When my father died from a heart attack three years ago, my world came crumbling down. As a waitress, my salary hadn’t been great, and my father’s income as a mechanic made up the shortfall on our expenses. His sudden death put an end to my studies and dreams of becoming a chef. Unable to pay the mortgage, I lost the only home I’d known, forcing me to move in with my aunt. An overbearing, cantankerous woman who was hell-bent on making my life difficult. Every morning began with the same prayer. To move out on my own. Unfortunately, as a junior secretary, my salary didn't allow that luxury after giving my aunt most of it.
The cab pulled up in front of Hoyden’s Bar on Sixth Street, drawing me out of my dismal thoughts. I paid the driver and inhaled the salty air. Leighton was a small town located a few miles outside of Manhattan, with a close-knit community and a picture-perfect beach. But due to my aunt’s unsophisticated and, at times, embarrassing behavior, I kept to myself. Only a handful of people knew me. Tightening my jacket against the mid-November chill, I entered the bar. Greeting two regulars, I skirted their tables, reached the corner booth, and dropped into a seat.
The scraping sound of a chair being dragged back, had me looking up to the elegant man with perfect shaped brows and wide plump lips, that smiled down at me. “Hey, sweetie.” He handed me a pair of sneakers. “So, why do you look like you’re carrying the world on your shoulders?” he asked after I’d slipped them on. “Wait.” He lifted his hands up, palms out. “Don’t answer that. Was my mother being her usual bitchy self again?” He sighed, signaling the barman for our beers. Unable to stand his mother’s psychotic behavior over his sexual preference, he’d moved out a year ago, preferring to crash with two friends in their tiny two-bedroom apartment.
“Well, among other things.”
“I’m sorry for leaving you to face her shit alone, Sia. As soon as I hit the lottery, you and me, we’re going to get a place we can call home.” My cousin’s immaculately manicured hands reached over and gave mine a light squeeze.
“I’ll drink to that.” I picked up the beer the barman set down in front of us, clinked it against Ruvash’s, and took a long swig.
“I know my mother is the evil stepmother incarnate, but why does she hate you so much?”
“Because she was the girl, my father’s family took him to see. Arranged marriage and all that. Then he saw my mom and told his mother he wanted to marry her.”
“And naturally, my mother hated your mother for the rest of her miserable life.” He finished for me. I grinned nodding. “I’m pretty sure you mentioned flying to Boston today?”
“I missed my flight.” I grimaced.
His brow shot up. “Intentionally?” Ruvash was aware of my reluctance to travel with my boss.
“It’s been one of those days.” I took another long swig. “My rust bucket of a car refused to start this morning. Your mother moaned at me as usual before I left, not to mention I had to fork out money for a taxi to the airport.” My aunt leased five bedrooms to college students or young professionals who tended to cause plenty of bathroom issues.
“Geez, Sia, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry. It got worse until a pleasant distraction forced me to forget my flight.”
Ruvash wiggled his eyebrows. “Oh, do tell.”
I uttered a low laugh. “You remember those Jimmy Choos my dad gave me before he died.” My father had saved money for almost a year to buy my high-school graduation present. Little did the two of us know it would be the last present he’d give me. He died a month later.
Ruvash nodded. “Yeah.”
“The heel broke.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yep. Distraught, I sat there, refusing to move. Guess I had enough.”
“You didn’t? I mean in the middle of a busy airport terminal,” he said, eyes widening in shock.
“Oh, yeah.” I chuckled. “I just sat there crying and then...” I closed my eyes as an image of those distracting gray orbs swathed my memory. “The most beautiful man I’ve ever met stopped to help me up. God, Ru, he was gorgeous. I’m talking the drop-dead kind. You know those suit model types. I don’t think he’s a model though, more like a businessman—”
“You’re blabbering, sweetie,” Ruvash interrupted my descent into euphoria.
“Anyway, instead of thanking him like any normal person, I kissed him—”
“You what?” my cousin shrieked, spilling his sip of beer in the process. Then, noting the other patron's shocked looks, he lowered his voice while mopping up the mess. “You kissed him?”
Slowly, I nodded. “Don’t ask me what came over me.” Ruvash was usually the airy-fairy flirt when we went out and me. The straightforward serious type. I didn’t do unconventional easily. Everything was always measured, practical, and well thought out. He even called me a bore at times.
“Damn. Sianna Saxena. Little Miss Perfect kissed a total stranger?” He sat back in his seat, stunned by my boldness.
I wrinkled my nose at his usual insinuations. “He was older, distinguished, and someone I wouldn’t normally look at, and certainly not someone I would kiss.”
“And that’s a problem, how exactly?” he scoffed. “Age is just a freaking number. It’s all in the way you handle the package. If the man’s dynamite in bed, who cares.” Ruvash smirked.
“Well, pity I’ll never know, right?
