Stoney Brook

The night was long and dark, Shelby stared up at the full moon, while standing on the rocks by the bluff. The only light in sight was the one coming from the old lighthouse on the bay. Shelby wasn't sure why that ole light was still burning bright because there hadn't been a ship come through there in almost a decade. But for some reason Scott kept it lit, Shelby thought that it was probably to keep his fathers tradition going.

Shelby didn't much care because she kept to herself. She worked from home running a marketing firm by herself. The only time she left the house was to shop for groceries and she did that once a month, so she didn't run into too many people. But for some reason Scott, yes the one and the same keeper of the light, continued to try to have a conversation with her every time he saw her. But to no avail, Shelby just had no desire to interact with anybody. Although she did suppose that that is what normal people do. Though she had no desire to be normal if it meant talking to people all the time.

Shelby Kirk was a big time marketing executive, in fact she owned her own business by the time she was 20. And was one of the biggest and most sought after marketing firms in the country. She only had one assistant that helped her and that was her best friend from middle school, Kristian Sharp. Shelby trusted her and didn't mind her company since they were best friends so long. So Kristian meets with their clients and Shelby does all the campaign and advertisement work. This makes it easier on Shelby because then she doesn't have to deal with the clients. Shelby truly is an introvert. Shelby absolutely abhors dealing with people everyday, that's why thank god for Kristian and her great people skills.

Shelby trained for all this but because she spends most of her time inside alone, even attending school online to get her degree. But she has built her firm and has a substantial amount of big influential clients. These clients have built their empire on her marketing skills for building their campaigns.

Shelby is great with creating ads and the campaigns that go along with them. She finds the right people for the ads and Kristian deals with the people and phones from there. But that was just fine with both of them. Shelby trusted Kristian with her life and vice versa. Kristian would make her way through the city traffic, and up to Stoney Brook the tiny little island that Shelby's house sat. Stoney Brook only had three houses on the island. That is partly why she chose to build there, that and she knew that it was only a forty five minute drive to and from the city. The other two houses belong to none other than Scott. Who lived in one of the houses, and the other belonged to his father. After his father passed a few years back he didn't have the heart to sell it. So it remained empty. Shelby also liked that there was only one road leading to the city. This made for just about no traffic, and the only other traffic was from passing by boats.

Since Kristian was so close to Shelby she felt that this had earned her the right to tease Shelby about her dating life, or lack there of. Shelby would always tease back that she lived her dating life through Kristian's date recaps, usually the morning after. Although Kristian almost never had a second date with any one. Except Andrew Lofton, or Drew for short. The two had met at a cafe last year, and Shelby thought that this may wind up being Kristian's it guy. But the short lived relationship only lasted two months. Then Kristian called it off with him because she felt he was getting too serious too fast, and was being much too clingy for her liking. So she pulled her favorite move, Kristian would ghost them on the phone and then have Shelby call them and give the poor sap a story about why it would never work between the two of them. Shelby had become so good at breaking up with Kristian's would, be suitors that she joked about writing a book one day. They both always got a good laugh about that one. On the rare occasion that Scott would join the girls for dinner at Shelby's house he would join in the friendly banter, in telling the girls that there was no market for that sort of thing. Shelby would chuckle and ask Scott how he would know such a thing since he seemed to date as much as she did.

Kristian thought that Scott and Shelby were kindred souls, since neither of them liked to be around people much. They much rather be alone than anybody by their side. She didn't much understand it either. But she knew that Shelby had lost everyone in her life except herself so she put up walls and was afraid to get too close, for fear of losing someone else. Kristian had a feeling that it was the same for Scott. She knew better than to push the issue with Shelby, because it would just end up in a losing battle. Just the same Scott knew how far he could pester Shelby about dating before she had enough. But he secretly hoped that Shelby would one day change her mind. But he knew that he was also alright if she didn't. He knew as long as they were the only two on their little island with his light house that he would be good, with whatever life sent his way.

Shelby woke one Friday morning and was drinking her coffee, going over her list for when she went to the city later that afternoon, because Scott and Kristian would be over that night. Staring out her big bay window as she did every morning, she noticed numerous boats in the bay, more than usual. As a matter of fact there were about four more boats than there would be any other day of the week. Shelby was thinking that there could be nothing good coming from that. Shelby went to her laptop to read over the morning news, to see if there was anything in there that would explain what she was seeing. But there was nothing out of the ordinary there, nothing that she could see anyway. She tucked it away at the back of her mind and didn't give it a second thought. Shelby finished up the few things she had to do that day, and got dressed to go shopping at the market in the city. She had about three hours until her friends would arrive, so she took the chance to do some extra shopping and pick up a few things she had been thinking about buying the last few times she was in the city.