"Jesus Christ," she said, raising one eyebrow. "Anything else?"
I raised an eyebrow. I had to try again, didn’t I? "One more date with you."
She made exasperated sound and threw her notepad on the counter.
"No," she said. "I told you no, and I'm telling you no again. No."
I felt a sinking in the pit of my stomach. I said I don't have problem with rejection. I guess I hadn't realized just how much I liked Miriam.
"Was our first date really that bad?"
In response, she picked up her order pad and pen, turned her back on me, and walked back into the kitchen. I heard the short order cook say something to her, and she said something back, her voice slightly louder than his, angry. I couldn't make out what she said, and I was glad of that.
A few moments passed and then she came back out. She stood in front of me, her face red, her brown eyes on the counter. "It wasn't really a date," she said
At least she was talking. I turned my grin on her. That worked, like, sixty percent of the time. Girls tended to like my dimples.
"I see your point. First dates usually wind up with a peck on the cheek and a have-a-good-night. I recall we got a bit further than that."
If anything, her cheeks got even redder than they were before. Her lips pressed tight together. I knew immediately it had been the wrong thing to say.
"What do I have to say to you? That I'm quite smitten with you? Fine. I am smitten with you." I wasn't used being this direct. But fuck it. Last chances and all that. "I like you. Is there something going on in your head that makes it terrible to be liked?"
* * *
Smooth As Silk
Miriam / Emma
Oh, my god, he was killing me. From the moment he walked in the door I could barely keep my eyes off him. My skin got all tingly and I was certain he could tell by how red my face must have gotten. If I looked at him I knew I’d never be able to say no if he asked me out again. So I stared at the counter and tried to pretend he wasn’t there.
But then he just kept on talking to me with that country-boy drawl. That might not have much sway here in Texas, but where I’m from that accent, that unfeigned self-confidence, is a total aphrodisiac. Listening to him order breakfast was almost enough to get me to throw my apron on the counter and make him take me back to his little apartment and have his brutish way with me.
And I was curious about so many things about the man. What caused that dangerous look in his eyes, so carefully hidden behind his wicked smile? Who had he been fighting, and why wasn’t there a mark on him? I’d been around fighters before. When you hit people, you got hit, and that left bruises. But not a bruise on that perfect, square-jawed, dimple-cheeked face.
I bit my lip and hoped he didn’t notice. If he noticed how much I wanted him, I’d never be able to claim I didn’t.
And I had to claim that I didn’t want him. That was the rule. As hard and fast as the rule that kids shouldn’t take candy from strangers.
No personal attachments.
Especially intimate ones.
Especially intimate ones in which I would be tempted to tell the truth about myself. And in that split second that I thought about it, I found that I really wanted to tell Ryan Calder the truth. That my name really wasn’t Miriam. That I wasn’t from Philadelphia. That I hadn’t come to Fort Worth to care for my dying aunt.
Maybe because I was tired of living a lie, necessary as it was. Or maybe just because I wanted him to know the person that I was, rather than the made-up person that I wasn’t.
If someone connects with you, but you’re not being the true you, is the connection even real?
I found I was gripping my pen so hard in my hand that it left a deep red groove in the space between my fingers. I pressed my lips together and steeled my resolve.
Ryan could not know who I was. He couldn’t know anything about me. No one could. And since I was so close to the edge of telling him everything, of completely exposing myself, I had to get rid of him.
So I told him no. I was cold and unfriendly, hiding my own emotions behind the artificial ice in my voice.
But he just kept on. With his charming, sexy voice, and his boyish sense of humor, and his maddening grin. Was there some vibe I was giving off that betrayed that I didn’t want him to go? Did that bewildered, hurt look in his blue eyes spark some sympathetic look in my own that let him know how easy it really would be to get to the truth of things—that if he just stuck around another five minutes I wouldn’t be able to maintain my resolve? That I’d give in and let him take me out again, and that I’d tell him everything and endanger my life and the lives of everyone I loved?
That thought sobered me quickly. I felt the blood drain from my face and the air in the diner felt five degrees colder.
He said, “I like you.”
I leaned over the counter until I was on a level with him, eye to eye. One corner of his mouth ticked up, as if he wanted to smile but wasn’t sure if he should. The counter was smooth under my palms, and I concentrated on that feeling as I lied to him.
“I don’t like you.” I have no idea how I got those words out without a tremble in my voice, but they came out smooth as silk and cold as a blade. “I was bored, so I went out with you.” As I spoke his lips went slack and his eyes seemed to retreat back into his skull. I wanted to stop there, to tell him none of what I said was true, but I had to keep going. For his sake as well as mine. “It was—sort of—a nice time. But that’s all. A nice time. A nice dinner. A nice conversation. A nice roll in the hay.” He winced at that, and slid off his stool. “And that was all, Ryan. And that’s all it’s ever going to be.”
He didn’t seem to know what to do with his bandaged hands. He seemed to want to slide them into the pockets of his jeans, but the bandages caught. He wound up just letting them dangle at his sides. He looked at the floor and shook his head. There was a fire behind his eyes. Not that dangerous look I had seen hiding in there. Just anger. He was angry at the way I had treated him, at the things I had said.
