The Rest Will Come Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

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  The Rest Will Come

  Christina Bergling

  The Rest Will Come

  Copyright © 2017 by Christina Bergling.

  All rights reserved.

  First Print Edition: July 2017

  Limitless Publishing, LLC

  Kailua, HI 96734

  www.limitlesspublishing.com

  Formatting: Limitless Publishing

  ISBN-13: 978-1-64034-166-1

  ISBN-10: 1-64034-166-8

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Dedication

  For Handy

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

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  Chapter 1

  Emma did not realize the keys were in her hand until she smashed them into his face. The sickening squash of the impact surprised her, and she found the warmth of his blood on her hand unexpected.

  She could only hear what he said echoing in her head.

  You know, my heart is just not in this.

  At some point, she had unwittingly laced the ragged points of metal between her knuckles. In the sad and dark parking lot, as he said it had nothing to do with her and she should not take it personally, she had unconsciously clenched the spikes between her fingers. Her body curled around her rage while her mind gagged on his unenthusiastic lies.

  They stood there frozen, tangled in his injury. The breeze was swirling into Emma’s gaping mouth, drying out her widened eyes. She permitted her gaze to travel down the length of her own arm as time itself seemed to slow and ensnare them in the moment.

  The keys protruded from her fist like barbed brass knuckles before disappearing into his leaking flesh. The skin contorted around the intruding metal. Blood actually spurted, leaping up onto her hand and forearm. The blood fountain operated in the rhythm of his heartbeat, which was rapid and desperate.

  With her fist still firmly implanted in his face, Emma finally looked at his eyes. Or rather, eye. One eye floundered under the gushing blood. The remaining eye bulged from its socket. The twitching iris found Emma, and time completely stopped as their expressions of shock mirrored each other.

  The two stopped breathing. His body slowly started to tremble, beginning at its connection with Emma and reverberating out into that stunned eye. In the low light of the worst dive bar she had been in since college, Emma had not noticed how strikingly flat and mundane his eyes were. A tired, muted brown.

  When he had walked in, she had registered that he was attractive. The judgment was a knee-jerk reaction, an echo of the endless string of wasted nights with an exhaustive parade of douchebags. She felt the tug of her lingering priority. First, he had to be attractive, then he could be a decent guy. She knew how far that had gotten her.

  With her keys jabbed into this latest jerk’s face, Emma considered maybe this approach had been part of her problem. He had been merely another indistinguishable online dating profile. Matched.com, eCompatible, Fish of the Sea, they were all a homogenous blur.

  He was looking for a partner in crime. Or a soulmate to start a family with. Or a good girl he could talk to. Or whatever.

  They all sounded the same, and they were all equally hollow and inaccurate. Month after month, they became impossible to separate or recall. On her phone, she took screenshots of their profile pictures. She linked the pictures to their names and numbers to have any hope of identifying the right prospect. Was this the guy with a thing for tigers? The one who posted tons of pictures with his nieces? The one with a profile composed entirely of shirtless selfies? The one who was serious about working on his fitness? The one who grew pineapples in his backyard?

  Their interaction began with a virtual wink. Emma hated the whole winking concept, cringed every time the notification appeared. If a suitor winked at her from across the bar in real life, she would not have been able to roll her eyes fast enough. Then he began asking her stupid, patronizing, infuriating questions. What kind of kitchen appliance would you be and why? She actually laughed at her computer screen while she tried to concoct the right answer. Though his emails that followed were hardly more inspired, every email and eventual text read down the same canned and useless dating script, the same words and details she only began to confuse with other guys. Ultimately, hours of investment culminated in hearing his actual voice over a month later.

  As with every other ill-fated first date she had endured over the past few years, Emma had thought, why not? He was not especially striking on the computer screen or over text messaging, but why not? She had to keep trying, had to meet someone new. What had resulted was a procession of first dates that did not yield someone new. Rather, each date was with the same subpar candidate over and over and over again.

  This date, however, had deviated into this dank parking lot with her keys in the candidate’s eye.

  He had selected this deplorable location, a bar in a small town between their two cities. This entire date that his heart was no longer in had been his idea. He was the reason Emma was standing in the flickering streetlight, listening to the cars on the interstate, second knuckle deep in his bloodied face.

  Emma had arrived at the bar first. As her tires rolled into the nearly vacant parking lot, she cringed, her body drawing in on itself. The building hugged the sound barrier wall for the highway, crouching low and sad in the shadows. The fluorescent beer and liquor signs glowed out from the small windows like possessed eyes in the darkness. One lonely streetlight illuminated the parking lot.

