage to call her back.

Renee was curled up on her bed again.

Colton sighed heavily, knocking lightly on the door.

“Hey,” he said.

She grunted at him, clearly not pleased with him at the moment. He wasn’t either.

“I called Alice.”

“So?”

“I think she thinks its funny.”

“Ha ha ha.” Renee bit out. “So, so funny.”

“And I told her the truth. About us.”

Renee sat up and glared at him. “Why?”

“She deserves to know. I trust her with everything.”

Renee’s frown only deepened, her eyes narrowed. “And what did she say?”

Colton couldn’t help his blush. “Just what you would expect, I guess.”

Renne flopped back down. “My parents saw it.”

He winced. “And?”

“And they’re pissed, of course. Dad’s ready to hunt the guy down and chop him to bits. That jerk’s lucky we’re not back in Idaho. They’d never find his body.”

Colton was in complete agreement with Jake White. “I’d help,” he growled. Renee lifted her head to peer at him. She smiled suddenly.

“I’ll be okay.” She said. “Its more the shock, I think. I’d never have imagined I’d be on the news like this. That I’d stop a terrorist.”

That I would have married you.

Colton heard the words. She did, too. She blushed and looked away.

“Let’s stay in for a few days,” she said softly.

Colton jerked a nod and left her alone.

500 Word Challenge

Here's some more!  The muffin is growing and growing!  My train of thought usually goes like this:  I should post something...squee! look how cute he is...baby snuggles...  So yeah, blogging will eternally be trumped by baby snuggles.  But he's sleeping now, so I have a moment of sanity to do something useful. :)


500 WC

He convinced himself to stay home another day.

Alice was mildly reproving, telling him how much work she had waiting for him on his return.

Colton hung up feeling guilty and frustrated. And angry that he didn’t know why.

He went down to the kitchen and methodically ate the steaming breakfast Rosa put before him. He was dreading getting on the computer, of a search of Renee’s name bringing up some unknown picture and tag line.

He should have gone into work.

“What the-?!” Renee shouted from the living room. He flinched, setting his fork down. He went to see what had dragged so much profanity from her lips.

“What is it?” he asked wearily.

She pointed at the screen, her mouth wide and horrified. Colton made himself look.

The picture was of her and Alice, arm in arm, as they had been in front of the restaurant. Colton read the scrolling captions, getting the gist of the problem from them and the photo of him standing alone that flashed across the screen next.

“Call Alice and warn her.” Renee said in a hard voice.

“I will.”

“Is she a lesbian?”

“No.” Colton said firmly, absolutely sure of his secretary’s romantic preferences. “Its just slander. Don’t worry about it.”

The glare she leveled at him told him what she thought of his stupid suggestion. He winced. “I mean, try not to worry about it.”

She snorted and jabbed the remote. The screen went blank, reflecting Renee’s face in the bright sunlight.

Colton sighed and crossed to her.

“Its just talk.” He said gently, his hand on her shoulder. “It will die down in a few days. Besides, I know your not gay-”

“I don’t care about that!” Renee snapped, wiping her cheeks. “I care that they would dare even say anything! How dare that man take my picture and post it all over, making up lies about me?”

Colton didn’t have an answer, so just patted her shoulder lamely instead. “Sorry, Renee.”

She smacked his hand away and stalked out, her fists clenched.

Colton dialed Alice again.

“Yes?”

“Do a search of Renee in Google or something.” He could here the chatter of her keyboard, then a long minute of silence.

Alice was even more inventive than Renee.

“Sorry, Alice.” Colton said. “Really, I am.”

She started laughing all of sudden. “My mother is going to have a fit when she sees this!”

“Really, Alice-”

“Oh, I know. Don’t worry about it.” She sighed, though. “How is Renee taking it?”

Colton winced as something heavy slammed upstairs. It sounded like her dresser hitting the floor. “Not very well.”

“Poor girl. Easy to fix though.”

“How?” Colton demanded.

Alice laughed again. “Just get caught making out somewhere public. They’ll be so distracted by that that they’ll forget about our supposed love triangle.”

