Climbing the Brick

She looked up at him with a practiced smile. "A car like this looks like it's missing something."

"What's that?" Jude asked, his tone flat.

"Me in the passenger seat," she said, resting a hand near the window trim.

Before Jude could tell her to step back, two women carrying grocery bags turned the corner 30 feet away.

One of them stopped, adjusted her glasses, and grabbed the other woman's arm.

"Eleanor, look by the gate," she said, her voice carrying across the sidewalk. "Isn't that the young man Lola has been seeing? Who is that standing right up against him?"

Jude glanced over, recognizing the speaker as Mrs. Song, the neighbor who had run into him and Lola the previous week.

Beside her was a stern-faced woman looking straight at the car, her expression tightening by the second: Lola Grant's mother.

Jude looked back at the woman beside him, letting out a dry breath.

Dinner had started early...