  She parked her car directly under the feeble light and thought, What the hell was he thinking? What am I doing?

  With the engine still purring in the car, she held her phone hesitantly in her hand, pressing the power button to light the screen. She involuntarily and habitually rolled her eyes as she moved her fingertip over the touch screen to call up their text conversation. She had to remember which one he was, which mundane life details they had already discussed.

  Mark: Hey beautiful, I’m really looking
forward to finally meeting you tonight!

  There he was, perched atop a hill in Garden of the Gods with Pikes Peak in the background, like a poster child for Colorado tourism, in the profile picture she had captured from the dating site. She scrolled farther up into the past.

  Mark: I used to be in the Air Force but just stayed in Colorado Springs when I got out. I loved the mountains too much. All my family still lives back in Nebraska. I see them occasionally.

  Right, the former Air Force guy who now loved hiking and worked from home for a software company.

  She backed out of the conversation to her home screen. Only a picture of a vacant beach at sunset. No messages, no escape. The light timed out, and the phone went black again. Emma flipped it on and let it die two more times, flirting with the hope that some distraction from anywhere would appear to save her. When it did not, she opened the door and stood in her heels on the uneven asphalt.

  Her phone still hung in her doubtful palm as she walked into the bar. Her fingers flexed against the case like a security blanket, clinging to a lifeline out of this place. She found herself already drafting the texts in her head to tell Ronnie how horribly this one went. Ronnie’s last message was still in Emma’s inbox.

  Ronnie: Good luck! Text me when it’s over.

  Emma wanted to text her a million things already. Like how she was still nervous as with every other first date; how the drive down was a pain with traffic; how this bar was awful and she was terrified to walk inside; how she needed this guy to be less than a douchebag; how she was so painfully sick of being single and just wanted things to happen, like they had for Ronnie years ago.

  Instead, she waited. She would have plenty of time to give Ronnie the latest update in her dating soap opera afterward.

  As she scraped her heels along a bar floor so dirty it felt sandy, Emma’s heart clenched firmly against her throat. Two withered regulars looked up mechanically from the bar and stared at her, letting their glazed-over eyes linger long enough that she wrapped her jacket tighter around her body.

  Dim lights cast strange shadows over an eclectic menagerie of random trinkets hanging from the walls. While touted as a bar and grill, the scene reminded Emma of a bar she frequented in her misspent and underage youth. The reflex memory of the environment forced the phantom taste of kamikaze shots and acidic vomit up the back of her throat. Nostalgically.

  She pressed her hand to her mouth and moved slowly, nearly creeping to the first open table of many. She perched at an angle from which she could see people enter through the door, trying not to attract any further attention. From the dilapidated state of the two regulars, she was relatively confident her date had not yet arrived.

  Tucking herself into the lacquered wooden booth, Emma snatched her phone up to her face again. No notifications, no texts, not even a spam email. She settled for absentmindedly scrolling through MyBook, looking at statuses and pictures without actually seeing them. She did not want his initial impression to be her glued to her phone. She did not want to be trapped in the reality around her either.

  She set the phone on the table in front of her, screen down, then heard the door squeak over the low, mumbling music. People all looked the same walking into a first date. Anxious, somewhat awkwardly shifting, eyes wide in a blending of hope and fear. Senses pricked to seek out the date as quickly as possible so as not to be exposed waiting alone, or worse—stood up.

  He walked in with those dumb brown eyes engaged and scanning. Aside from the fact that he was the only other patron in her demographic, Emma recognized the desperation in his gaze and knew he was her date.

  She sized him up automatically, allowing her eyes to rapidly drink in what he had to offer. Even seated in the booth, she determined he was tall enough, taller than her. He would never tower over her; her head would never nestle beneath his chin as she always wanted; still, he would be the slightest bit taller. She snagged the familiar train of thought and shook it loose, recalling that she had learned he needed to be more than simply tall and hot.

  As he walked closer, he noticed Emma. His eyes identified the only female in the establishment, and relief spread across his face, stretched in a decent smile. When he sat down in the booth across from her, Emma mused that his grin could possibly get her into trouble. If she reached a little, she could imagine sleeping with him.

  Good enough was a start.

  “Hi, I’m Mark,” he said, extending his hand.

