I’m dedicating today’s post to the Honda Corporation. Thanks to a recent recall made on my Pilot, I’m able to participate in the latest Trifecta Weekly Challenge.  Until this morning, I had resigned myself to the fact that I would be sitting this one out … until … I had to wait so long in the ‘customer lounge’ for my shuttle ride home.  So, here’s what I was doing while the lady on my left watched The Price is Right and the guy on my right read NASCAR Illustrated. You be the judge as to which one of us made the best use of his or her time.

RULES: All entries must be between 33 and 333 words and need to include the following word using its third definition (both listed below).

scan·dal noun \ˈskan-dəl\

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Against the Grain

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He checked his wrist watch and fidgeted in his chair. “We need to get started,” he thought, worriedly. “Where is she?” He scanned the crowd and, still unsatisfied, stood to get a better view of everything.

Then he saw her.

“The last one here, as always,” he smiled to himself, as he watched her walk down the long aisle to take her usual spot in the third row. His eyes stayed fixed upon her as she glided into her seat.

He couldn’t really pinpoint what first created the spark. She seemed to have a radiant glow all about her. He wondered if anyone else could feel her warmth and light. He caught himself smiling in her direction, lingering a little too long on her face, when her eyes met his directly. She returned his smile, waking him from his trance and forcing him to divert his attention to the other faces around him. He made sure to offer them the same enthusiastic demeanor so as not to arouse any suspicion.

How had he let it continue for so long? Nearly three years had passed since he’d first arrived and been introduced to her. And each week he excitedly anticipated being able to see her again, all the while trying to maintain his secret. And seeing her now, he knew that it had been far too long. Today he would make his move, no matter what the consequences, to determine if her feelings matched his own. It was a risk that could gravely injure him and would forever brand him as a scandal to his vocation. But the suspense would surely kill him sooner.

He smoothed the emerald green stole on his shoulders and approached the pulpit to greet his congregation, comforted in the fact that today’s mass would be his last.

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