“Absolutely not!” Colton snapped.

“Why not?”

Colton caught himself. Alice didn’t know. Alice deserved to know, now that she was sucked into it.

“Look, Alice, its like this.”

“Uh-oh.”

500 Word Challenge

So when I said I was back, I really meant that I would think about posting and then forget a minute later.  Sorry!

But, as of this instant: the baby is asleep, all my houseworky things are done and I have no business stuff to do.  It took me a moment to realize - I have hobbies!  I can knit or read or...write something!  Now, I'm sure the second I get into something, he'll wake up, but!  I can try.

Here is the next bit of my 500 word challenge.  If you have forgotten where we are (as I have) I'll understand. :)  Enjoy!

(it took me a few minutes to find the right file, that's how long I hadn't worked on it.  Sigh...but babies are worth it!)



He wished she would stop wearing dresses that made her look like a fourties’s pin-up girl.

Colton helped Renee out of the car, gratefully giving her hand up to her father to turn back and help her mother out.

Alice was waiting, in her usual fashion forward clothing explosion.

“Here’s the phone,” she said tartly, hading it over. “I expect a very nice bottle of champagne for working this evening, Mr. Savage.”

He grinned at her. “Of course.”

She sniffed and went to link arms with Renee. Colton watched them whisper to each other, scowling. He didn’t need Alice keeping secrets form him.

The bright flash of a camera nearly blinded him.

Renee blinked dazedly, holding her hand in front of her eyes.

“Do you mind?” she snapped. The man standing before her started jabbering at her, asking her questions.

Colton stepped up, talking over his rambling Spanish.

“Excuse us,” he said firmly, steering Renee around him. The windows of the restaurants flashed whitely a few more times until they were safely inside.

“What was that?” Renee hissed at him.

Colton only scowled, watching the man talk on a cell from inside the front doors. “I think he recognized you.”

“From where?”

“You’ve been all over the news,” he told her.

She rolled her eyes. “I know. Somehow they got a hold of my driver’s license photo.”

Colton put aside his uneasiness and followed the matre de to their table. Her parents were scowling, too, clearly as little pleased with the paparazzi as he was.

The food was excellent. Renee’s parents had endless stories about their students blowing things up in science classes. Alice and Renee giggled like old friends the entire time.

Colton couldn’t wait to get home. Get inside his house and away from whoever had taken Renee’s picture and was doing who knows what with it.

Renee kicked off her expensive heels the instant they were back at the house.

“Super cute to look at, not so cute to wear,” she complained, rubbing her feet.

Colton didn’t have an opinion he cared to express, so just grunted.

“Thanks for dinner,” she said.

“No problem.”

She yawned. “I’m going to bed. Night!”

He watched as she scooped up her shoes and went up the stairs.

With an increasing familiar feeling of dread, he went to his office and woke up the computer. He pecked at the keyboard, inputting a search into Google.

Renee White

Her picture popped up immediately, followed by headlines dated from today all the way back to the attack. He followed a link from the morning, a press release stating she had been questioned and released, no longer a person of interest in the terrorist attack. Already it had several thousand comments below the main article, ranging from disbelieving to weirdly vehement support to ED ads.

Colton closed the browser. He’d have to check where that picture surfaced tomorrow. He really hoped it wasn’t in some crazy, paranoid tabloid. But knowing his luck, it would.

 

 

Thanks for reading! - The Muffin

 



Back at last!

Whew!  the past three months have been CRAZY!!  But now that the muffin is behaving less like a gremlin and more like a human being, I have some time to write some stuff, here and in an actual novel.  I really don't remember where we were in the short story thing...I'm having a hard time remembering the character's names, to be honest.  Being a mom takes just about all my extra brain cells.

BUT!  I will go looking and post here in the next day or so.  Just wanted to warm up the old typing fingers...and see if the muffin will let me sit at the computer for five minutes without wailing.

To tide you over, here's a peek at how adorable he is:

 

Look at those cheeks!  I have to pinch them all the time!  They are so CHUBBY!!!