  Of course he was. Mark, John, Chris. Emma had read a thousand of their profiles, went on first dates with what seemed like hundreds of the same generically named men. She was so exhausted from the entire experience that she could vomit in his outstretched palm. She repeated that one of them had to be The One. She smiled sweetly and reached across. When she shook his hand slowly and deliberately, she gauged the warmth and smoothness of his palm against hers. The hand of a software developer.

  “So, this place is not what I expected,” he said, sweeping his eyes around and lowering his head in embarrassment between his shoulders. “I have never been here before. I didn’t expect such a…”

  “Dive,” she said it for him.

  “Right, exactly.” That smile again. “I’m really sorry.”

  Emma grinned back, turning her face to lift her cheek toward him flirtatiously. The motions all felt so familiar. She played her part well. “That’s okay,” she replied.

  “What do you want to do? Do you want to stick it out? Should we find somewhere else?”

  “It doesn’t matter to me. Whichever you prefer.”

  “How about one drink while we look for another place to eat?”

  “Sure. I mean, how bad could they mess up beer?”

  In the absence of any kind of wait staff, he politely walked up to the bar and retrieved warm, flat beer in questionably clean mugs. Emma thanked him while pretending not to examine her drink. She took a sip and held back the grimace as the sour edge of the flavor flattened over her tongue. Looking at him warmly, she swallowed it thinly.

  He had his phone on the table between them, swirling over some app about local restaurants. There were not many options.

  “How about this one?” He gestured to an entry in the list. “Mexican place about two miles from here. It has a whopping three stars.”

  “How many stars do you suppose this fine establishment has?”

  He scoffed. “You want me to look?”

  “Mexican is fine by me.”

  “Cool. We’ll finish these beers and head over. So tell me about your job again? Data entry, right?”

  Emma awarded him points for actually reading the emails and being able to recall her correct occupation. He probably had mined their text conversation in the parking lot, just as she had. Her mind reeled before it was her turn to speak. Shit, what have I already told him? What have we talked about over email? He was in the Air Force and works for a software company now. He is not the one with the five-year-old son or the two ten-year-old daughters because all his family is in Nebraska. Did he say he had an ex-wife and a kid? Or just an ex-wife? Have we talked about my family at all or only his? Was it merely work we rambled about? He was the one who loves hiking. His picture is in Garden of the Gods, so he has to be.

  Emma knew that all they would ultimately do was rehash the emails they spent weeks sending each other, simply because neither of them vividly remembered which candidate they were auditioning. They would both politely pretend this was not the case, that they were so interested in this person who stood out from the herd, but that was exactly what always happened.

  At her core, Emma hated the first date interrogation.

  “You’re from Nebraska, right?” Emma said, leaning on the texts she had skimmed.

  “Yeah. I was born and raised out there. My family is still out there. I joined the Air Force right out of high school to get out of there. I was stationed all around, then ended up in Colorado Springs and just decided to stay there. I love the mountains. I really like hiking.”
<
br />   I was right! Emma gave herself an internal high five.

  “What about you? Denver girl?”

  “Yeah, I’m actually from Colorado, a rare native. I grew up partially in Colorado Springs. My dad still lives down there with his wife. I moved to Denver with my mom and brother after they got divorced.”

  Emma’s eyes shifted about subtly while she talked, flitting from Mark’s eye contact to a pass of the bar to the drink menu on the table. When she returned to his eyes, she noticed the decline in their trajectory. His gaze drifted down, sliding along her neck and to her chest without registering she was looking at him. Smoothly, he met her eye contact and flashed his teeth.

  “So what is data entry exactly?” he said, leaping back to the safe, reliable job topic.

  “Nothing exciting. It’s actually pretty boring, but it’s better than working multiple waitressing jobs. I plug into music and zone out for a few hours while I work.”

  “Sounds like software development.”

  “Probably,” Emma laughed.

  As their beers disappeared, Emma tried to gauge how she felt about Mark. Although she found him attractive enough, she was not sure she responded to him on any other level. Nothing he said produced any reaction in her beyond the tedium of the first date, but perhaps that was only her physical disgust at being forced through the ritual yet again. While his childish examination of her cleavage did make her want to wrinkle her nose, he was a guy. She had to accept he was going to examine her body as much as she had gauged his height and degree of attractiveness when he walked in.

  She found no aversion to him mingled in her lackluster and muddled feelings, so she decided that would be enough to build on. It would have to be, or she would have to endure another first date with another guy.

  Finally, they set down empty mugs.

  “Should we migrate?” Mark asked.