#pinehaven.starters

Standing behind the counter, Jimmy looked out at the empty dispensary. It had been quiet for hours and he was bored out of his mind. The clock was ticking down. Normally he wouldn't man the counter, but his employee called out. He had already completed all the closing tasks, minus the register, and organized behind the counter. He checked the clock, 2 more minutes. As he started for the front door to switch off the neon sign in the window, his eyes met those of another person outside. "Great timing" he said with a sarcastic thumbs up.

@pinehavenstarters

the local pub in pinehaven was standard fare; low ceilings, the comforting hum of a baseball game on the television, and the faint, sweet scent of spilled draft beer. it was the kind of place where people came to unwind after a hard shift. and then there was lukas. even sitting on a wooden barstool, he managed to look entirely out of place and perfectly at home all at once. a massive presence, clad in a rumpled linen button down with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, a pair of wire rimmed reading glasses perched precariously on the bridge of his nose. right now, those glasses were crooked because he was leaning halfway across the polished mahogany bar, practically vibrating with excitement.

"...you missed the entire point of the anecdote. two days ago, tuesday evening, precisely at six forty as relayed by bella. louisa looked right at her and said her first word. clear as a bell, mama. double bilabial nasal consonant. perfectly executed!" lukas beamed, a radiant, boyish smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes as he tapped his thumb aggressively against his phone screen. he thrust the device directly into the face of the person he was conversing with. the photo was undeniably adorable; louisa wearing a tiny knitted beanie that slid down over her eyes and leon flat on his stomach, pushing himself up like a miniature, angry seal.

"and leon? he is taking a different evolutionary trajectory," he eagerly slid his finger across the screen to pull up a video. "he’s a man of action. look at this." in the video, leon was gripping the edge of a low lying coffee table, his tiny legs wobbling like gelatin, his face a mask of fierce, terrifying determination. "he’s bypassing the vocal milestones entirely because he is utterly obsessed with mobility," lukas explained, his hands gesturing wildly in the air, nearly knocking over his own pint. "he’s got the upper body stability of a toddler twice his age, i'm certain he’s going to walk any day now. i’ve already had to move my entire collection of ptolemaic dynasty pottery to the top shelves."

Nova was, by nature, a creature of habit. He liked schedules and always leaned towards the familiar. The majority of his life was spent either working to achieve his goals or burying himself in his work once he achieved them. His life was fairly straightforward. He got up, went to work, came home, worked some more, then slept. Sometimes he would go to the gym, or cave to his mother’s pressures and would attend some blind date she set, or spend the night with someone, but for the most part, his life was a simple one. A lonely one. At the time, it didn’t seem sad to him. He worked so frequently that he didn’t allow himself time to think about things he was missing out on. Then Cherry came back into his life, and with one call, she changed everything.

Suddenly, he wanted more for himself. He didn’t want to work all the time. He wanted to get to know the amazing daughter they had created years ago, and be there to raise not only her but the incredible soul they just brought into the world, but it was more than that. Finding Cherry again felt like a second chance. He wouldn’t stand in his own way this time. He wouldn’t put his ambition before his heart like he had all those years ago. He wouldn’t be afraid to tell her how he felt — how he always had felt. Then by some miracle, she felt the same. They had agreed to give their relationship a real chance, but then Cherry died, and he was alone again. Though not really. While she was gone, she had left him two beautiful daughters.

Now his days looked far different. For one, he didn’t work nearly as often, and instead of a morgue, he spent his days in a shop Cherry had worked so hard for. Instead of living alone, he now shared a colorful home with two daughters and a dog. He no longer ate dinner alone, but at a table with family, and while he wished with everything in him that Cherry was still there to share in these things with him, he found that even with the heartbreak, life was far more enjoyable than it used to be. Which really said something about the life he had been living in New York.

Now, months after Cherry’s passing, he sat in the tree house in the backyard and took a hit of a joint he had picked up at work yesterday. He normally didn’t smoke, but his mother insisted on taking the girls shopping before she would leave at the end of the month, so he finally had the house to himself. He breathed slowly, allowing himself to enjoy this moment of peace. Below, Junie B. Bones was running around in the yard. It was only after two hits that he realized that the yard sounded eerily quiet. He leaned forward to peek out the tree house window, only to realize that not only was the dog nowhere to be seen, but the gate that led to the front yard was open.

“No.” Without another word, he snuffed out the joint and scrambled down the ladder, barely managing to avoid falling. “Junie!” He called out her name, his eyes scanning the backyard, only to curse as he realized it was, indeed, empty. “Fuck. Of course, I let the dog escape. I’m really killing it as a dad.” He cursed silently to himself as he ran through the open gate and out to the street. He called for the dog again, his tone getting more desperate with each unanswered call. He stood for a moment, his gaze darting around, before finally picking a direction and running. He called out her name over and over, wishing that his mother had not taken the car.

“Excuse me! Have you seen this dog?” He shouted as he ran over to the first person he saw walking by. He pulled out his phone as he spoke and pulled up a photo of her. “She just got out. I was wondering if you saw her come this way.”