Page 23 of Chosen By the BRATVA Grump

“Two men, a bolt cutter, ten feet of garden hose, two drums of solvent, and a key cut for your back gate.” He says this in exactly the same voice he used for the parking lot. “Water under your door overnight and up through that floor. Old building, old pipes, bad luck. The solvent was in case you turned out to be insured.”

I think about my floor. I sanded that floor myself over nine evenings with a machine I hired from a man who told me twice that ladies usually get somebody in.

“Where are they now?”

“Mechislav is finishing up with them and their boss. Johansson is signing the laundry and the lot over to Federov Freight this week for what he paid, and the option he’s got on the corner unit will lapse in November without a word from him.” A pause of about half a second. “I poured the solvent over his car.”

“You poured solvent...” I put the receipt down, “on his car?”

He nods. “Right there on the hood.”

There is a version of me that has a serious ethical objection to all of this, and I fully intend to go and find her later.

“And my painting? Why does a man like that want a painting?”

“Possibly as a way to garner trust with you before pressuring you out. Or to launder money through.” He looks down the length of the room at the long wall.

I get off the stool, walk to the painting and stand in front of it.

“Then put your own name on it,” I say, with my back to him. “You paid for it and you kept it out of a crate. I’ll do you a condition report and a provenance letter and have it couriered wherever you want when the show comes down.” I begin gathering the papers up.

“But I bought it for you,” he says simply.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t have a ring.”

I turn around. “What do you mean you don’t have a ring? What’s a painting got to do with a ring?

“Because it’s an engagement gift. Usually men give rings, but I don’t have a ring, so my engagement gift to you is the painting.”

He drops to one knee in the middle of my floor, with the track lighting doing something devotional to the top of his head, and both of his enormous hands empty on his thigh.

“There’s no ring,” he says.

The laugh comes up out of me before I have any say in it, and it arrives with tears attached, which is apparently what my face does now.

“Okay,” I say.

“You’d want to choose it. I’ve seen what you did to the front of this building.” He doesn’t move an inch. “Kimmie. Marry me?”

“We have known each other for four days.”

“I’ve known you for more like three months.”

“Two and a half.” I wipe under my glasses with the heel of my thumb. “You realize that a sensible woman would want to think about this.”

“Then think about it.”

“Absolutely not.” I’m already moving. “Yes. That’s the answer, it was always going to be the answer.”

He catches me on the way down, which is fortunate, since I have arrived at him with more velocity than planning. He stands up with me off the floor entirely and kisses me until my glasses go crooked.

“Right.” I get my feet back under me. “Keys. Shoes. We’re going over the road.”

I make it out onto the sidewalk with the door swinging behind me and the keys still in my hand. He takes them off me, locks up properly, and hands them back.

The bell over the Purr & Pour goes and the warmth hits me in the face, warm chocolate and coffee and hot milk. Lucifer is up on the till where he holds court. Delilah is behind the counter with Sammie beside her and Lilah in the high chair at the end, methodically destroying a piece of banana. Daisy from the paper is at the corner table with her laptop and a coffee she stopped drinking an hour ago. Bill is by the window with the crossword.