365 Ficlets - Day #283 ~ "Shadowplay"

Donovan paused to light a cigarette, and then turned back to Fiona as he took a long deep drag and almost immediately lifted his coffee to his mouth and took a huge slug of the searingly hot beverage. She sucked her teeth, rolled her eyes and then took one of his smokes and joined him.

“You know, Donovan, you have a shitty job.”

He laughed, smoke signal staccato issuing forth as her remark caught him off guard.

“Yeah, I know. Thing is, it’s all I know how to do.”

She nodded, trying to simply stay cool and not show that his low, gravel voice was almost sexy enough for her to forget that he was a twice divorced, borderline alcoholic, chainsmoking paparrazo. She wondered if it was his voice and his raw arrogant bravado that meant she had chosen to shadow him, but she quickly banished that behind the convenient fact that he was the highest earning member of his profession in the city that had agreed to even talk to her.

“Don’t you ever get tired of staking out C-Listers and hoping they aren’t wearing panties though?”