His first morning out after being incarcerated for five years, Trevor went to the nearest all night cafe for some real food along with a cup of real coffee.

     It wasn't even six in the morning, yet.

     As he took his first sip of coffee, thick and rich, Trevor got the feeling it'd been brewing all night, loving the fact that it scalded the top of his mouth, he asked, "What's good? Right now. I've got a ten-dollar bill in my pocket. Want to see it? I'll show it to you."

     "Don't do that," said the man behind the counter.

     "What's the best thing you can cook me in fifteen minutes for ten bucks?"

     "Just get out?" the man asked.

     "Not ten minutes ago."

     "No one here to pick you up?"

     "Just me."

     "Drink your coffee. Keep your tenspot, too. I'll cook you up something, all right."

     He must have been in prison himself at one time or another, that's all Trevor could figure, because, ten minutes later, the guy brought out a plate filled with hash browns and a friggin' twelve egg omelet. Trevor didn't think, at first, that he'd be able to eat it all, he figured he'd have to ask for a doggie bag, but, after devouring two thirds of that planet of an omelet, he regretted that he didn't have more to eat, it was so delicious. ​

     And now, twenty years later, in a different dimension, after dancing with Helen for a minute or ten or many, he returned with her to the main dining table to find that exact same omelet waiting for him to dig into.

     No coffee, though.

     Not that Trevor would have had any anyway, not when there was broove around to drink.

     "What do you think about this stuff?" he asked Helen, who sat at this side. 

     Helen leaned over to whisper into her husband's ear, "Every sip gives me a tingle."

     "I know about that, too," Trevor replied. "I'm a little afraid to stand up right now.".

     "I can't stop drinking it."

     "You want something delicious, try this omelet."

     "You waited this long to give me an invitation. That's not like you. For a second there, I thought you planned to eat the whole damned thing all by yourself."

​     Trevor grinned. "I would've, too," he had to admit. He went to spear her a forkful, but she beat him to it with a fork of her own.

     "That is exactly the omelet I've been talking about all these years when I tell that story," he said.

     Helen washed her bite down with a slug of broove.

     "Wow," she said. "That is so good, it takes my breath away." She cut the omelet in half, then used the knife and fork to transfer half the omelet over to another plate.

     "Hey!" Trevor yelped.

     "You can't eat all of that. I'm doing you a favor." She pointed to the stairway leading up. "Look. Who's that with Abby and her daughters?"

     "I'll bet it's their husbands."

     "Where did they come from?"

     "We're way past those kinds of questions now, right?"

     Cole marched up to them.

​     "Take those sunglasses off," Trevor said. "There's no reason on Earth to have to wear them here."

     Cole made no move whatsoever to remove his sunglasses.

     "I've cased the place," he said. "I perceive no immediate threats."

     "Good to know," Helen said. 

​     "I can't get outside, though. It's like this place doesn't have an outside. Hey, where'd you get those eggs? That looks good."

     "You can't imagine."

     "Give some up. I'll grab a plate."

     "Sorry, Cole. It's a spiritual thing. It's essential that I eat every bite on this plate all by myself. Ask Claudia. I'm sure she'll get you an omelet just like this one if you ask nice."

     "If I ask for something, it's not going to be eggs."

     Trevor held up his mug of broove. "Try any of this stuff, yet? It'll knock your socks off."

     "I like my socks right where they are. I'm thinking blackmail."

     "Blackmail?"

      "Bring us here. Dope us up and get us to act like fools. Next thing you know, everyone's threatening to put us on You Tube."

     "We haven't got the kind of money anyone would want to blackmail us for," Trevor said.

     "The Forwarders do. Anne Wells?"

     "Oh, you." Helen said.

     Abby's group reached the bottom of the stairs, and Trevor called out to them, "Hey! Over here!" Please don't leave us with only Cole for company, he thought. "Come sit with us!"

CONTINUE