I entered a 250 word short story contest. 

My group was assigned the genre of romance, the action of serving dinner, and the word ‘repeat’.

A Three Course Romance

Their first taste of each other mingled with the smokiness of thyme wafting from the dish of mushroom appetizers placed on the table between them. They nibbled along the edges of conversation like tightrope walkers and mirrored bashful smiles. She swirled a stray tendril of sun-soaked hair. He palmed sweaty hands across his thighs. The waiter topped off their glasses of Pinot Grigio, an unbidden ghost. They swapped tidbits from their twenty-three years of life. Their hands rested together on the table like birds in a nest. Two years later, the pastor said, “Repeat after me”.

On their thirtieth anniversary, they sat across the table and simmered in silence. Staring into the abyss of their phones. Kids raised. Mortgage paid. The waiter’s shaggy brown hair and effervescent smile reminded her of a stray dog they’d rescued to fill the echo of emptiness when the kids left. Was it the velvety cream sauce infused with passion berry spice on the chef’s special entrée that unhinged their tongues?”

Maybe we should divorce,” she said.

“Was it something I said,” he replied.

Only the dessert carts squeaky wheel answered.

He ran his crooked fingers over the tears running down her cheek. The waitstaff stood clapping and burbling “Happy Fiftieth anniversary” alongside sunset orange and yellow flames that danced across the brandy and brown sugar-soaked bananas in a silver tray. Why had they waited almost eighty years to try this dessert? They leaned forward, savoring spoonfuls of the sticky sweetness reminiscent of their life.