Maybe the magic is to blame.
I wonder if I will walk in to find Levi’s son running the store in his place, a whole life lived in my absence—another love blooming, ripening, then withering while I danced on Medusa’s parquet floor. Sadness begins to take root inside me at the very thought.I barely know this man,I remind myself. But it doesn’t seem to matter. My hunger for him has grown, and my knees tremble, a hurricane of butterflies dancing in my stomach. I inhale slowly, grateful I went by my condo to shower first, to wash the grit of the underground, the glitter of Medusa, off me.
I was rude to him. And overly sensitive. Secretive and strange. I have no business coming back here; he has no reason to hear meout. But I haven’t been able to get him out of my head since I last drove away. And a ceaseless nudge inside me says he’s feeling the same.
If I walk back into this store—into his life—I can’t hold back anymore. He said no secrets, no drama. If I step through that door, I cannot be the woman I was with Roger—mousy and accommodating, so flat she’s practically made of cardboard. Levi deserves something real. And for the first time in my life, I think I do too. At the very least, I know I want it.
I pull the folded paper from my back pocket and open it to read once more. On it, I’ve written everything I can remember from the poster. I even attempted a crude drawing of the woman—creature?—in the middle. I did, for the record, google it, but the search results yielded nothing useful, just a bunch of articles on carnivals and kid shows, P. T. Barnum’s circus, and images of Victorian women with facial hair or tattoo sleeves. But Rudzitin’s Pit Show would have to be a local event to be plastered on that wall beneath the city. And that means Levi or his grandfather might know something about it.
But first, I owe him an apology. I just hope he’ll accept it.
Steadying myself, I reach for the knob and pull the door open, stepping inside. It closes behind me with an audible click. His eyes immediately find mine from across the room. They are bluer than I remember, and somehow, greener. Like sea glass.
He stops what he’s doing at the register and walks around from behind the counter, leaving a small line of customers waiting as he marches toward me, a look of severity sharpening the contours of his face, lowering the brows and tightening the mouth, giving him a stern quality that appears wholly out of place on a man as affable as Levi.
My mind wheels through possibilities in the seconds it takes him to reach me, thinking he is going to throw me out. He’d have every right. He’s done nothing but try to help me, and I called him an asshole for his trouble. At the last possible moment, I find thecourage to open my mouth, but he is on me before the words can escape. “I—”
In an instant, I am enveloped by him. Thick arms wrap around me, pulling my chest tight against his, my face into the crook of his neck and shoulder. The smell of his tea tree shampoo floods my nose, the spicy undertones of his skin, like peppercorns and mesquite, causing me to swoon a little. He squeezes me with an intensity I haven’t felt since my father died, and his chest is a broad cuirass I can rest against, the anxiety and overwhelming immensity of the cemetery and the club and the underground moving through me, bubbling out of my pores and shedding in great, white sheets of fear as the tears gather and roll, silvery and silent, down my cheeks.
Something about the past night, about Medusa, has stripped away my defenses, the exoskeleton I relied on to move through the world untouched. I am exposed both within and without, my secrets no longer buried, my armor no longer in place. And everything about this man is tearing at me, begging me to give way, give over. To take him in and not let go. I am hungry for things I cannot name. Things I have no place to ask for. I can feel his hunger too. We are crushed against each other without even words to buffer the feeling that passes between us, an unspoken understanding taking root between our bodies, knitting us together like the seal of a pact.
Finally, he pulls back and cups my face in his warm hands, wiping my emotion away, eyes searching mine. Whatever I had thought to say was lost in the sheer force of his presence, his touch washing it from my mind. I stand there mutely, soaking in the heat of him, never wanting it to dissipate.
“Excuse me.” A shrill voice cuts through our silent exchange. “Are you gonna finish ringing me up or do I gotta do it myself?”
He smiles and I chuckle as he turns to address the angry customer. “Yes, ma’am.” But his hand grabs mine, tugging me in his wake as he returns to the counter, situating a stool for me andimploring me to sit. As if he cannot bear to let me out of his eyeline again.
He rings up four customers before the line is finally gone and the store empties out momentarily. Seizing the break, he rushes over to lock the door and turn the sign toCLOSEDbefore he returns to where I’m waiting on the stool.
“You don’t have to do that,” I find the words to say.
“Yes, I do,” he counters. When he gets to me, his fingertips trace my hairline around to my jaw, and he lifts my chin.
“Levi, I owe you an apology,” I begin, but he stops me with a shake of his head.
“No, you were right. I have no business telling you what to do.”
I press my lips together. “You were just trying to keep mesafe. And I was rude. I can’t imagine how I seem to you, barging in here the last few days with my bizarre questions.”
He smiles playfully. “You seem mysterious, intriguing… maybe a little unhinged.”
I punch his shoulder, but it’s a fair assessment.
He shrugs. “That’s what I like about you, Judeth. I never know what to expect. You’re always a surprise, always interesting. You seem more alive than most people, or maybe just more awake.”
Heat rushes from my feet to my scalp, and I can’t find the words to respond.
“I was so worried,” he says more seriously.
“It’s only been a weekend,” I remind him.
“I know, but after talking about that place—the hospital cemetery—I couldn’t sleep, knowing you’d probably go out there on your own. That something terrible could happen to you. And when you didn’t come in…” He pauses, searching for the right words. “I can’t believe I don’t have your number,” he finally says.
I pull my phone from a coat pocket, unlock it, and hand it to him. “All you had to do was ask.”
He grins and takes it from me, tapping his information in andmessaging himself so he’ll have mine. He sets it on the counter after.
“Really, you have a couple of hours left in the day. I can come back. I don’t want you to lose customers.”
