BLOGWORDS – Wednesday 27 August 2025 –WRITING WEDNESDAY – DOUBLE DOUBLE WHO’S IN TROUBLE – JERE and MERE’S FIRST DATE

BLOGWORDS – Wednesday 27 August 2025 –WRITING WEDNESDAY – DOUBLE DOUBLE WHO’S IN TROUBLE – JERE and MERE’S FIRST DATE

WRITING WEDNESDAY – DOUBLE DOUBLE WHO’S IN TROUBLE – JERE and MERE’S FIRST DATE

 

 

* cover reveal Friday 5 September

 

 

JERE and MERE’S FIRST DATE

      Our date was phenomenal. I splurged and took her to Yakiniku. It’s the fanciest place I could think of. One of Mom’s boyfriends had taken us there, all of us, to celebrate something, I don’t even remember now what. Me and Jord figured out later he was after one thing and that’s one thing Mom wasn’t sharing.

      Still, I knew about the place and I knew it would make an impression—wait! I didn’t want Meredith to get that impression. Would I like to sleep with her? Absolutely. Was I willing to ruin a good thing by jumping the gun? Absolutely not.

      It was chilly still—it was March, after all, even if it was the 29^th—especially being evening and especially since the restaurant was in Silver Falls in the mountains. Did I mention Merida and Covington are in the foothills?

      I couldn’t exactly pick up a date on my bike, even if it was a Harley. So I borrowed Mom’s blue Lexus—a birthday gift from Jeff; she’d never indulge herself like that.

      For two people who had talked so much in the past week—had it only been a week?—we were suddenly gun shy and quiet. I popped in a CD of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto #1—yes, I know classical music, and yes I like it. Meredith seemed to like it, too. She told me later it had been her recital piece when she was fifteen.

      Whatever barrier had kept us from talking in the car suddenly disappeared once we were seated. We ordered appetizers and our meals. Discovered we both love futomaki.

      She asked what our wildest prank, well twin prank, had been. I told her about the bike race and asked what hers and her sister’s was. She reminded me her sister’s name was Bethy, short for Elizabeth, and told me to call her Mere. Nobody called her Meredith, she said.

      “It’s not a prank, exactly, but it kept us from doing any pranks for two years.”

      She told me about the year they were in seventh grade and she had to get braces. Bethy got glasses—they wouldn’t let her get contacts. They had been swapping places in some of their classes, but with the braces and glasses, they weren’t able to pull it off. It was the two most miserable years of her life, she said.

      Our server, Miko, brought our food and Mere reached for my hand.

      I hesitated, but didn’t want to object. Didn’t want to do anything to make her not want to see me again.

      So I took her hand and she prayed.

      “You do that so… You make it sound so easy.”

      “What? Prayer?”

      “Yeah, like… like you’re really talking to a person.”

      “It is.” She looked at me like she could see straight into my soul. “I am. Talking to a Person.”

      The restaurant was nearly empty and we were still talking, and drinking coffee. I paid the bill—left a whopping tip for Miko, too—and came around to ease Mere’s chair back. Then added another twenty-dollar bill on the table.

       I explained that my mom used to wait tables.

      It didn’t seem like Mere wanted to leave yet, and I know I sure didn’t. The temps had dropped pretty low, in the 40’s at least, but we headed along the path that went around Lyon Lake.

      We made it to the upper Lyon River and I had to get this off my chest. I cleared my throat and I could see the apprehension in her eyes.

      “Look,” I stammered. “I don’t know why you even talk to me. Don’t get me wrong, this evening has been amazing. This whole week has. But… You don’t know me, not really. You don’t know what I’m like—what I used to be like. Things I used to do…” My voice faded and I turned to look out over the water.

      “Jeremy, look at me.” She held my gaze like a tractor bean. “What I see is an amazing man. The way you shower Madi with love. Cora, too. I watched you at the cookout last fall at your mom’s and I couldn’t believe what people were saying. I admire the way you’re working to change all that, to make your life better. Not everyone can do that. That takes courage and strength.”

      I looked at her then turned away again.

      “Jeremy.” I turned back and couldn’t look away. “I don’t know what all you’ve been through. Bethy and I have amazing parents. Daddy has always been there for me. I mean, heck, we work together. He inspired me to study architecture— I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… What I’m trying to say is I can’t imagine what it was like for you. Growing up without a dad has to be the saddest thing in the world.”

      I fell in love in that exact moment. She couldn’t know what her words meant to me. I took her face in my hands, caressed her cheek, and leaned in. She didn’t pull away. In fact, she leaned in, too.

      The kiss started slow, unsure, then deeper—she was kissing me back.

      I pulled back, searched her eyes, questioning, probing.

      Then she kissed me. If I never kissed her again, that one perfect kiss would last me a lifetime.

 

 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“I’ve always had voices—er, stories in my head. I once said I should write them all down so someone could write them someday. I had no idea at the time that someone was me!”

 

My stories are deep and dark, my characters raw and real, with a healthy helping of hope and joy, humor and laughter, and abiding and sustaining faith.

My characters struggle in some way for their identity. Their stories are their journey to know who God created them to be.

There is also a strong element of friends, family, and faith in all my stories, and the difference it makes to have such a support system.

 

 

·       unsavory heritage series—seven generations, from Cissy to Connie, each with their own secrets, one of which is ugly and unsavory, and initiates the curse they all bear

·       Seasons series—four friends, each one struggling to know the truth of just what happened when one of them plunged into the depths of the black waters of the Edisto River

·       FourSquare – Four stories about four couples who also happen to be four sets of twins.

 

 

“Maybe you have to know the darkness to truly appreciate the light.”—Madeline L’Engle

 

“There is freedom waiting for you on the breezes of the sky. And you ask, What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?” —Erin Hanson

 

#Blogwords, Writing Wednesday, Robin E. Mason, Current Work in Progress, #WIP, Double Double Who’s in Trouble, FourSquare Series Book 2, Jere & Mere’s First Date, #FourSquare, #twinfiction, #twinsmarryingtwins, #twinconflict, #fictionwriter, #battleforidentity, #cominginAugust, #amwriting, #amediting, #fictionwriting, #faithfiction