Excerpt: A Bad Romance

The house was her sanctuary, her home. She'd lived her for ten years now, in the same town that she had grown up in. The piano in the living room was rarely ever played now, and the stacks of books near the fireplace had been read so many times, the titles had worn off the covers. Lucia no longer wrote, nor painted. She was afraid that she'd lost her creative touch long ago, and never bothered to pick anything up since then. But reading through the different journals and notebooks she had scattered around, Lucia knew that her muse was still out there, somewhere. But little did she know that he would be knocking on the door this very day.

It wasn't until maybe the eighth or ninth knock when Lucia finally pulled herself from the daydream she was wrapped in and glanced around. Jack gazed up at her with an amused look on his face then jumped off of her lap, ready to head inside. Slowly, Lucia gathered her things, as she shook her head gently. "Coming," she called, hopefully loud enough to be heard at the front door. Taking her time to put everything away, she checked herself over in the mirror in the hallway before continuing to the front door. It was a habit that died hard, and one that she had accumulated in her earlier teen years. There was no peep hole to peer through, and being as trusting as she was, Lucia didn't bother to check the window to see who might be knocking at that hour of the morning. Instead, she opened the door, and her jaw nearly hit the ground.

"Ben."