On the Veranda

She sat on the veranda, the quiet patter of raindrops soothing her jangled nerves. The irregular, hollow rhythm of the rain on the stairs of their front porch lent a white noise to her sourroundings, and she snuggled deeper into the comortable wicker rocker that had graced the porch since earlier that summer. Drawing her knees upward, she rested her feet the battered cusihion of a plastic chaise lounge that had seen many summers of barbecues and beers.

She stared down at her newly-manicured toes, looking beyond the pristine shellac and into her own thoughts. The soft rain lulled her into tender thoughts of Ryan, wherever he must be at 2:13am on a Friday morning. He must be at home. Was he near a window, listening to the rain and thinking tender thoughts of her as well? Were men capable of such romance? The practical woman inside her chuckled, and a smile curved the corners of her mouth. No, she could not imagine Ryan Flaggstone beside an open window in his dark bedroom tenderly dreaming of her in his arms. That poetic bullshit might work for heroes in the trashy novels that fed her own lust for literary porn, but men just weren't that way in reality.

Instead of reassuring her, however, the thought that Ryan would never succumb to romance on a rainy night in early autumn possessed her with a sudden sense of dejection. Realistically, had Ryan felt the things she felt when she gazed into his languid, blue-grey eyes? He had seemed so intense--passionate, even--as he lay her across his bed, but was the fire in those eyes kindled by romance or a throbbing in his pants?

She sighed, hugging herslf, chilled by a rain-cooled breeze and her own heavy thoughts.