wrong number

two plates, pizza and two coca-colas.

Faint sunshine filtered through the gray clouds outside Acer Street Apartments. Inside apartment 523, Blythe Gray lounged on her bed. Silently she listened to the loud, melodic thrum of drums coming from the apartment under her. Idly running her hand down the spine of Farrah, her cat.

Suddenly the music stopped. With a sigh, Blythe sat up, disturbing Farrah. She ran a hand through her wild red hair and tied it up.

"What are we thinking for dinner tonight?" Blythe stood up and padded her way across her apartment to the kitchen. "Farrah, how about some cat food. Fern? You want some puppy food?"

Fern, a six month old King Charles Spaniel, jumped up from his perch on the couch and ran to meet Blythe by the fridge. Her question was answered by a bark.

"Alright, I think that sounds nice too. Here you go," she said, placing an emerald green dish on the floor. "Farrah, dinners ready." She placed Farrah's dish, periwinkle blue, on the counter, out of Fern's reach. "And for me... hmm."

The inside apartment 523, the fridge was empty.

"Pizza from Curley's it is." Fern barked. Blythe smiled. She picked the phone up off the wall and dialed Curly's Pizza Palace, a cute little place on 39th and Park.

"'Yellow. This is Curly's Pizza Palace, my name is Brent. How can I help you tonight?"

"Hi Brent. I would like to order a medium pepperoni pizza with two cokes please."

"Okay ma'am. That will be $13.95. Where do we deliver?"

Twenty minutes later Blythe opened the door. She was handed her the pizza. She closed the door and grabbed two plates.

With two plates, pizza and two coca-colas, Blythe headed toward the window. She pulled it open and crawled onto the fire escape. Down the ladder, she stopped at apartment 423.

"Knock knock." She tapped on the window. A boy with messy black hair and tired eyes walked into his living room and stared at her through the glass.

"Why are you here?" he asked blatantly. She lifted up the pizza box with a cheesy smile. He sighed and pulled the glass up, climbing out next to her. The fire escape was crammed with two of them.

"I brought pizza."

"I can tell." The boy stared at her. "Is it pepperoni?"

"Of course, I know you."

He took a large slice and bit it. Through a mouth full he said "I know, it's terrible."

Blythe laughed. She took a slice and cracked open her coca-cola. "That sounded good earlier, whatever you were playing." The boy stopped chewing and stared at her, his brown eyes speculating. This eyes flicked toward the cherry red drums sitting just inside the window. "Oh come on Austen, why don't you ever talk about your music? When I first met you, you were so excited about it. I admired you for your passion."

"Admired. Past tense. Also, I was eighteen, so that kinda wasn't valid since I didn't know how the world worked back then."

"And you do now?" Blythe raised a red eyebrow at him.

"Shut up, Gray."