After she drives away, he’ll order a pizza. Not from DeFranco’s, the place she prefers, but from Rocco’s, where the pizza’s so greasy she always blots her slices at least three times with a paper towel. No need to ask for a bottle of diet soda, that’s for sure. He’ll be having Bud. As many cans as he wants. He’ll eat, drink, and belch right there in front of the big-screen TV, and you can bet he won’t be watching a rom-com or some red-carpet fashion show. No, he’ll be flipping from one ballgame to another—without anyone nagging him to
just pick a channel already! When all the games are over, he’ll head to the bedroom, toss his clothes anywhere he wants, and stretch out in bed. If he snores, nobody’s bony elbow will dig into his ribs in the middle of the night. And the next morning, when sunlight rouses him from a sound sleep, he’ll reach over to her side of the bed and, taken aback by the chill of the sheets, grab his phone to check the time so he can calculate how many more hours he has to fill until she finally comes home.
Lori Cramer’s short prose has appeared in Fictive Dream, Flash Boulevard, The Mersey Review, Scaffold, Splonk, and elsewhere. Her work has been longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50 and nominated for Best Microfiction. Links to her writing can be found at https://loricramerfiction.wordpress.com. X: @LCramer29. Bluesky: @loricramerwriter.bsky.social.
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