Every Tuesday I take a small chunk of something I’m working on – fantasy, mystery, mainstream, whatever… and post it.  No titles, no other info, utterly random.
Y’all can give feedback or not, as you wish.  Or even try to guess what it’s from, if you’re so inclined.  There may or may not be a prize for getting it right.
There will be no prizes for nitpicking typos: all teases are from works in progress, which means typos are a natural side-effect of production.
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As it turned out, Ginny was wrong: Deke Hoban was a stickler for punctuality. He sat at the table in the restaurant they had specified, his hands clenched in font of him, almost white-knuckled, and kept looking up at the clock on the wall. Seth was with him, reading a newspaper as though he had settled in for a long delay.
“We’re only five minutes late,” Tonica muttered under his breath, while Ginny took in the scene. Requiem was an old-style burger joint, faded and ragged around the edges. She got the feeling that it – like much of the neighborhood around it – was primed for gentrification, a slow, inevitable creep. It made her uneasy for some reason, as though the steamroller were aiming at them instead of old brick buildings.
“Man’s under stress,” Ginny retorted, shaking off her nerves. “You’d be pacing and driving everyone crazy, if it was you.”
“I would not.”
“Would too.”
He obviously had the urge to stick his tongue out at her, just to see how low they could sink, but they were pretending to be professionals, now. They bypassed the hostess, who didn’t look too enthusiastic about greeting them anyway, and headed directly for the table. Seth put aside his newspaper, and nudged his friend with an elbow.
All right, I sort of cheated. Â You can probably figure out where this is from, if not the specific book….