I wasn’t far from it. In my memory, all it took was one question and the cash.
She’d be a waitress somewhere, I’d be a mechanic. We’d probably split a year later but stay friends anyway.
That’s how I rewrite it in my head, at least.
But who the fuck knows what would’ve happened for real?
The kid stumbles off into the night, tripping over trash bags until the dark swallows him whole. I’m left standing in the alley with my fists clenched and my head full of ghosts.
Lark. Always Lark. Her laugh in my ear as we tore down the coast, the reek of cigarettes and gasoline clinging to her jacket, the smirk she gave me right before our first kiss.
Rhea’s voice cuts through the fog when I head back inside.
“That didn’t take long.”
She’s wiping down the bar again, but watching me over the rim of a glass. Her eyes flick to my hands, checking they’re not broken or bloodied.
“They’re fine,” I tell her, sliding back onto the stool. “Kid got the message.”
“And you got paid?”
I toss the wad of bills onto the counter between us. “Enough. For now.”
She doesn’t ask if I hit him. Doesn’t ask whatenoughmeans. She just nods, and it charms me. She clearly knows nothing about my world, but she doesn’t make it feel like a big deal.
“Kitchen’s closed in five,” she says, nodding toward the little swinging door. “You hungry, Talon?”
I am. Haven’t eaten since noon. My stomach’s a fist. “Starving.”
“Wash.” She points to a hallway near the bathrooms. “Soap’s by the mop sink. Don’t touch anything that says bleach.”
My grandmother used to press a bar of cheap soap into my palm after I’d been crawling around with the other boys outside.Keep yourself clean, kid. It was one of the promises I broke and kept in equal measure.
Feels nice.
“Yes, ma’am.” I give her a salute.
The mop closet reeks of lemon and something old. I scrub until the water runs brown, then clear. The mirror over the hand dryer is cracked; my face stares back in shards. Ginger hair too long, jaw shadowed, eyes a shade too tired for my age.
But handsome, anyway.
I’ve always been a handsome fucker.
When I return, we’re the only ones here. Rhea slides a bowl across the counter. Steam. Something red, thick, flecked with green.
“Chili,” she says, bracing her hands on the wood like she’s daring me not to like it. “From a can, but I doctor it. Don’t complain.”
“Spicy?”
She snorts. “Eat and find out.”
I do. It burns. A little too much for me. The heat knocks a hole in the frost layered under my ribs. But it’s good.
“Give me your hands,” she says when I set the spoon down. “Let me see, please.”
Please. What a pretty word.
Also… she’s really not from around here. What a weirdo. Why would she ask a man like me for my hands? I know a dozen guys who’d hear that and take it as an invitation to fuck her within five minutes. We’re alone and all.
