The Pick-Up

Richie left the hospital and Libby in Coffs and drove back to The Glen, he really felt bad for her poor kid; pregnant of all things. He thought it was probably good she lost the baby; she wasn’t set up to have a kid. Hah, the doc thought it was his, boy did he get that wrong. The thing that bothered him was people thinking they were a couple, they weren’t, couldn’t be and yet what were they if not a couple? He didn’t want to get tied to Libby but it looked like that’s where it was going, despite calling it a friendship. He hadn’t been out with anyone else since he’d starting seeing Libby. Maybe he needed to do something about that before this thing with Libby got too deep.

Instead of heading for the Tavern he walked over to his office, he’d left in such a hurry he needed to close some things down and clear his desk. Miss Peeg had shut his computer down for him and left her office perfect. He picked up the file on the forgeries Scott had given him and turned off his light. As he turned back to Millie’s he heard someone crying near the parking lot and walked over.

“Hey, ya got a problem?”

“You could say that, that rat of a date just left me here.”

“Rat huh, anything I can do?”

“You can buy me a drink,” she wiped her face with a tissue and squared her shoulders “My name’s Rosemary, Rosemary Fitzgerald.

“Richie Roberts and I can buy you a drink.” He put his hand in the middle of her back and walked into the Tavern with her. He noticed she wasn’t too steady on her feet, probably had a few drinks already.

Once inside he got her drink and ordered one for himself, “I haven’t seen you around here before.”

“That’s because I don’t live around here, my um old roommate is working here at the restaurant. I was in town for a day and thought I’d come by but she’s not working tonight. She wasn’t at home either but I ran into this guy and ended up here anyway. So I guess you do live around here.”

“Yeah, real close, like upstairs.”

“Ohh that’s convenient now isn’t it?” she gave him a smile around her drink glass.

Richie smiled back; this was going to be easy.