by J. M. Snyder
Joe comes back from the kitchen, the swinging doors closing behind him, and I tune out the rest of his words as Hoagie himself walks in, a large man of stocky build who just screams deli to me in the way most men like him scream Mafia in the right kind of suit.
Deon steps into the back, lowering his voice to that boyfriend tone I’ve missed since the last guy I dated, and Joe leans across the counter, grinning at his dad. “This is James,” he says, nodding at me. His father smiles the same easy grin his son has. “He’s looking for a job.”
“I just saw the sign,” I say.
Mr. Hoagie plucks it from the window. Holding the red sign in both hands, he looks at it a moment before asking, “You in school?”
I nod. Is this a formal interview? Maybe I should go home and change.
Before I can suggest it, the bossman asks, “You gonna be able to work nights?”
I nod again. Any time Deon’s here, put me on the schedule, I want to say, but fortunately I keep my mouth shut.
He sticks his hand out to shake mine. “Then you got yourself a job, James. I need you here every day at three ‘til close. Just doing the dishes, cleaning up at night, helping Joe with the orders when it gets busy. You think you can handle that?”
“Yes, sir,” I say. I’ve never been hired on the spot before. He mentioned Joe but not Deon. Would it look bad if I asked if he’d be with us, too?
Hoagie Joe’s grip is sure and enveloping, his large hand almost crushing mine completely. “I’ll expect you by three tomorrow, got it?”
I do. I glance back once before I leave, but Deon is still in the kitchen, talking on the phone to that girl I suddenly hate, and I can’t see anything but his jeans from beneath the swinging doors. Joe waves at me like he’s in on the biggest joke in the world and won’t tell me the punch line, and then I leave.
At least I’ll get to see Deon again. But the word sugar echoes in my head the rest of the night, and whatever fantasies I have of him fall aside like crumbled cubes of the sweetener. I remember those eyes and that voice and only in the safety of my apartment can I kick at the wall and wish wish wish it had been me on the other end of the phone.
Sugar. This is going to be one long summer.
* * * *
The next afternoon when I show up for work, there’s a customer in the deli, a girl I recognize from my English class last semester. What’s her name again? I can’t remember. She has pretty auburn curls and wire-framed glasses that hide her large eyes, and she’s leaning over the counter talking low to Joe when I walk in. Joe winks at me and says, “Well, speak of the devil.” I wonder if they’re really talking about me or if it’s just one of those things he says. With him, I can’t tell.
She smiles sweetly at me, making me wonder how much Joe’s already said about me. “Hey, James,” she says. “I’m Marie, remember? We had Irvine for American Lit.”
“I remember.” I can’t see anyone past the swinging doors that lead into the kitchen. Would it be too forward to ask where Deon is? Or even where Joe’s dad might be? I can’t imagine he left a guy like Joe in charge of the place by himself. “What’d you get for your final?” I ask, just to fill the sudden stillness around us.
Marie shrugs. “Ninety-six,” she says. “You?”
I snort derisively. She looks like the smart type. “Eighty-eight.”
She smiles again. “That’s great. So you work here now?”
Jeez. And I didn’t want anyone to know. Me in a deli. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“You do,” Joe confirms, nodding. “Dad hired him yesterday, to help us out at night.”
I notice that us—so Deon will be working with me. Thank you, Jesus. I wonder again where he is now.
“Come on around the counter,” Joe says, grinning at me in that way he has that makes me think he’s laughing at me. “There’s an apron in the back. It’s just you and me until Deon shows up.”
“Where is he?” I ask, trying to sound nonchalant and failing miserably. I catch the glance Marie throws at Joe and wonder just what they were talking about before I came in.
“He had to take Bree to work,” Joe says.
Bree, the girl on the phone yesterday. Did I call that one or what?
Marie slaps him playfully. “Joe,” she warns, but he catches her hand in both of his and leans across the counter to silence her with a quick kiss.
Turning away, I push through the swinging doors and find the apron hung on a nail in the back of the kitchen. As I tie it around my waist, Marie raises her voice and I see her hand wave over the top of the pick-up counter. “Bye, James! Don’t let Joe get to you too much!”
