More Flash Fiction

Louie (#hot)

This prompt turned into a 4500 word short story. I'm thrilled given that I've had writer's block for a few months. The rest of the story needs polishing, but here is the opener. If you would like to read the rest let me know and I'll send it to you.

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Drenched after only five minutes of standing outside in the hot Sarasota summer evening, Louie exhaled a cloud of smoke into the thick humid air. 

'Shit,' he thought to himself, 'she would have to stop for cigarettes on my shift.' Louie stubbed out his butt on the grimy pavement, straightened his Circle-K pinny, and ducked back inside the air-conditioned convenience store before his ex-girlfriend had cut the engine of her car.

He didn't look up when the door chime signaled her entrance or follow her movements as she browsed the isles. In this heat everybody lingered for a while in the comparative frigid interior of the otherwise banal store.

"Hi, Louie," she said, placing a pack of mint gum on the counter. "I'll take a pack of menthols."

"Hey," Louie grunted, grabbing the cigarettes and shoving them across the counter as he rang her up. His brother had told him she was dating Marty Spinner. Marty was his brother's age and reportedly began pestering her at the diner where she worked after his wife left him. Louie still smarted from the break-up and his feelings toward his ex weren't friendly, but Marty was a cheater, and all around slimeball. She deserved better than that.

She paid with a ten. It was impossible not to look at her as he handed her change. Her bangs were curled and hair sprayed in place high above her forehead. She wore heavy make-up and a short skirt that looked good on her. She was clearly going out to a party or to a bar that Marty would get her into even though she was underage.

"Back for the summer?" she asked sweetly.

"Yeah," replied Louie. His cheeks burned. He'd gotten straight A's at university and had just started dating a girl who was spending the summer working in a biochemistry lab at M.I.T.. His ex-girlfriend had never heard of biochemistry or M.I.T., but that didn't ease the humiliation he felt wearing a ridiculous uniform and earning $3.75 an hour on the graveyard shift at a gas station in his hometown selling cigarettes to his hot ex high school girlfriend.