Blue Dream (Kreuzberg Dragonshifters Book 1) #Wattys2016

Blue Dream Part 2

Paul made his way glumly from out of the Luzia bar later that night, shoulders slumped and head drooping beneath the weight of his own disappointment. His soul felt flat and mind listless; the date had not been as successful as he'd tenuously hoped for since leaving his flat earlier that evening. Even up to the last minute, he'd been quietly debating whether or not to even show, then decided that the least he could hope for was a decent meal, and a free drink into the bargain, if nothing else.

The bar itself had been nice, and one he'd visited on occasion before. Johannes had been easy to find, sitting at the bar with the proposed pre-arranged single Black Baccara rose laid in front of him as an identifier. Paul had approached him, introduced himself and straight away felt as though he fell short of the man's expectations. Johannes' eyes had raked Paul's body and his lips had pursed in dissatisfaction; he'd even had the cheek to state that he'd thought Paul would be taller, as though anything less than that was undesirable.

Paul had sighed and put a brave grin on things, yet found himself floundering when the conversation inevitably turned to vocations. Johannes, it turned out, dealt with computer programming and was something of an inveterate snob; when Paul revealed that he part-owned a comic-book store, Johannes had all but sneered and called comic-books the reading matter of children and nerds. He'd also looked at Paul as though he couldn't decide which he was - a child or a nerd. Paul had felt himself bristling and only the timely arrival of the barman had deterred him from walking out of Luzia right then and there. After that, the conversation had turned distinctly even more sour and stilted, both men discovering that their music tastes were so diametrically opposed as to be actually laughable - Paul's preferred choice of punk and metal music clashing horribly with Johannes' operetta and high-brow classical. Whilst Paul could appreciate a little of Strauss and even Bach on occasion, it seemed that his preferred tastes of Metallica and The Ramones was met with something akin to outraged disgust by Johannes.

The night had grown progressively worse and Paul was glad when the night ground to a close, and he was able to finally leave, to push the memory of the bad night far behind him, where it belonged. Before actually leaving, he'd mutually agreed with Johannes to never see each other again, and Paul, himself, was glad of it.

Paul slipped behind his wheel of his car, glad for the fact that he would be able to drive home with the Ramones blasting upon the stereo to calm his frayed nerves.He grinned as he thought of Johannes' face should he have heard 'Sheena was a Punk Rocker', or 'I Wanna Be Sedated' blasted at full volume from Paul's car stereo.

"No doubt the stupid twat would have had a coronory," Paul muttered to himself as he eased the car out from the parking space he'd left it in earlier in the evening and angled it out into the street.

The traffic itself was light that night, and Paul allowed his mind to drift as he drove along, hands and feet automatically finding the levers and pedals, as he signalled, and manouvred his way through Berlin streets towards home. As such, he wasn't paying close enough attention to the road, and he bowled someone over, just as he slowed down to take a left turn.

He felt the bonnet connect with something solid, saw the oval of a pale white face suddenly reflected in the car's headlights, and a solid, almost sickening thunk only heard afterwards in retrospect. He skidded to a halt mere millimetres away from running the guy over again, and he sat in shock, heart hammering away in the trappings of his chest; it took Paul a while to realise what had happened, for his brain to catch up with his body. He slipped from behind the wheel, hands shaking almost uncontrollably, mind whirling with panicked thoughts, as he knelt beside the fallen man, who seemed not to be moving. He also was laying beside two hefty suitcases, which made Paul feel inexplicably worse; the guy must have either returned from holiday, or was potentially leaving for one.