Laughing, I say, “I won’t. Bye, Marie.” When Joe pushes through the doors, I look up from the knot my fingers are tying in the apron strings. “She your girl?”
“Yeah,” Joe says, watching me carefully. “She’s a handful. You guys know each other?”
“From State,” I say. “We were in a class together.”
“So she said.” Joe points at a small sink near the walk-in freezer. “Wash your hands. First thing when you get to work. Remember that. My dad will shit if you don’t wash your hands.”
“Okay.” I turn on the spigot and wait until the water runs hot. He had to take Bree to work… Joe’s words echo in my mind. Bree. The girl who called yesterday while I was here, the girl Deon called sugar. And now he’s running late because he had to take her to work.
So it’s like that, eh? Forget him, James. Just forget him and be glad you got a job, even if you have to work with him for the rest of the summer. You know you’ll ache to touch him, you’ll ache to kiss him, but just forget about him already. It ain’t a crime to look but he’s got a girl. Her name is Bree. He doesn’t need you, no matter how much you think you want him to.
“You hungry?” Joe asks suddenly. When I look at him, confused, he grins. “One of the perks of working here—all you can eat for free while you’re on the clock. You want something?”
Cutting off the water, I dry my hands on my apron and shrug. “Sure,” I say, drifting over to where he leans against a counter lined with open containers of meats, condiments, lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, pickles…everything needed to make the sandwiches listed on the board above Joe’s head.
He turns around and looks over the menu. “What do you want?”
I bite my tongue to keep from saying Deon’s name. “I don’t know. What do you think is good?”
“I like it all,” Joe admits. looking at his sturdy chest and thick waist, I can see that. “You like pastrami? I just finished slicing it. How about a heated pastrami on rye, New York style? You’ll love it.”
Before I can answer, he butters two slices of thick bread and slaps them onto the grill. A sizzle fills the air, and the sharp scent of rye seeds pricks at my nose. Pointing at the menus above us, he says, “The hoagies are on the right—you make them all the same way. The sandwiches are on the left—mostly it’s just mayo, lettuce, and tomato, unless someone wants something special.”
I frown up at the menus. “I sort of got the impression I wasn’t hired to cook.”
“You weren’t,” Joe says. “But sometimes we get a rush and you might have to help out. It’s not too hard. You can dress the buns and I’ll cook the meat.”
“Do what?” I didn’t know a deli had its own damn lingo.
Joe throws a handful of dark peppery meat onto the grill and laughs. “That means you put all the shit on the bread and I’ll deal with the grill, okay?” I nod, still a little confused, and Joe grins at me as he pushes the pastrami around on the black cast-iron griddle with a long, greasy spatula. “My dad says you can never go too heavy on the good stuff. He likes to see a sandwich packed full of meat, hot, thick…”
His voice trails off. The pointed way he’s looking at me makes me think he can see through me, behind my eyes. It’s like Joe knows I’m thinking about Deon, the way he looked so damn gorgeous yesterday, cheeks slightly flushed from standing up so quickly, eyes so bright,
so alive. Am I that transparent?
In a quiet voice, Joe says, “You strike me as the type who likes it like that.”
“Likes what how?” I ask, frowning, but my heart begins to race in my chest. I was right, he knows. I wonder if he told Marie he thought I had the hots for Deon. Fuck, I wonder if he’s told Deon. That grin tells me maybe yes—he said something yesterday after I left, and maybe that’s why Deon is late. Maybe he doesn’t want to deal with me, some cheesy kid coming in here crushing on him like a schoolgirl. I have half a mind to tear off this damn apron and just leave.
But Joe’s more perceptive than I think, because suddenly he’s shaking his head, frowning at me. “Hey, man,” he says softly. I can barely hear him over the grill. “Don’t sweat it, you know? If that’s what you want, then shit, who am I to say? Me, I like girls. I fucking love ‘em. And Marie’s just the greatest. She really keeps me in line. Says she’s gonna make me take some business courses and maybe one day I can buy this place from my old man and run it myself, you know? But if you like boys, that’s cool with me. I know a few guys like that.”
