Eric carried the bowl, a set of chopsticks and a bottle of a local micro-brewed beer through an archway and into his equally retro-styled dining room. The wrought iron and wood-grained Formica dinette set, with its black vinyl-covered chairs, had come with the house. Since the table was easy to clean and the chairs were fairly comfortable, he'd never had any reason to replace the set, but tonight, looking at it made him wince. It was probably a good thing he hadn't invited Lori to come in. His house was a 1970s decorator's nightmare.
He ate his snack in a few minutes, while he glanced through The Evening Star, Kilkenny's small daily newspaper. It was lousy, as usual, with a plethora of spelling and grammatical errors and a severely biased view of both local and national politics, but he'd
