Oven mits in hand, Annabeth Nass carefully took her soufflé out of the oven, and set it on the counter. She grinned; amused at herself when she saw that how delicious it looked. Unlike the last three, this one had not deflated. She was confident that soon, she'd be as good at making soufflés as she was at mini quiches.
After a few moments the entire room was filled with the rich scent of dark chocolate, and this inspired her to whip up a raspberry sauce to go with it. She took her cellphone out of the pocket of her favorite purple sweater to look up recipes on the internet, she smiled when her background picture of Lavon appeared on the screen. It was one of her favorite pictures of him. He was smiling, and it was a very natural smile, not staged or faked at all. However, she was distracted from her swooning when she saw she had a new voicemail message. Her phone wasn't on silent or vibrate, and she had no idea why she wouldn't have heard it ring. She didn't recognize the number, and that made her even more curious. She was about to listen to the message, but she was interrupted when her best friend Lemon burst into the room.
"I am going to kill Wade Kinsella" she announced angrily.
"Hey Lemon" Annabeth smiled. "Come on in."
"He changed the menu at the Rammer Jammer without even asking me!"
"Did he add soufflés?" she asked. "Because I can help you out there."
"I wish" she scoffed. "He took onion rings off the menu because he said they were to frou-frou for a bar."
"But that's ridiculous, onion rings are delicious" Annabeth responded.
"I know!" Lemon agreed. "That man is going to be the death of me."
"Are you on your lunch break?"
"Yeah" Lemon sighed. "Why, did you want to go out?"
"Actually, I've been trying out some new recipes, I was hoping you'd try some for me" Annabeth said smiling widely.
"Sure" Lemon shrugged. "Why not?"
"Besides Wade driving you crazy, what's going on with you?" Annabeth asked as she put a plate of meatloaf in the microwave.
"Oh nothing much" Lemon sighed. "How about you?"
"Not much going on with me either" she agreed. It was then that she remembered the odd voicemail. "Except…" she trailed off.
"Except what?" Lemon asked as her suspicion grew. "Oh God" she gasped. "You're pregnant?"
"What?" Annabeth shrieked. "No."
"Oh" Lemon sighed. "Thank God, I'm depressed enough without you having a baby." Annabeth gave her a wry look and she suddenly felt the need to save face. "Not that I wouldn't be so, so happy for you and Lavon" she added, trying to sound as sincere as possible.
"Right" Annabeth said, knowing full well that her friend didn't mean a word of what she was saying. "What I was going to say is I got a voicemail, but I'm not sure who it's from."
"Then listen to it" Lemon shrugged.
"I will" Annabeth responded as she walked over to the microwave and took the plate out. "But first, you have to try this."
"I'm sure it's delicious" Lemon said dismissively. "Now tell me who called you, this is the only suspense I've had in my life all week."
"Calm down" Annabeth laughed. "It might just be a telemarketer."
"Well listen to it!" Lemon insisted.
"Alright" Annabeth said as she held the phone to her ear.
"Annabeth, hey! It's Jake. I know we haven't talked since I…. Well I know we haven't talked in a long time, but I was really hoping I could see you. I have something important to tell you. So yeah. Call me. Bye.
"Oh my God" Annabeth whispered to herself.
"Who was it?" Lemon asked, her mouth full of food. It was unlike her to be so unlady-like, but her curiosity got the best of her.
"That was my ex-husband" Annabeth said as the color drained from her face.
"What?" Lemon gasped.
"He wants to see me" Annabeth added.
"Are you going to?" Lemon asked wide-eyed.
"I don't know" Annabeth shrugged. "I mean, I never got the chance to talk to him, he just took off. I've must have run through what I want to say to him in my head a thousand times, but now with Lavon… I don't know. Lemon, I don't know what I'm going to do!"
Please Review! If there's interest I'll write more, and I hope there is because I've got some really good surprises planned for this one ;)