Jake
All my concerns about pissing Frank off or scaring the shit out of Kitty fly right out the restaurant’s front door when she gasps and bites down on that plump little bottom lip. I think about that lip a lot.
“I look sad?”
“Not right now,” I tell her, my usual bluntness probably sealing my own fucked up fate. You can’t tell a woman this shit and expect to see her again. She’ll probably take out a restraining order on me. “Right now, you look…blindsided. Maybe a little interested.” I want to move deeper into the open doorway, closer to her, but until she says different, I’ll stay right where I am. Holding myself perfectly still, I ask, “Are you?”
She looks dazed. Lost. “Am I…?”
“Interested.”
“I’m—”
A car door slams, jolting her out of whatever spell I somehow managed to cast.
“I’m sorry, this is…I don’t know what to say. I’ve been drinking and it’s a messed up day for me. More than just mybirthday, you know? All this other stuff.” She shakes her head. “Thank you. For your…weird offer.”
“Yeah.” I scan our surroundings, watch the car take off, and look at her, hard. “Go ahead and close up. I’ll keep an eye out.”
“You don’t have to?—”
I sigh. “It’s not a choice, Kitty, I can’tnotwatch out for?—”
“It’s Kit.”
“What?”
“It’s Kit E. Like, Kit Esteban.” She sighs. “The first place I ever waited tables, there were two of us—two Kits.”
“That’s random.”
“Right? Anyway, we were known as Kit R and Kit E. And mine stuck.”
“No shit.”
“So, it’s just Kit.”
“Short for?”
After a second’s hesitation, she tells me. “Katarina.”
The name suits her. Much more than Kitty. Or Kit. “That’s right. Your brother’s real name’s Franco. Y’all are Spanish.”
“Half Spanish, half Puerto Rican. And I was named after a German figure skater.”
I give the quiet lot a quick once-over, tell her goodnight, walk to my truck, and settle in to wait for her to come out the front and lock up.
When she does, she’s got a bright red coat thrown over her clothes. It’s long and cinched in at the waist and it makes her look like she stepped out of the pages of one of the old Louis Lamour books my dad used to read 24/7 in the cracked back booth when he was dying. Like a wild west saloon girl or something.
Which works with the whole vibe of her place. It’s called Parlor. Frank’s never seen it, but he described it to me with impressive precision.
I don’t get the impression Frank’s aware of her current money problems, though. How the hell’d it happen? The restaurant’s obviously doing well.
Something tells me it’s the ex.
I watch her step carefully over the gravel of the lot and pause, about halfway to her VW. Slowly, she turns, scanning her surroundings until her eyes land on my truck. To keep from seeming like a total perv, I flick my lights on and off, showing her I’m here.
When she heads my way, instead of to her car, a new purpose in her step, my breathing revs up.
