unfinished schlock

It had been a grueling day at work. The phones had never stopped ringing and Vicki’s in-box never seemed to get emptied. As she walked briskly from the bus-stop to her apartment three doors down, her mind emptied itself of every thought but of what to have for dinner and whether or not Tyler had called.
She shifted her backpack on her shoulder as she slid her key into the lock, automatically scanning from side to side and quickly inside the lobby of her building for “suspicious characters”, letting an unrealized tense breath out at the audible click of it unlocking. it hadn’t been two weeks since her apartment had been broken into and she was more than a little gun-shy still.
Vicki had been coming home from her second date with Tyler that Saturday night. In retrospect, she was terribly thankful that he had been with her when she walked into her apartment to find it trashed. Her first reaction had been violent anger, how dare they! Who the hell gave them the right to victimize her? Then, as the realization that they could still be there and she had now way to protect herself, she started to cry and begged Tyler to check the other rooms while she called the police.
Tyler had been so gallant. He grabbed an umbrella from the coat rack by the front door and made a great show of checking every conceivable entrance and hiding place while Vicki cowered in the kitchen with the cordless phone cradled to her ear, shakily reciting her name and address to the police operator. When the woman with the soothing voice told her that an officer would be over in the morning to take her statement, Vicki should have been relieved, but her only reaction was that she was going to be left along all night long in her apartment. The same apartment that some evil thug had been rummaging around in, touching all her belongings, stealing… who knew what yet. I should be doing an inventory for the cop, she thought. I should be cleaning up this god-awful mess.
“Tyler…” she asked.
“Yeah, Vick?” he replied over his shoulder while checking the hall closet for uninvited guests.
“Tyler, I know it’s a lot to ask… but could you stay with me tonight? The operator said the cops won’t be here ’til the morning and, well, the last thing I think I’m capable of is being here, alone, all night.”
Tyler turned around to stare at Vicki with his head cocked slightly to the left and a strange glitter in his eyes, “sure, Vick. I can call in tomorrow. That way I can stay with you until the cops show up. You know how they’re always late.”
Vicki sighed with relief, her mind focusing only on the fact that she wouldn’t be alone. “Thank you so much, Tyler. You have no idea how much I appreciate it.”
“‘Tis my honour, milady,” he bowed, smiling.
“Oh stop that medieval crap, Tyler” she laughed, “you know it just gets me all flusterpated.”
“Why do you think I do it, Victoria?”
“To see me blush, I reckon.”
“That’s one benefit, I suppose. But I love the thought of treating you like a lady of old. is there anything wrong with that?”
“No. I don’t think so. But it’s terribly odd to find a man who feels that way in these liberated times. ”
Tyler reached for Vicki’s hand. “Then call me a ‘terribly odd man’ if you must, but I don’t believe I’ll be stopping any time soon,” he said as he lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it gently.
Vicki smiled shyly, not quite knowing what to say. She’d known Tyler for well over a year before it ever dawned on her that he might actually be relationship material. When she first met him, he was a bicycle courier delivering documents to her office, every Tuesday and Thursday at 10: 15 am exactly. He was never late and always smiling. One Tuesday, about eight months later, 10: 15 came and went, but Tyler didn’t. Vicki became worried, until, about an hour later the phone rang and it was him calling to let her know that he’d been promoted to sales and had a “nice, cushy desk job”, as he put it. That was the beginning of their real friendship. She would make a point of phoning him every couple of weeks to ask about shipping rates or customs requirements and he’d call or stop by with specials and pricing updates. once in a while they’d meet for lunch or coffee after work when they had the time.