Love at First Fight

The second short story for this blog. Time to mix things up a bit!

Since I gave you all something suspenseful, full of horror and gore, this time I’ve decided to present one of my more feel-good short stories to show I can cover more than just one genre. This story is really short because I wrote it for a flash fiction contest and the max word count was 1000 words. Which isn’t a lot of room to write with.

Still, I think it turned out pretty well and I hope you enjoy it! Please remember to share this with others, credit me if you do share it, leave your thoughts in the comments below, and subscribe if you have not done so. Have fun!

Love at First Fight

“You got everything ready?”

It was a pleasant cloudless evening outside Danny’s Pizza Parlor. Inside, dinnertime was drawing to a close. Couples and families sat at round tables on either side of the large buffet table set in the center of the restaurant. A mouth-watering variety of pizza, pasta, salad, and desserts, regularly refilled by the restaurant employees, ensured that everyone was well fed and happy. Tonight, the majority of the pizzeria’s customers consisted of groups of high school students chowing down on deliciously unhealthy food after a victory by the varsity football team.

With the bustling of bodies, and gossip and discussion between cliques, few noticed the whispered conversation occurring behind a low wall near the back of the establishment. The waist-high wall separated the main body of the restaurant from the small arcade in the back. The arcade was pretty much been abandoned. Most of the video games had been fried by a power surge last month during a thunderstorm.

“Yep,” Cory answered, kneeling behind the wall and setting a plate full of food on the ground. “No one even noticed me walking over here. And they say I’m oblivious.”

Cory was a pale, wiry high-school junior, with electric blue eyes and equally electric blond hair that stuck out in odd directions as if he was hooked up to a Tesla coil. He wore a tie-dye shirt, stained jeans, and an old pair of tennis shoes in preparation for the fight he and Meghan, his former best friend now girlfriend, hoped to experience.

Meghan was a curvy girl with big, hazel eyes and long, bushy brown hair that fanned out around her head like a lion’s mane, and coffee colored skin. She was dressed in a similar fashion to her boyfriend, but she had made sure to cram her mass of hair into an old baseball cap as best she could.

“Great,” she said, quickly peering over the top of the wall, which was about ten feet from the rear of the buffet table, before ducking back down. “You remember the rest of the plan?”

“Of course,” he smirked. “The plan is…don’t get caught.”

“Well, duh,” Meghan snickered, before planting a kiss on her boyfriend’s cheek. “Good luck.”

“You too,” Cory replied, kissing her back before springing into action.

“Springing into action” involved calmly walking over to the buffet table, loading up another plate of food—this time getting the messiest pizza slices he could find, including a slice of anchovy pizza—and slowly scanning the crowd for an appropriate target. His eyes came to on Russell, the star quarterback, who was raucously laughing with his friends at their table. Cory knew that Russell didn’t get insulted easily, which made him the perfect target.

Positioning himself between Russell and Sean, the rebound target on the other side of the buffet table that Meghan had chosen earlier, Cory picked up the slice of anchovy pizza from his plate and surreptitiously took aim. Making a quick mental calculation, he lobbed the slice of pizza over the buffet and right smack onto the back of Russell’s head.

A stunned silence fell over Russell’s table as everyone stared in wide-eyed shock as the slice of cheese, bread, anchovies, and tomato sauce slid from his head and onto the ground. Russell slowly rose from his table and glanced around in disbelief.

Cory meanwhile, had had plenty of time to reload his throwing arm with another slice of pizza and had frozen in an exaggerated pose with his arm held back as if ready to throw it.

When the two boys locked gazes, Cory widened his eyes in mock terror and Russell grinned evilly.

The powerfully built quarterback reached behind him and picked up a large slice of cherry pie. Then, with speed and precision usually reserved for the field, he hurled the confectionery at his opponent.

Cory ducked with lightning speed as the pastry missile sailed past the spot where he’d been and splattered into the back of Sean’s head.

Leaping to his feet and whipping his head around, Sean immediately spied the football player who’d thrown the pie. In retaliation, he chucked his plastic cup full of soda.

Russell ducked and the cup flew over to the next table, splashing a gaggle of girls in a grenade-like manner.

The girls did not take kindly to having their make-up ruined by the sticky sweet liquid and proceeded to throw various food items from their own plates.

Unfortunately, due to rage and the mascara running into their eyes, the girls’ aim was horrible, and they ended up hitting half the people on the other side of the room in their fury.

“FOOD FIGHT!!!” Meghan screamed at the top of her lungs.

The entire pizzeria exploded into chaos. Food flew from one side of the room to the other like artillery from short-range cannons. Pudding, and pastries, and pasta, and pizza sailed through the air and practically repainted the walls.

Amid the mayhem, Meghan scampered from behind the wall and joined her boyfriend hiding behind the buffet table. Together, the two wove through the carnage, lobbing their own ammo and taking minor hits themselves, until they reached the door at the front. The two took one last look at the war they had started, bowed dramatically, and fled out the door, holding hands and laughing as they ran.

“Best date ever!” they hollered in unison.

“I rather like fighting with you,” Cory said, looking at Meghan and grinning ear-to-ear as they slowed down a safe distance from the restaurant.

“You know what the best part of fighting is, right?” Meghan asked slyly. “Making up.” She pulled his hand and drew him into a deep kiss.

Later that night, Cory would lay his head upon his pillow, smiling as he remembered the food fight and the making up. He would sigh contentedly and drifting to sleep, visions of Meghan covered in pudding and pepperoni dancing in his head. Overall, he would think their first fight had gone perfectly.