Too Nice

His hand lingered for a moment on her hand. Tassa quickly pulled her stinging hand away, gently holding it close to her.

"I'm fine." She paused. "Thank you."

Her eyes took in his neat, short black hair down his face to the bit of stubble on his face that was just starting to come through. He wore an oversized beige coat and an olive green T-shirt with loose jeans.

"Dallas." A hunched old woman hobbled over to him pushing a cart. "I'm ready to leave now." She looked over at Tassa over her reading glasses. "Oh, who is your friend dearie?"

"Yeah let's go. I hope your wrist gets better." He gave her a small, sincere smile and put a hand around her shoulders, gently leading her slowly toward the check stands. "See you around."

Tassa gave him a small smile and a quick nod before taking a couple steps back. She turned away and walked briskly toward Joe. She could feel Dallas watching her and it made her skin crawl.

"Joe, I am going to the hospital." Tassa said softly, as to not interrupt. Joe gave her a tiny nod and Tassa headed out the front doors, grabbing some paper towels on her way to try to clean up the eggs. She made her way out to her car and climbed into the driver's seat. She put her keys in the ignition and turned them, but there was no spark. No rolling over of the engine, nothing, just silence. Tassa rested her forehead on the steering wheel. "Could this day get any worse?"

She tried the engine again with no success. She got out of her car and popped the hood. Knowing nothing about cars, this did her absolutely no good and she pulled out her phone to call a tow truck.

"Car trouble?" Dallas asked, approaching her.

"No, what gave it away?" Tassa asked sarcastically. She set her hand on the car rim a little to hard and cursed as she cradled it again.

"Well, I don't know much about them myself, but I have a friend I can call up to come take a look if you'd like." Dallas offered.

Tassa thought about this for a moment. "You know, that would be great." It would probably be cheaper that way anyway.

Dallas pulled his phone out of his pocket and put it to his ear. "Hey, Jarod, how are you? Good good. Hey, there's a woman here whose car broke down and-. No no. Yeah, that would be great. Thank you. Will do. Bye." He turned to Tassa. "He'll be here in an hour or so."

Tassa sighed and nodded, leaning on her car. She started gently rubbing her hurt wrist as the minutes ticked by. "You should really get that looked at." Dallas said. "I could give you a ride to the hospital if you'd like. What do you say?"