FSE

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Good wine, good food and the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with, the ingredients for a perfect date. Tracy and I sit in the restaurant, preparing to order.

"What'll you have sir?" the waiter asks me.

"I'll have the calamari steak." I reply. He quickly scribbles my order down in his notebook.

"I'll have the same please." Tracey mentions, and he scribbles some more.

Tracey and I stare at each other for a moment, holding hands over the table, soft romantic music playing in the background. Tracey is wearing a blue silky dress; it has little sparkles that shine in the dim light of the restaurant. I'm wearing my tux, I went all out for tonight.

"Say, I'm not too hungry tonight and you look so hot in that tux. Why don't we skip out on dinner and go to my place for some coffee?" Tracey asks.

I smile, I'm planning to propose to her tonight, and there's no better or romantic time to propose just before or after sex, or at least in my opinion.

"Really?" I ask her eagerly.

"Yes, dummy. I did say it." she says smiling.

We quietly sneak out the door without the waiter noticing, get into my car and leave for her house. At her house we run towards the door, and eagerly run inside the minute she opens it. The door closes and she locks it. We run to her room, giggling.

Inside her room, we start kissing; she removes my coat and my tie. Slowly she unbuttons my shirt, feeling my chest beneath my vest. We fall back on the bed; I slowly start to kiss her again. I break the kiss, it's now or never, it's time to propose.

"Tracey..." I whisper as I look into her beautiful eyes.

"Yes, Mark?" she replies, looking straight back into mine.

Just as I open my mouth to ask the big question, my phone starts ringing, spoiling the mood.

I lower my head, "Crap, I'm so sorry." I say.

Tracey laughs, "Don't worry, answer it." she says understandingly.

"Thanks, it may be my parents. Aunt Tracey is in the hospital since yesterday. They might have news." I say as I stand up and reach into my pocket for my phone.

"That's terrible, is it her lungs again?" she says worryingly.

"Yeah, she's on oxygen." I reply.

"Hi there, this is Mark speaking." I say as I answer my phone.

"Mark? Mark? Is that you?" I hear someone calling out for me.

"Yes, this is Mark speaking." I say, trying to sound professionally in front of Tracey. "Who is this?"

"Mark, you have to bail me out, Tom and the others aren't answering their phones." the voice replies on the other side.

"Who is this? James?" I ask confused.

"Yes, this is James, Mark. I have no one else that can come and get me, please!" he says increasingly worryingly over the phone.

"Okay, where are you?" I ask, I'm really not in the mood for James right now, but he's in trouble, I can't just turn my back on him.

"I'm at the Police station on the corner of Cunningham avenue and Palmon street." he says, he's calmer now.

"Okay, I'm on my way." I say, and put the phone down.

What on earth could James have done to end up in there?

"What's wrong?" Tracey asks. I sit next to her on the bed.

"James is in jail, or at least in a holding cell. I have to go bail him out." I say, damn him for ruining this!

"James? What did he do?" Tracey asks.

"I have no idea. I'm sorry, this'll have to wait." I say to her, silently hoping she isn't going to be angry at me.

"It's okay; I'll stay here and wait for you. Just come back soon, okay?" she says.

"I'll be back as soon as I can" I reply.

I kiss her on the cheek and run out to my car. As I drive I try to think what he might've done. Robbery? Theft? Rape? No, James would never commit any of that, it must be a misunderstanding.

The car comes to a screeching halt in front of the station.

"I'm here to bail out James Wilkinson." I tell the policeman at the reception desk.

"The drunken kid who knocked out some poor fox in a quick shop? He's in cell 4B, bail is R400." The policeman replies.

Reluctantly I pay the bail and fill in the paperwork. A few moments later, James comes walking in. He looks like crap, he hasn't slept in days, and his mane is dirty. What's going on with him? Was he really that much in love with me?

As we go down the stairs outside, he stumbles and falls down hard. So hard, that there are bloody skid marks on his cheek.

"Ouch, shit!" he screams.

"You okay?" I ask him nicely.

"I'm fine." he says as he tries to get up by himself.

The drive home is long, even though it's not very far from his dorm.

"So, do you want to tell me what happened? I hear you knocked some poor fox out." I ask

"He deserved it. He talked trash about my mom." he replies, looking straight in front of him.

"How does he know your mom?" I ask

"It was Pete." he replies abruptly

"Pete? From high school?" I ask surprisingly.

I'd rather not ask what Pete said, James is in a bad condition as it is, and I don't want to upset him further.

"When did you last eat?" I ask him.

"Why do you care? Your life is with Tracey now." he says.

"That doesn't mean I don't care about you, James." I say, trying to justify my sudden compassion towards James.

"Really? I thought you hated me." he says.

I just keep quiet; I hurt him bad that day. I don't want to think about it, instead I think about Tracey waiting for me. I stop at a fast food place and order some take-aways for James.

I walk with him to his dorm, and make sure he eats.

"We'd better take care of that." I say, pointing at his face.

"There's antiseptic in the bathroom." he says.

I walk to the bathroom to get the antiseptic and return. I pour some on a piece of cotton wool and hold it up to his face. As the wool touches his face, he jerks away.

"Hey, that hurts!" he says, frowning at me.

"Hold still you big scaredy cat. It's good if it hurts, it means that the stuff is working." I say as I softly pat the wound with the cotton wool, holding his huge maw in my other hand. Soon I find myself staring into the lion's big, calm eyes.

James stares back at me, my head moves closer to his', our lips open our tongues slide out longing to touch each other again. I close my eyes, preparing to kiss James, but as I close them I see Tracey in my minds' eye. She's waiting for me at home.

"I have to go." I say as I pull back, releasing his maw from my hands. Forcing myself to stand up and walk to the door.

"Mark!" James calls out.

I stop in the doorway, but I don't turn around. I don't want him to see my teary eyes. I clear my throat.

"Yes?" I reply.

"That day when you broke up with me, did you really mean everything you said?" James asks, I can hear the sadness in his voice and more tears dam up in my eyes. Once again I clear my throat, but this time more silently so he doesn't hear it.

"Does it matter?" I say.

"It does to me." he says, softly.

I close my eyes even harder, tears start running. "It's better if you forget about me James." I say as I continue to walk out the front door, leaving him behind.

As I drive home, I pull over to the side of the road. For a moment I just sit there, the tears now gone. I chose Tracey; I can't back out of it now. I was planning to propose to her tonight. I take the ring out of the side pocket of my jacket and open the case. The diamond sparkles in the moonlight, it was my mom's before she and my dad got married, she gave it to me when she heard I was going to propose.

I close the case and put it back in my Jacket's side pocket. A tear runs down my left cheek as I pull back into the road, it's time to go back, back to Tracey...

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Another short-ish chapter, but I wanted a bit of interaction between James and Mark again. The big question now is whether Mark is going to propose to Tracey, or is he going to realize he's making a mistake?

Remember to comment and tell me what you think of my stories, good or bad; I like to know what my readers think. I hope you enjoyed reading, because this is a piece I really enjoyed writing as much as the previous chapters.