Page 7 of Running Into The Grump

I paused as I looked around, not sure how the hell I had gotten this far in without realizing it.

“Damn it,” I muttered, doing a full turn but I couldn’t tell which way I entered.

I looked right and left before shrugging. I took a left turn, my eyes on the maze walls, so I didn’t see the person I ran into.

Would you believe my luck that it was Jacqueline again?

“What the hell?” I muttered, grabbing her arm to keep her from falling backwards.

“What are you doing?” she screamed at me. Once she was righted, she shook her arm, dropping my hand, and the strangest feeling rolled through me.

I missed the heat of the touch.

Which was crazy.

“Me? Why did you plow into me? Weren’t you paying attention?”

She rolled her eyes at me then made a sharp left turn, going the way that I was trying to go. Once more, I watched her storm off. This was the second time in less than an hour she had done that.

I held back my retort and tried going down another path. I pulled up short as I came to a dead end, another curse escaping out.

“What gives?” I muttered, turning around and walking back down another pathway. “Shit is crazy how lost one gets. Guess it really is a maze.”

I took a right, this time running into her myself.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she said, spitting out the piece of hay that had landed in her mouth.

“Sorry. Wish I didn’t do that either,” I told her, making her glare at me.

“How did you even get in here?”

I watched her as she planted her hands on her hips and stared at me.

“Honestly, I wasn’t paying attention and before I knew it, I was deep in the maze. I couldn’t even figure out where I had come from to go back out the way I came in. And what about you?”

She let out a huff before rubbing her eyes.

“Same. I thought I saw something and got distracted while walking and ended up in here.”

I looked around, trying to get some sort of bearings on where I was, but I couldn’t figure it out for the life of me.

Which was crazy, because that was the one thing I was pretty good at. Navigating the twists and turns that life threw my way. That included directions like this.

“Okay. Do you remember how you got on this pathway?” I asked her. She just shrugged before shaking her head. “No help.”

“Don’t give me that. It’s not my fault you’re in here, lost, as well.”

“That’s not true. You had me fuming enough that I was deep in thought.”

“Oh, my word, you are not blaming this on me! Hell Jackson, don’t you ever grow up? You’re just like the kid I remember and that’s sad. I would have hoped by now that you learned something.”

I turned around to glare at her, crossing my arms.

“Let’s not throw stones, here lady. You don’t have cats, but you are the crazy dog lady, aren’t you? Can’t find a man? You’ve been single for as long as I’ve known you.”

I watched as she lifted her head, her eyes blazing.

And you want to know what’s weird to me?