He looks at me again and, my God, I want to ask him about Deon. I need to know. I need to. I’m just about to speak when he asks, “You got a boy?” and the moment is gone.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. When did this easy banter between us turn so damn serious? I pick up a knife and trace the cuts in the counter top with its sharp edge.
“You want one?” he asks, grinning that silly grin again.
The moment bursts around us like bubbles in champagne and I laugh, able to breathe again. “You ain’t my type.”
He laughs, too. “I ain’t talking about me,” he says as he puts the hot pastrami on the grilled bread and sets the hot sandwich down on the counter in front of me.
The bell over the front door tinkles and I hear Deon’s deep voice call out, “Anyone home?”
“Back here,” Joe calls. The way he grins at me makes me wonder what the hell he’s talking about, exactly, as I dress up the sandwich.
* * * *
Joe pushes through the swinging doors and I hear him say, “Hey,” in a low, conspiratorial whisper that perks my interest. Taking a bite of my sandwich, I stare at the counter top and frown, trying to listen. They’re on the other side of the pick-up counter, out of view, but it’s a quiet place and I can just barely hear what they say. “He asked about you.”
“He did?” I feel my cheeks flush at Deon’s words. God, what’s he thinking now? That I’m some kind of perv, I can just imagine it, thinking horrible lustful thoughts at the mere memory of those eyes and those arms and that smile, when he has a girlfriend, he has Bree, for Christ’s sake. “What’d he say?”
“He just wanted to know where you were,” Joe says, and I can picture him in my mind’s eye, that nonchalant shrug, that easy grin. “I told him you had to take Bree to work.”
A groan. “You didn’t,” Deon says, and I take another bite of the hot pastrami in my hand.
“Go say hi,” Joe says. Then, raising his voice a little, he adds, “Marie was here.”
“He’s in the back?” Deon asks.
I can barely hear him over the pounding of my heart in my ears, and the food in my mouth tastes like dust all of a sudden. I swallow it down and try not to choke as the swinging door pushes open and Deon steps into the kitchen, a slow half-smile on his perfect lips. “Hey, James,” he says, leaning back beside the counter.
I glance up at him before taking another bite of my sandwich. His cheeks are pinked from rushing into work, and his eyes glisten wetly. His hand is so close to my own, resting on the counter, and I fight the urge to reach out and brush his skin, just to see what it feels like, just to see if he’s real. “Hey,” I say, flashing him a quick smile as I chew the mouthful of bread and meat in my mouth.
He’s staring at my jaw, watching the muscles work, and I chew slower and slower, watching him watch me. When I take another bite and lick off the crumbs on my upper lip, his own lips part and his tongue sticks out slightly. Then he raises his gaze to mine, and the hunger I see there makes me ache to hold him. Fuck, I cry inside as his smile widens just a little bit more. “That looks good,” he says, nodding at the sandwich in my hands. “You make that?”
“Joe did,” I say. With a sudden giddiness, I hold the sandwich out to him like a peace offering. “You want a bite?”
Those warm eyes meet mine again, then he takes my hand in both of his, catching my fingers against the warm bread. I can’t believe this is happening. He pulls my hand close to his face, his mouth opening, his teeth sinking into the soft sandwich, his lips…oh, God, his lips closing over the tip of my fingers, so incredibly velvety and hot. I can’t look up, I can’t look in his eyes, watching me watch him bite down.
Almost reluctantly he lets go. I feel like I’m falling. I’m waiting to hit the ground, and he just smiles that half-smile at me and chews the sandwich, my sandwich, closing his eyes to release me from the prison of his gaze. “Mmm,” he moans. Jesus, but I go hard instantly at the sound. “This is so good.”
You just wouldn’t know, I think, watching his Adam’s apple as he swallows. I want to kiss his neck and trace the veins that pulse beneath his dark skin. I want him to take another bite. I want to feel his lips again, if only for the briefest of touches. I want…sweet Lord above, but I want him and I want him now. This summer is going to be so damn long—I’ll never make it through alive. “Glad you like it,” I mumble as he licks his lower lip where he touched me. My fingers still tingle at that.
