“Well, I need to get to work. Try to pay more attention to your surroundings and don’t get yourself killed.”
A toothy grin carves on my face. She doesn’t want me to die. That’s something.
“Next time you see me, I’ll be alive. Promise.”
The gust of breath she exhales isn’t quite a laugh, but it’s maybe … a quarter of one? At least? I’ll take it.
She walks off in one direction, and I start running again in the opposite one, trying to find my roommates.
The temperature hasn’t risen a bit, but with the memory of Carmen’s laughter fresh in my mind, I don’t feel cold at all.
5
CARMEN
My aunt Cindy lives a couple blocks away from Last Word. In this area of the small town, the density starts to thin out a little bit, the shops and rowhomes tapering off into more single-family houses with yards.
Cindy has a gorgeous one. It’s roomy but not huge, with a beautiful wraparound porch. She doesn’t have much of a front yard, but makes up for it with a sizeable backyard, where a gravel driveway leads to a two-story garage. A couple years ago, Cindy renovated the second floor into a small but comfortable one-bedroom apartment. She was thinking about renting it out, but with how busy the café keeps her, she never got around to doing the paperwork and legwork to put it on the market.
I like to think that even without Cindy’s help, I’d have found a way to make it on my own while taking this gap year. But it sure as hell would have been a lot harder.
The only convenience that the apartment above the garage lacks is its own washer and dryer, so to do my laundry, I traipse over to Cindy’s place.
Which is where I am right now, folding the last sweater of my load.
When I walk up the stairs from her basement, I hear her front door open.
“Honey, I’m home!”
The voice that booms through Cindy’s first floor is familiar, but the words coming from it sound utterly out of place.
It’s Kazu, Cindy’s boyfriend. He owns Chiyoda Ramen in Cedar Shade, a place that makes such good food that even his infamous personality doesn’t drive the customers away. Most people would call him antisocial and rude.
Actually, most people would just call him an asshole. I’ve overheard plenty of students and residents call him exactly that in snippets of conversation that have twittered into my ear while working.
But the few people who get close to him know better. Yeah, heisgruff and terse. He has no interest in small talk or social niceties. In short, he’s my kind of guy. And underneath it all, I know he’s kind and loyal to the people he cares about.
And he cares about my aunt Cindy a lot, and he treats her right. For that, he’s one of my favorite people.
But he’d never have used the voice I just overheard if he knew I was walking up from the basement. He’s reserved, and I know he only lets that lovey-dovey side of himself out when there’s only one woman around to see it.
I walk into the kitchen to see Kazu pulling my aunt into his arms with a debonaire look on his face, the dour chef morphing into a Casanova when he thinks he’s alone with Cindy.
He catches sight of me in his peripheral vision, and his mood switches. The usual stiffness comes back into his wiry frame, and the provocative glint in his eyes dims. He takes a step back from my aunt, an air of embarrassment about him.
He nods toward me. “Carmen.”
I nod back. “Kazu.”
My aunt, who doesn’t have a bashful bone in her body, tucks herself against Kazu in defiance of his reserved nature. She brushes her hand over his chest. Kazu’s face advertises the struggle he’s going through. He clearly doesn’t want someone else to see him in a moment of affection. He also clearly doesn’t want Cindy to pull her hand away.
“At least he didn’t jump ten feet back this time,” Cindy says to me with a teasing grin on her face. “He’s slowly learning to let other people see that he does have feelings like a normal human.”
Kazu lets out a low, exasperated groan.
I tilt my laundry basket demonstratively. “I’m just taking my laundry back to my place. I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Wait,” Kazu says. “I brought you dinner, too.”
