Better Than a Dating App

by V.S. Kemanis

About the Author: Short fiction by V.S. Kemanis has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, online at Mystery Tribune and Kings River Life, and in anthologies The Crooked Road Volume 3, The Best Laid Plans, Me Too Short Stories, and Autumn Noir. She has published six standalone legal mysteries in the Dana Hargrove series. Her five collections of short fiction are all award-winning or nominated.

Excerpt

Home about eight, tired and hungry for breakfast. Had a good night for once. First thing I see, my suitcase on the porch. I step around it and push my key into the lock. Doesn’t work. Go ’round back, can’t get in.

I’m not the kind to yell or bang on the door. Won’t curse or make a scene for the neighbors’ entertainment. Around front again, I give the suitcase a shrug and walk away without it. Whatever she stuffed inside won’t do me any good, wherever I’m going. Haven’t got a plan, but sure as hell won’t be anything like L.A. I’m done with this town.

The car is hers, I’m on foot. My first step leads to the next along this low rent block of single-family stuccos, a bygone fifties nuclear family dream. Dusty patches of lawn, diamond wire fences, weeds cracking the sidewalk. Before calling an Uber, my finger hovers over her number. Nope. Won’t do that either. Call and text and call and text. I’m well rid of her, making what I’ve got only better: a fat roll in my zippered security pocket. For once, had a very good night, but she’ll never know. I would’ve given her a chunk of this. And more. The best of me. But she’ll be missing out, and that’s good enough for me.

To hell with Dena. I’ve had it with her. Had it with L.A. I order a car for the airport.

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