Yeesh, that guy’s self-image issues are leaking into my own.
I tuck my wings back into my sweatshirt, pull my hood up, and head back to the food truck that was making breakfast sandwiches. The guy doesn’t stop his conversation in Farsi on the phone when I show up, just nods and starts laying my regular order out on the griddle.
I’m so wrapped up in my own grievances about my breakfast, staring a little too intently into the truck for when it’ll finally be ready, that I don’t notice the Channel 6 News van parked a little further down the street, nor the cameraman and correspondent duo on the sidewalk just outside it.
“Ellis?”
I turn without even thinking about it and spot Lacey, wrapped up in a gray wool winter coat and a pink pom-pom hat. Her hair is curled and a little windswept, her cheeks are flushed from the cold.
She meets my eyes, and her pink lip gloss mouth drops open in a way that heats my blood. Why does she have to be so fucking adorable?
Lacey turns back around quickly, and that’s when I realize she’s holding a microphone and there’s that camera guy with the wispy mustache behind her, looking at us through the eyepiece.
“Oh, nothing, I just spotted one of my friends,” she says, the wind dampening her words.
It’s just my fucking luck that I run into her again.
Lacey walks over to the camera man, taking the lens with her hand and pointedly leading the camera away from me.
“Uh, I mean, well, yeah. I don’t know what it means when you’re on first-name basis with the supervillain’s henchmen,but...” she chatters nervously, and that’s when I realize she’s on air, talking to the studio. “Uh, back to you, Barb.”
I peek back into the food truck and the guy in there waves me off again. My sandwich has gotta be close to being done, right? Is it worth leaving this one behind?
I hear the impending doom of Lacey’s knee-high boots clicking on the pavement, and then I turn around and startle as she all but appears right behind me.
“Really, Ms. Vigil, this borders on harassment,” I say and gnash my teeth together, pointedly not looking at her. “I said, ‘No comment,’ and you can quote me on that.”
“What?”
Rolling my eyes away from her, and pointedly,point-ted-ly, very firmly not looking at her, I exercise every ounce of my self-discipline.
She huffs. Her tappy shoes scuffle around, placing her in between me and the food truck, the top of her head just barely shorter than the stainless-steel window ledge.
“What do I have to do to get your attention, play damsel in distress?” Her tone is suddenly flat and cold.
“Ms. Vigil wants my attention? No, can’t be.”
“Come on, Ellis. I’m sorry about the other night. I didn’t mean for that to be how it ended,” she says, and then catches the eye of the guy inside the food truck. “Can I get a plain bagel, toasted with butter?”
And now the guy is throwing a pat of butter on the griddle, the slice dissolving quickly into foamy bubbles, tossing her bagel down to toast instead of wrapping up mine.
“I haven’t heard from you.”
“Yeah, it’s, uh, it’s been busy,” I say, stealing a glance at her. It’s a mistake.
Her big brown eyes and false eyelashes catch and hold me. “Seriously, you weren’t going to...?”
I nearly laugh. “What, call you?”
“Hey, come on, that’s not fair.” She pouts.
“You know, you also could have reached out,” I tell her. “You even have my address.”
“Yeah...it’s been kind of hard to leave home unsupervised. After that night, Clayton has been kind of a lot.”
Maybe I am being a dick about this. I nod to the Channel 6 camera guy stowing his gear in the van. “Fine, we’ll talk. But you’re still not getting your interview.”
“Yeah, just us,” she agrees. Lacey’s eyes flick from me to the cart guy as he chooses then to hand us our sandwiches. I can see her holding back a question.
