The Stand In

Chapter 5

It takes longer than I expect, for Elle to come back to me, her little gasps and pokes of the inside of my car is entertaining. Not to mention her fascination with the parking cameras.

"So a museum, huh?" She asks suddenly.

It's not how I would have liked to start off a conversation, not about me... I wanted to know about her. I guess she had googled my name, but I had only gave her my first name. Not my second... There's loads of Zak's in Vegas. Right?

"I-"

"I saw your face on a bus." She tells me, tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear.

Oh. Yeah that would probably do it.

"Yeah, I uh- I own a haunted museum."

"Cool." She replies sweetly before looking out the window.

I wait, but when more questions don't follow, I have to look over to see her face, which is relaxed and calm.

Maybe she is waiting for me to tell her that I'm also on tv....

"I'm also on the travel channel. I have a tv show." I cringe at myself for sounding as if I'm bragging and also for sounding blasé about it. To get and maintain a television show for over ten years is hard work, not to mention time consuming. But I love my job and what I do, to me, it was all worth it. Every single second.

"Oh cool. So you get paid to travel around then?" She asks.

"Yeah something like that."

She nods with a pleasant smile and looks out the window again.

Now I'm unnerved, literally shook to my bones. This... This was unheard of. Women normally took one look at me and lowered their tops. Some hiked their skirts shorter in a hope that I'd notice them.

When they heard TV show, the dollar signs rolled in their eyes, as with a quick google search, it would show I was not short of money.

Now don't be offended. Not all women are like this, it's only a few. But over my years of dating, I've unrooted a few bad coins out the bunch and see the nasty sides to those pretty faces. Sometimes I played my part, lavished them with gifts and jewellery, but the more I got burnt, the worse it became and I've now become skeptical of every woman I come into contact with...

Maybe she's having a stroke? Or something is happening that I don't know about?

I try to eye her more carefully, whilst watching the road but I can't seem to find what's wrong, apart from her paleness. The weight bar couldn't have hurt her, I grabbed it a few inches away from her chest. In fact, the only reason I noticed the bar in the first place, was because she had a work out top on, that did nothing to hide the cleavage when she was led on the bench. In fact, I could see so much, I missed a step on the stair master, smashed my knee into the next step. I figured that was karma, but I redeemed myself when I saw her arms wobbling and the douche not paying a single bit of attention.

I mean, a busty woman, gorgeous hair and challenging eyes. I was taken myself.

"You want some air?" I ask reaching for the air conditioning.

"I'm okay, thank you. So, where we going?" She asks pulling at her top before adjusting it, to try and cover her cleavage.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a fidgeter.

"Where would you like to go?" I ask before naming a few restaurants around the area.

"Um..." She starts before chewing her lip. "Could we go to, maybe In 'n' Out burger?"