TUESDAY TALES - WORD PROMPT "SAFE"

 

Hi! Welcome! This week the word prompt is "safe" and we have another episode of "The Kicker, Part One". Thanksgiving dinner is heating up! After you read my excerpt, please hop on to read the wonderful stories of the other authors. Please find them HERE.

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Dale greeted her sisters and brother.

“So, I hear you have another charity case here for dinner,” Anne asked.

“Shh. He’ll hear you!” Dale pulled her sister away from the door.

“So? It’s not like he doesn’t know it, right?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Oh?” Anne raised her eyebrows.

Dale dropped her gaze to her hands and fidgeted with the hem of her sweater. “No.”

“Then who is he, if he’s not someone you picked up off the streets?” Anne asked.

“He’s sort of my boyfriend,” she said, her voice low. It was never safe to admit too much to her sister, Anne.

“Speak up. Did you say you have a boyfriend?” Scott asked.

“Shh!”

“What’s the big secret? If he’s your boyfriend, doesn’t he know it?”

Robbie popped out of the kitchen. “I was wondering where you were.” Drips of mashed potato clung to his shirt. His hands were wet and held a dishtowel. He strode over to Dale, kissed her hard and long, without touching her with his hands. “Time to take the turkey out of the pot.” He looked down at his sweatshirt. “Guess I’ll have to change before dinner. Back soon, sweetheart.”

Like a tornado, he touched down and was gone. As she saw the eyes of her siblings bug out and their eyebrows rise to their hairlines, Dale laughed. Maybe this would be the best Thanksgiving Dale ever had.

Watching Angela turned green every time Robbie dropped an adoring gaze on Dale, made her giggle. Her parents were more at ease with him than they were with their own children. It wasn’t long before her sibs peppered the kicker with questions.

“How long have you been a kicker?”

“How much money to do you make?”

“What do you do in the off season?”

“How many women do you date at once?”

On and on. His stamina and good humor, even at the nastiest most bizarre questions, warmed her. His charm and ability to get along in this intense, in-your-face-group blew her away.