cold love.

“Shut the fuck up!” she squealed with a smile.

He had just told her that her bangs reminded him of Cleopatra.

The self proclaimed reincarnation of Isis, the Egyptian goddess.

“Except,” he began, “yours are scattered and choppy. So you’re Miz ‘Patra, but only if she were a hot goddamn mess.”

She squinted her eyes and shot him a look.

He began to laugh and sip from his beer when she socked him in the shoulder. Spilling some of his beverage on his long, black, wool jacket.

“Hey.. what the…” he said, squinting his eyes back at hers.

“You always have to ruin it,” she cried.

“Ruin what?”

“You could say the sweetest thing, but then insult me in the same breath.”

“Oh baby,” he put his arm around her and looked into her big green eyes,” I fuckin’ love you.”
“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Prove it… dick.”

“Hey…” he squinted once more.

“Sorry.”

“Let’s you and I finish these beers and leave. Because I know neither of us have money to pay for them. Then let's see if we can dig up some change, huh?”

-

As she walked in front of him her long grey coat danced with the wind and the falling snow.

Her long hair flew around her head in a wild fashion creating tangles and small flurries of black web surrounding her beautiful face.

It was the cold winter nights like this that reminded him of the moment he fell in love with her.

-

“Are you sure we should do this?” she asked nervously, sitting next to him in his old Econoline.

“Baby we gotta eat… and I really want to snag some scratch cards,” he answered her with a nervous smirk of his own.

She sighed heavily.

“And besides, I want us to have a merry little Christmas.”

She smiled.

“It’ll be just like we planned, okay?” he assured her.

“Okay, darling.”

“Hey, do you trust me?”

“I trust you.” Trust was hard for her.

They stepped out of the old van and made their way towards the entrance of the convenience store putting on the ski masks they had shoplifted from a Wal-Mart earlier in the day, two towns away.

Upon walking into the small corner shop, they came upon the clerk who sat behind the counter, and a young couple browsing the beer cooler in the back.

“You grab them,” he told her. “I’ve got the register.”

She slunk to the back to take care of the couple.

He approached the cashier counter, gun raised, clerk unaware.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said with a friendly tone.

The lethargic clerk still had no idea of the young man in front of him, wielding a Colt .45.

She already had the couple face down on the floor, fearing the shiny steel of her Smith and Wesson 38 Special, they weren’t going to make a sound.

The clerk left his face buried in his dirty magazine.

“I said, excuse me sir!” he bellowed this time, finally rousing a response from the clerk.

“The fuck do you want, dude?” the clerk said, before his gaze was locked with the barrel of a pistol, leaving his mouth agape. “Holy shit man, I don’t want no trouble now…”

“Just keep your damn mouth shut and do what you know I want you to do or I’m gonna plaster your fucking face to all those packs of Marbs behind you there.” He said, motioning his handgun to the display behind the clerk.

“Alright, alright alright…” the clerk answered as he began fumbling with his register.

“Baby, how you doing back there with those two!?” he shouted to her.

“Just fine, my dear, just fine.” She called back to him.

He caught her gaze from across the mini mart; those goddamn eyes of her could put a spell on just about anyone.

With his attention across the shop the clerk realized this might be his only chance to get the upperhand on these two thieves. He began reaching for the short barreled shotgun he kept under the counter, slowly as not to distract lover boy from his lover girl. The clerk’s fingers found it’s way to the shotgun and he took a deep breath.

The clerk quickly raised the shotgun, but before he had time to even draw a bead, she sent his face through the back of his skull, all over the Marlboros that were behind him, with her pretty little .38. 

At first he had no clue what had happened. He had been locking eyes with her when all the sudden she capped the clerk behind the counter and a fine pink mist sprayed him in the face.

“Jesus Christ baby! WHAT THE FUCK!?” he yelled. She said nothing. She kept staring at where the clerk had stood, her gun still raised.

He grabbed the sack of cash the clerk had left on the counter and ran over to her and the couple that had been browsing the beer cooler.

“Baby…” he said calmly. “What. The. Fuck.”

She still stare at the counter, arm up holding the pistol.

He gently placed his hand on her wrist and brought the weapon down to her side.

He then carefully grabbed her chin with his thumb and forefinger and broke her attention from the front of the store.

Through the holes of the ski mask he could see her big, green, beautiful eyes begin to well up with large tears like watery, emerald diamonds. She had never killed anyone before.

“I… he was going to…” she started. “He was going to… to… to shoot you, baby.”

He hadn’t known the clerk was going to shoot him, he was too busy staring at her. And at that moment we felt a great, warm feeling well up in his chest.

“I love you…” he told her.

“What?” she couldn’t believe he was saying it.

“I fuckin’ love you.” He said again.

“I… I love you too.” It felt good to say it back.

He kissed her hard on the mouth through the holes in their masks.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

No one was supposed to get shot.

But he couldn’t believe how happy he was that someone had.

He took her by the hand and said, “we need to leave now.”

He looked down at the couple, whom had been face down on the floor for all through all of this.

“Holy shit, hell of a Christmas Eve, huh?”

“Yeah…” the guy was able to squeak out.

He reached into the bag of money and pulled out three hundred dollar bills and stuffed them into the back pocket of the guy’s jeans.

“Merry Christmas.” They told the couple on the ground.

“Merry Christmas.” They said back in unison, still with their faces to the ground.

They took off out the door of the small store, hand in hand, towards his old Econoline.

Peeling the masks from their heads, her hair was swept up by the wind, and her long hair flew around her head in a wild fashion creating tangles and small flurries of black web surrounding her beautiful face.

Freshly rich.

Freshly adrenalized.

Freshly in love.

-

Now they lay in the back of their old Econoline. Sharing a joint and a cigarette.

She sat near a side window, drawing pictures in the steam caused by their love making, while he checked the spoils from their latest liquor store visit.

“We should have enough for the next week or so,” he said to her with a smile.

“Whatever it takes to be with you, babe.” She replied.

He looked into her big, green, sparkling eyes and said,

“I love you.”

And she answered,

“I love you, too.”