Excerpt: See Jane Run

Cici just rolled her eyes, though the other two girls could not see that. “Bartenders are very eager to sleep with you when they find out you are rating their performance as a bartender. They want to show that they deserve that five star rating, inside and outside the club,” Cici said. It was Jane’s turn to roll her eyes, sighing slightly.

“Thank you for that, Cici. Can we just start walking now?” Jane asked, glancing at her watch.

Cici clicked her tongue, shaking her head. “Someone sounds a little testy today. Did things not go as planned with Mister King Henry?” she asked, beginning their walk down the brick path, a teasing tone to her voice, Jane throwing her own glare at her.

“King Henry? His name was Dave though…” Laura trailed off, clueless.

“Oh, his name is Dave. David Seymour to be exact. Which poses a problem for our Little Janey here. Go on, J, tell her what you told me,” Cici smirked, Jane boring a hole into Cici’s forehead from her death glare. It was a conversation that was supposed to stay private! She forgot thought hat Cici happened to be the worst secret keeper this side of the Mississippi.

Jane took a deep breath, looking over at Laura. “Well, his last name is Seymour, right? Well, I got to thinking a couple nights ago, and I was thinking out loud because I was stupid enough to point it out to Cici though and ask her to keep it private. But, if Dave and I were to get into a steady relationship that one day led to marriage, I would have taken on his last name of Seymour. I would have become Jane Seymour. And something like that just felt like a bad omen to me…” she trailed off, her words becoming a series of mumbles.

“Oh, Jane! Please do not tell me that was the reasoning for breaking up with him! He was such a nice guy. I know him from church!” Laura exclaimed, clearly disgusted by the revelation, and how much importance a silly name held to Jane.

“No! It was not the reason. It just got me thinking about everything else, where a relationship would get me with Dave, besides the name Jane Seymour. And, I don’t know, it was all downhill from there,” Jane sighed. She really did think though that the name Jane Seymour was an awful bad sign. Jane was a superstitious, and with all the bad things that tended to follow her around, she did not want to tempt fate with a fatal name like Jane Seymour. Jane Rigby was bad enough, and look where that got her! Alone, for the rest of her life.

“Did you tell him about the name?” Cici asked, clearly amused and desperately hoping the answer was ‘yes.’

“No, everything went as planned, but I’m still not particularly proud about how all of this ended up, name or not,” Jane admitted, knowing these were two people she could be completely honest with. “I mean, from the beginning, I never wanted to date him. He was such a nice guy, and I wanted to like him so much, but there was nothing there. Nothing at all. He seemed so ready to build a steady relationship with me, and I just cannot help but just, shove him away before that can happen,” Jane said, messing with the ends of her scarf, as she was trying to sift through the mazes of her mind.

“We knew most of that already, J,” Cici said, shrugging.