Now for Something Brand New...

Here's a little taste of something I wrote this week! (Unedited and raw, so please forgive me.)

So, get into the Christmas spirit in October, and enjoy a small taste of my holiday short, tentatively entitled Un-Scrooged:

Can a free spirited Canadian grad student in England loosen up a misanthropic writer, and bring him home for Christmas?

That early autumn day in late September seemed to start a chain reaction in which Kale and Molly were flung into each other's path by some mercurial fate that scoffed at their mutual desire to avoid one another. Despite his efficacy at staying out of her way the whole first month she lived at the house, Kale now had no luck whatsoever. At the local shops, in the yard, in the front hall... she seemed to be everywhere now, which was not in keeping with his plans.

When Kale was in the middle of a book, he preferred to isolate himself from all outside influences. Otherwise, he found strange impulses creeping into his writing, such as the sweet natured character with long dark hair and warm hazel eyes that kept sneaking into the periphery of his latest work in progress, who he had to admit was Molly in disguise.

Once, the pair even literally ran into each other at the mailboxes, when she came barging into the small space as he turned to stride out. Neither had noticed each other until their torsos had collided. Instinctively, he brought his glove-clad hands up to her fleece-covered arms to steady her, and she noticed again the attractive scent of sandalwood. He detected the slight tinge of cinnamon on her breath as she puffed in surprize, and for a moment all thought fled from his brain as he stared into wide, hazel eyes, fringed with impossibly dark lashes. He couldn't remember the last time his mind was completely blank while working on a book, but at that moment, he would have been hard pressed to recall his own name.

"Steady on," he murmured, realizing he should say something.

"Hi," she breathed, simply, and, almost reluctantly, made to move past him.

Her flatmate Colby, in their infrequent discussions of the other inmates of the building, had dismissed Kale McKinnon as "weird and old," but right then Molly saw him as nothing like old or weird. True, he had some eccentric qualities, but at that moment, his oddities were more intriguing than anything else. And no one who felt so firm and vital could be considered old. Her heartbeat, at least, rapped out a tattoo that told her she was in the presence of vibrant maleness, a feeling to which she was not normally prone.

"Hi again," he said, softly, taking unfamiliar pleasure in her pretty blush.

Molly stood aside and let him pass, and watched as he exited the building. If she were more like Colby, she thought, she would say he had a "great butt," and smiled impishly at the thought. But, no - she was just Molly, and she didn't have those kinds of thoughts about men she barely knew.

Even though it was true.

ETA: This story was later renamed Unwrapping Scrooge.