Dancing with Shadows

Two

      Pulling his head out of the sand, he jumped into the spiel that was engrained into him. "Good afternoon. My name is Zeke, I'm here about your AC."

      Jasmine stepped to the side. "Yeah, there isn't any cool air coming out of the vents-"

      Zeke smirked, not at her, but at the butterflies that started playing tag in his belly. He'd never felt nervous around women, but there was something about the way her eyes seemed to look right through him. Something about how her lips slightly turned down at the corner. Mentally shaking himself, he stepped into the foyer.

      He looked back at the board in his hand, then up around him. "Can you lead me to the unit?"

      Derick heard the AC technician's voice and didn't like having another man in the house with Jasmine. He stepped out of his office and into the hallway just in time to see the man following his wife past his office and down the hallway to the back of the house.

      Zeke was thoroughly intimidated with the size and elegance of the house. He'd typically been in moderate two or three bedroom middle income homes. This house gave him such a surreal feeling, he wasn't sure he was actually awake. There was something there that gave him a chill up his spine as he followed the woman down the hallway.

      Jasmine led Zeke through the hallway to the French doors that lead to the back patio. Just off the end of the right side of the patio was an AC unit. She gestured at it. "Here it is," she said lamely.

      "I'll see if I can figure it out for you. I'll have to see the other part as well."

      Jasmine turned confused eyes up at him. "The other part?" she asked.

      Her eyebrows were drawn together, her eyes were brown, but they seemed to have yellows going through them making them seem like a dark amber was hidden under the darker color. The effect she had on his nerves was beyond anything he ever experienced before. Zeke almost forgot they were having a conversation as he looked down in those inquiring eyes.

      "Yes," he responded, his voice deeper than it was moments ago.

      Jasmine thought she was crazy as she looked up at this stranger. She saw his eyes cloud over the way that Derick's used to when their playful banter turned into something far heavier. Surely she was reading too deeply into the situation.

      They stared into each other's eyes, both lost in their own thoughts, neither quite ready to break the spell. Fortunately neither had to. There was a noise in the house that had both of them turning to the noise.

      "I don't know where the other part is. Isn't this the unit?" Jasmine asked, wondering what the hell was going on in the house.

      Zeke turned back to his client. He tilted his head to the side a bit. "Yeah, one part is outside, and the other is inside. Typically it is where you change out the filter."

      He watched that confusion only get deeper. "Filter?" her voice squeaked out.

      Zeke wanted to roll his eyes. Of course she wouldn't know where the filter was. She probably had some maid or butler do all the mundane house maintenance. Rather than rolling his eyes, he chose to instead smile down at her upturned face. "I can find it, if you don't mind me looking around."

      Jasmine felt so silly that she didn't know where the filter was. She gave a sheepish smile. "Yeah," she said. "My husband usually does all that." She moved around Zeke and led him back into the house.

      His stomach clenched at the word husband. He instinctively looked down at her hand as he followed behind like a horny school boy. Sure enough there was a rock the size of Texas on her I'm taken finger. He berated himself for not noticing before.