And he was right to be.
They were shitty things to say.
Finally he said, “Okay. Guess you can’t be more plain than that.” He pulled out his wallet and threw a couple of tens on the counter. “For breakfast. Give it to the next sucker that walks in here. I’m not hungry.” His boots were loud on the floor as he walked out. The bell over the door rang again.
There was a hollow place in the pit of my stomach, and my eyes had that stinging again. I looked down at the money on the counter.
It was the right thing to do.
I wished I could convince myself of that.
* * *
A Little Bit Crazy
Ryan
The walk back to my job wasn’t as cheerful as earlier. The sky seemed a little more overcast and the breeze had gotten chillier. Try as I might to convince myself otherwise, Miriam’s rejection had drawn a shadow over things.
Let’s not beat around the bush. It had been a kick in the nuts.
Low blow, ref. Poor sportsmanship.
Those fifty-seven steps back to The Exchange took forever.
I checked out the parking lot as I let myself into the shop. Maureen, the owner, either came in an hour before we opened, or she didn’t bother to come in until one or two in the afternoon. Mine was the only vehicle there, so I most likely had the place to myself until the early afternoon. That was just as well. I wasn’t in the mood to be around anybody.
The door swung closed behind me and the smell of old books filled my nostrils. I breathed in deep. Working at a discount book resale store seemed anachronistic for a Marine vet and bare-knuckle fighter. But I found it was the perfect balance to my life. The mundane tasks of stocking the shelves, cataloging and pricing books, feeling the old paper against my fingers: these things lent a calmness to me that I didn’t find elsewhere. As soon as I walked in the door, all the old anger and pent-up energy mellowed out and I was able to breathe easier.
Normally.
Not this morning. I stalked into the store, wishing the concrete floors were wood so I could make angry clomping sounds in my boots. Went back to the door and locked it again. We were due to open in a half hour, and normally I’d leave it unlocked in case some early bird just had to have that Agatha Christie they’d called about yesterday. But today I wanted to put off opening as long as possible. Maybe until tomorrow. Maureen wouldn’t fire me if I just took one day, surely.
I wandered among the shelves, running my fingertips along spines of books. This was normally my favorite part of working here. Just being with all these books, some by popular, famous writers, some by writers long dead. The driving thoughts of generations, all within arms reach. Normally, I would pick one, often at random, and read it while I sat behind the cash register. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate today, though.
What the fuck did I do to make her dislike me that much?
This was not usually the kind of question I asked myself. I don’t try to parse out the thoughts and motivations of other people. It’s a futile effort, and normally just makes you crazy. I couldn’t help myself today, though. I replayed our date over and over in my head. For the life of me I couldn’t find anything wrong with that evening. If she hadn’t liked my sense of humor she was certainly the best fake-laugher I had ever met.
If she hadn’t liked the evening as a whole, she was pretty damn good at faking all sorts of things.
That thought led me to other thoughts, which filled me simultaneously with a frustrating combination of longing and lust.
But I couldn’t afford to think that way. I picked up a broom from the utility closet and began to sweep the floor. If Miriam didn’t want anything to do with me, that was her call. No law that guarantees anybody a second date.
The hiss of the bristles on the floor lulled me, helped give me the calm I didn’t get from just walking in the door today. If I thought about it, was I acting just a little bit crazy? Just a little bit obsessive over a woman I’d only known a couple months, only dated just one time?
I took a deep breath. Crazy. I was thinking like a crazy person. That realization made something click in my head. And just like that, I felt better. Not completely better, but…better. It was like waking from a dream. Everything had seemed so real and vivid, but on waking it all faded quickly.
I unlocked the door and turned the sign from Closed to Open. Took two steps toward the shelves. Then I turned back around and flipped the sign again.
Miriam didn’t have to see me, or have anything to do with me. Fair enough. But she didn’t have to be so goddamn rude about it.
I thought she needed to hear that. The store wasn’t scheduled to open for another fifteen minutes. Plenty of time for me to say what I was going to say. I stalked back down to The Lazy Spoon.
* * *
The Wrong Mouth
Miriam / Emma
“I think the bar’s already clean,” John said from the doorway to the kitchen. He had a ‘70’s porn star mustache and an apron that always had stains that didn’t look like food. He kind of gave me a creepy vibe, but he never came onto me or said anything off.
“It’s clean when I decide it’s clean,” I growled, and continued scrubbing away at the Formica.
“Suit yourself.” He didn’t say anything else, but a moment later I heard dishes clattering in the kitchen.
Alone again, I rubbed even harder at the bar, then went to work on the tables in the booths. Maybe they were clean enough, but—
Well, damn that Ryan Calder anyway! It isn’t fair. It shouldn’t have to be so hard to stay out of sight. Why did that damn sexy redneck have to show up in my life and make things so difficult?
Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard my father say, “Life ain’t fair, Sunshine. You do your best with what you’ve got.” Dad, making sense as always.
