I stilled. “Wasthat a joke?”
He lifted oneshoulder in a barely-there shrug. “I guess we’ll find out.”
“It makes sense,” Itold him. “Your restaurants aren’t named after ex-girlfriends. They’re stolenidentities.”
His lips twitchedonce, but he held back his smile. My drunken brain convinced me that I neededto see it. That I needed to witness it one more time just to prove that it wasreal. I tried smiling at him, hoping to coax something out of him. But he onlystared at me and then finally thrust my shoes out like he couldn’t stand theidea of holding them for a second longer.
“I presume youdidn’t wear a coat tonight,” he said as way of getting my ass out the door.
With one handpoised against the wall to keep my balance, I bent over just enough to slideeach one on. “My weatherman told me it was supposed to be warm this weekend andI stupidly believed him.”
“Your weatherman saidit was going to bewarmerthisweekend and it is.”
Losing control ofmy motor functions, I reached out and brushed my knuckle over the wrinkledspace between Ezra’s consternated eyebrows. “You’re always so serious,” I toldhim.
He didn’t sayanything for a long time, choosing instead to examine my face, and my dress,and the shoes that had already started pinching my toes again.
Imagining what heprobably thought of me made me shrink back. I wasn’t like the girls he normallydated. Not that I knew what kind of girls he normally dated. But I had to be sodifferent than what he was used to. With names likeLilou,Bianca, andSarita, they sounded exotic, interesting.I imagined long-legged pinup models with perfectly coiffed hair and milliondollar smiles. They would tie scarves around their heads when Ezra took themfor Sunday drives in his red convertible, and smoke cigarettes out of cigaretteholders.
He was basically aCary Grant movie. And I was so different than anything he was used to. Mycheeks flushed for the hundredth time tonight, and I contemplated moving out ofDurham and North Carolina, and possibly the entire continent of North America.
“If I drive, canyou give me directions to your house?” he asked, pulling me from my spiralingthoughts. His voice had pitched low, going extra deep and rumbly in the silenceof the empty kitchen.
“Yes. But you canalso put me in the back of an Uber and I can give them directions too. I’m verygood at giving directions. I can give them to almost anybody. It’s just one ofmy many talents.”
“You’re drunk,” hesaid as way of argument. “I’m not handing you off to a stranger.”
He was driving mehome for my own protection? I stared at him, trying to make sense of his harshwords on the dance floor and his thoughtfulness in the kitchen. “Okay.” Again,I tried to reconcile his generosity. And failed. “Thank you.”
Holding his elbowout to me, he led me through the big steel door and toward his waiting sleek,sporty, super-expensive black car parked in the alley directly next toLilou. It sat beneath a rough garage-like structure coveredin ivy.
“This is your car?”I asked, dumbfounded. There was obviously no way I could ride in it. It lookedmore expensive than my entire life. And I didn’t mean that in an accumulated-assetskind of way. I meant on like a physical, existential,me-plus-my-assets-plus-every-other-thing-about-me-past-present-and-future-plus-potential-catskind of way. This car was insane.
“Pretty, isn’tshe?”
I could only noddumbly.
“She’s an Alfa Romeo,”he told me. “She’s new.”
Holding back asigh, I said, “Of course she is.”That’s AlfaRo-may-o for those of you reading it like Romeo and Juliet.Because this isn’t that kind of story,yo.
Ezra held the dooropen for me and I sobered a little as I slid onto buttery leather. He climbedin a second later and handed me my purse.
“Sorry,” hemurmured. “I don’t know why I’m still holding onto it.”
“Clearly you want arestaurant called Molly,” I teased. “You’re trying to steal my identity afterall.”
He stared at me,his eyes shrewd and investigative. I stared back, brave with liquid courage andunafraid of what he would find. Although I didn’t know what he was looking foror why he was suddenly being nice to me.
“It does have anice ring to it.” Just one side of his mouth lifted. “Or maybe I would call itMM. M’s?Maverick?The thing about you is that thereare just so many possibilities.”
Sliding my tongueover my dry bottom lip, I didn’t know what to make of this sudden sense ofhumor. “Maverick sounds like a sports bar and that doesn’t really seem likeyour type.”
“You say that, butyou don’t really know what my type is, do you?” Before I could respond, heturned back to his new car.
The car purred tolife, rumbling and growling, and making all kinds of sounds I’d never heard acar make before. He expertly reversed out of the alley and then went forwardinto the flow of traffic. For a few minutes, I just listened to the hum of theengine and wondered if I would henceforth compare all other cars to this one—whichwas clearly setting me up for a very disappointing life.
Or a future as astripper.