“So,” he says, taking a quick breath like people do when they’re about to change the subject, “has Joe been showing you the ropes?”
I laugh and he smiles again. When I see the way it lights up his eyes, I want to make him smile forever. “He’s a little odd,” I say, lowering my voice. I know Joe’s listening on the other side of the counter. I almost expect him to growl and say he heard me, but he doesn’t.
Deon laughs, a smile pulling at his lips again, and I take another bite of my sandwich because I want to kiss him, taste him, feel him in my mouth, not this bread and pastrami and mayonnaise. “He’s a little hard to take sometimes,” Deon admits, leaning closer like he’s going to tell me a secret.
I can smell the fresh scent of his shampoo curl beneath the greasy stench of the grill. I breathe in deeply, trying to sniff up all of it at once, then I hold my breath, almost afraid to release it and lose the small part of him I’ve managed to get inside me. On the counter his hand brushes against my wrist when he steps closer. I tell myself it isn’t desire I see in those eyes, it isn’t longing, it isn’t what I want it to be.
But it’s hard when he’s so damn close, smiling at me, watching me carefully and talking so low, I have to lean toward him to hear the words. I can’t help but think he’s doing it on purpose. He has to see the way I want him. He has to know…but he just smiles that sly half-smile and says, “You’ll get used to him. Once you get past the brambles.”
Are we still talking about Joe? Because all I’m thinking about is Deon and the way he’s staring at me, the way he’s standing so close, the way he smells. I want to wake up with that scent on my pillows and in my hair and on my hands, every day for the rest of my life. “Yeah, well,” I say, clearing my throat. I’m no longer sure what words are anymore, because all that exists is him and his beauty and I can’t say anything to that. There are no words for that, or for the way I’ve suddenly been sucked into this blaze of lust that threatens to consume me, like a moth drawn to a flame. But we’re talking about Joe—at least Deon’s talking to me. “He seems nice enough.”
Deon laughs again, an infectious sound. “You’ll get use to him,” he repeats. I’m sure I will. I’ll put up with anything if it means I can see Deon from three to nine every weeknight, even if he has a girl named Bree who he has to take to work and pick up in the evenings. “Did he tell you why I was late?”
“Yeah,” I say, finishing up the sandwich. I wipe the c
rumbs off my hands and onto the front of my apron, and I can almost hear him thinking I’m going to ask about her, so I don’t. Instead I frown and look around the kitchen as if his standing right beside me does nothing for my lust-inebriated mind, and I pretend I’m distracted by the grill or the meat slicer or the gleaming steel door of the walk-in freezer, anything other than him and his scent and his coffee-colored eyes. I’m not going to ask him because I don’t want to think about her and him sitting in his car together.
“Her car’s in the shop,” he says, even though I didn’t ask.
I tell myself I can’t stand here and listen to him talk about his girlfriend of all people, not when I’m picturing all the moves he’d make in my arms, beneath me in bed, but I love his voice and I can’t deny the fact he’s talking to me blows my mind. He could be reading the ingredients off a box of Cheerios and I’d hang on his every word.
“She backed into one of those lamp posts at the mall the other day and has to get the fender replaced.”
“Is she okay?” I ask, interested in spite of myself.
“She’s fine,” he says, picking at the chipped counter top, his fingers just inches from mine. “She’s just a little shook up.”
I nod, yes, good. I don’t know her and already I hate her—I want something she has, I want him. I want him to speak of me in such an intimate and easy way.
Looking at me closely, he adds, “I have to pick her up after work tonight. This carting her around is getting old quick.”
I laugh. “I can imagine.” God, I’m Mr. Witty tonight, ain’t I? But my mind isn’t working right now—his closeness sharp is like the knife on the counter between us, cutting through my consciousness until my thoughts are shredded like the lettuce we put on the sandwiches, and I can’t think of anything else to say. I want to ask if she’s his girl, I want to know if there’s a chance for me, even the slightest one would be enough, but I’m too damn cowardly to open my mouth and find out.