And damn him too. He was the whole reason I was in this mess in the first place. I felt the anger start to build in me, directed now at my father, then at my situation, then again at Ryan. Mad as I got, I knew that I was completely helpless to fix anything. All I could do was let time pass and hope it all worked out. I hated that, and I got even madder.
The bell over the door rang.
Without even looking I knew it was Ryan, come back to say something smartass. The guy didn’t know when to quit. I looked up, ready to give him a real piece of my mind. If he thought I was mean before, he had no idea what he was in for.
Ryan Calder was about to find out what a real Italian girl from the Bronx was like when she was pissed.
The man standing just inside the door was not Ryan Calder.
He wore a suit, and his shoulders looked as if they took up the entire doorway and then some. His hair was cropped close to his scalp. He was just taking off his Ray Bans.
I dropped my angry face, or at least tried to. “Morning. If you take a seat I’ll get you a menu.”
He smiled and nodded, took one of the stools at the bar.
I finished wiping up the last booth and walked over to him. “Coffee?”
“No.” His voice was deep, smooth. There was a scar under one eye and his nose was a bit flattened. He had the face of an old, beat-up truck, but the veins on the backs of his hands and his bull neck suggested he wasn’t so decrepit. “Just came by to ask if you’ve seen this girl.” He reached into his coat pocket. His accent wasn’t local. He sounded East Coast. I started to think maybe I should back away from him, but he held my eyes with his own flat, gray ones, and besides my feet seemed suddenly glued to the floor. He pulled a picture out and held it up to me. His lips curled into a smirk.
My eyes focused on the picture and my blood turned to ice in my veins.
Now I did take a step back, but I was pretty sure it was too late. “What do you want?” I asked, my eyes still riveted to the photograph.
It was me. Taken two years ago. I was on the steps of the library at NYU, smiling and oblivious to the fact that my life would soon be turned completely upside down.
“What I want,” he said in that smooth, back-home voice, “is for you to come along with me easy. It’s just better for everybody if you don’t make me chase you down.”
I took another step back.
He shook his massive head. “That’s not coming along easy. Look,” he waved his hand around at the diner, out the window at Fort Worth, “you can’t tell me you like this backwater. Just come get in the car and I’ll take you home.” I shook my head, terror taking my speech away. “You’re scared,” he said. “I understand, but you don’t need to be.” He held out his hands. “Look. No gun. No danger. Just a friendly car ride and nice conversation. And then you can have your life back.”
Almost the right words. Almost the right tone. But from the wrong mouth.
Through the kitchen, along the back wall, there was a door that opened onto an alley behind the building. If I could make it through, I could get to the police station two blocks down.
I bolted for the kitchen. Unfortunately, Thick Neck was between me and the door to the kitchen. As it turned out, he had long arms and good reflexes. I attempted to dart past him, but one huge hand wrapped around my upper arm and brought me up short.
Time slowed down. In my panic all my senses were acute. I could see dust motes dancing in the light through the window. Feel the grit on the floor as my sneaker skidded a half inch. Smell Thick Neck’s cologne.
I found my voice. “Let me go!” I said. My voice was shrilled and ululated in a terrified warble.
“Fuck,” muttered Thick Neck, and he began to propel me toward the door. I tried to fight back, but it was like wrestling a mule. His fingers tightened around my arm painfully.
As I struggled in vain to get free, I heard the bell over the door ring again.
* * *
Poses A Real Danger
Ryan
There was finally a car in the parking lot at The Lazy Spoon. Late model Lexus. Black, with blackout windows. In my opinion, a lame ride,
but you don't see many cars like that on this side of town. They were probably good tippers.
Since Miriam would have customers, I decided I wouldn’t make a scene. I would just quietly tell her off, get everything off my chest, and maybe throw somebody's breakfast across the room. All very calm and reasonable.
I pulled open the door. I expected a dirty look from Miriam, perhaps a scathing rebuke for showing back up at her place of work. Instead what I found was a large, thug-like man with a stubbly head and a scarred-up face holding a very scared-looking Miriam by the arm. She appeared to be struggling, and I could tell by her expression that his grip was painful. I had a clear tableau of the two of them grappling together like that impressed on my retinas before the man turned to look at me.
The rage that constantly brewed just below the surface of my mind started to bubble up. My breath, of its own accord, started moving in and out of my lungs in those short, even bursts that I got right before a fight. In the split second before I started moving, I sized him up, cataloging everything I could see. He was obviously big, probably strong (although the two did not necessarily always go together). His face looked as if it been around the block a time or two.
None of that really mattered.
Only two things mattered. When he finally turned his eyes on me, I experienced a moment of recognition. Although I did not know this man, I had known men like him. When I was in Afghanistan, I had been assigned to a task force dedicated to rooting out covert insurgent forces. The task force had been headed up by a trio of spooks — intelligence agents who may or may not have been operating under sanction of the United States government. Bad guys. Those guys had eyes just like the ones looking at me right now. Flat. Dead. The eyes of ruthless efficiency. That was the first thing that mattered.
The Next Thing: Bareknuckles Brotherhood Page 2