Derrick Brown stuttered when he spoke, syllables and consonants bouncing on the backs of his teeth like rocks.

Talking to people made him sweat, so he avoided it at all costs. It only made matters worse when the offending conversationalist was pretty, blonde, and looking at him a little too directly.

Mary was her name. Mary was saying something now, expecting a response…

”...ing we could pry it out.”

Derrick blinked. No clue.

“With, like, a crowbar.”

It came back to him all of a sudden… he was at work. In a grocery store. And he hadn’t heard most of Mary was saying because he had been lazily drowning in her eyes.

She seemed to want help getting an unknown quantity unstuck from a vague whatever-she-had-been-saying. He didn’t mind, though… he would do anything she wanted. He considered it his duty, although the paychecks seemed to be tied to his regular stocking of shelves.

It couldn’t be that bad, after all. There hadn’t been any dragons in the store since March.