There’s really no debate here.
Pizza it is.
Before I push the door open a flash of lightning brightens the street momentarily, and I see a figure standing across the street. All black. No features.
I blink, squinting in the darkness, but it’s gone.
A trick of the light, maybe because my brain is tired. But it leaves behind a sensation of being watched.
I push open the door and am hit with a wave of warmth and familiarity. The black-and-white checkerboard floors welcome me, but this time... the place is empty.
Eerily so.
For a Saturday night?
It’s odd.
Drunk people and pizza usually go together like misery and Mondays.
But now?
Only the low hum of the soda fridge and the faint crackle of the pizza oven keep the silence company.
Another flash of lightning streaks across the windows, and the thunder rolls in hard enough to rattle the glass.
I flinch.
Maybe... noods were the right move after all.
A strange sense of foreboding creeps down my spine, and I step back toward the door.
And that’s when I hear it.
“Back so soon, Daisy?”
I whip around with a startled squeak.
“I… uh… enjoyed the last one,” I stammer. “And pizza sounded good on the way home, in this weather, and since you’re so close to where I?—”
Oh no.
Abort. Abort.
Did I almost tell the suspiciously hot, definitely-too-intense pizza man where Ilive?
He just stands there, smirking behind the counter like he heard it all anyway. Same spot as last time. Different suit, dark gray this time, but paired with a blood-red dress shirt that looks sinfully good on him.
Of course it does.
Because life is fucking unfair.
“Do you want the same as last time,” he says, his voice dripping slow and thick like honey, “or are you craving some new… experiences, perhaps?”
The dip in his tone atexperiencespractically sizzles.
For one unhinged second, I consider saying yes toeverything.
All the new things.
