by Meg Jackson
The question was decided for her when the door swung open, making her gasp and nearly fall backwards off the step.
“Yes?” the man asked, his eyes lit with something like amusement. It was Damon, the brother who was shaped like a boxer but apparently had a penchant for cheeses. The smell of food was stronger with the door open…so was the buzzing sound. She saw, as she gazed up at his massive girth, that Damon was sporting a rather nasty, puke-yellow bruise over one eye and a painful-looking split in his lip. She wondered what had happened in the twenty or so hours since she’d last seen him, but it wasn’t really her place to ask. Not yet, at least.
“I’m…I’m here for Kennick,” she said, gathering herself together. Damon smirked and stepped aside, allowing her entrance.
Once more, she marveled at how the trailer opened up once you were inside. This one was even bigger on the inside than Ana’s had been. The buzzing sound came from a room on the left, and when Damon pointed in that direction, she shot him a curious look.
“Go on,” he said, softly encouraging. Kim gulped, wondering what weird situation she was wandering into. As she stepped to the left, she peered around the small doorframe and immediately felt a mixture of relief and embarrassment.
Kennick was laying, shirtless, on a sort of sofa chair. The room was clearly a bedroom, but it was currently being used as a tattoo parlor. Cristov was holding a tattoo gun to Kennick’s chiseled chest; Kim barely caught a glance at the design before she turned away, hand to her eyes, feeling that she had walked into a moment that was somehow more intimate than she’d feared. Laughter followed her abrupt turning.
“You’re early,” Kennick’s voice came, loud and clear, as the buzzing paused.
“How can I be early?” Kim asked, still averting her eyes from his bare upper body. “You told me to come whenever.”
“Touché,” Kennick said. “Turn around, will you? I’m not naked, you know.”
“You’re half naked,” Kim shot back, but she realized she was overreacting and turned around, knowing that much of her embarrassment was due to her burgeoning desire for the dark, handsome Rom.
As her eyes fell to the work Cristov was doing on his chest, she gasped. It was beautiful. A huge, intricate, geometric design that reminded her of a mosque, with seemingly infinite detail. The overall shape was a five-pointed star, but the clean, steady lines burst outward in a dizzying array of curls and curves and points.
“Oh, wow,” Kim said, stepping forward despite her earlier sense of shame. “That’s gorgeous.”
Cristov grinned up at her, putting his tattoo gun down beside him.
“Thanks,” he said. “It would be better, but Cinderella over here turns into a mouse after about three hours of work. He starts whining and…”
“Shut up, Cris,” Kennick said, but the smile on his face showed none of the irritation in his voice.
Kennick’s body, which Kim now gave herself permission to admire in full, was as muscled and taut as it appeared under his clothes, his arms covered in similar designs. She felt heat rising in her cheeks as her eyes fell lower to the deep V that jutted from the top of his jeans, a smattering of hair like a trail leading downwards to…
“My eyes are up here, lady,” Kennick called out, teasing, as Cristov rubbed some sort of lotion over the freshly worked area of his chest, then turned to pull off a sheet of saran wrap and fitting it smugly over the brilliant ink. Kim wanted to run away and tear all her clothes off all at the same time.
“Listen, if I’m really too early, I can go and come back, or we can do this some other…” she said quickly, feeling overwhelmed by the desire that was coursing through her veins.
“No, no,” Kennick said, jumping up and moving towards her. She really wished he’d put a shirt on. Except she didn’t really wish that at all. “Smells like dinner’s nearly ready, anyway. And tonight’s a good night…these two will be out, so we can have the place to ourselves.”
“Yeah, all to yourselves,” Cristov teased, making a smooching noise as he finished packing away his ink and tools. Kim turned to look at Damon, who was looking on in silent amusement. When she felt Kennick’s hand on her arm, she nearly jumped out of her skin, the flesh there burning.
“Let me put on a clean shirt and I’ll set the table,” he said, moving past her through the cramped hall. She could feel the heat of him as he squeezed by and felt an inexplicable desire to lean forward and trace her tongue along his well-defined ribs.
I’m losing it, she thought. I’m seriously, seriously losing it.
“So, where are you two off to?” she asked, wanting to distract herself from the smooth, feral movement of Kennick across the trailer to his own room. She asked the question at Damon, but her eyes never left Kennick.
“Movies,” he said. If it wasn’t for the burning intelligence in his eyes, you’d almost think he was a bit stupid, his responses always so simple.
“Yeah, Damon just loves the movies,” Cristov said. “You should see him tear up at the end of Fargo. He gets all weepy ‘cause the sheriff loves her husband so much.”
“It’s a beautiful moment in American cinema,” Damon said with a shrug, and Kim had to smile. She did love that movie, though it had never made her cry.
“So what are you going to see tonight?” she asked, turning back to Cristov.
“They’re playing Dog Day Afternoon at that art cinema a few towns over,” Damon said, apparently coming alive now that the subject had turned to something that interested him.
“It’s a good compromise,” Cristov added. “Cause I like movies with lots of guns, and Lurch over there likes movies that…what did you say it has?”
“Showcase the subtle ways that society can make a man deny what’s in his best interests, destroy his spirit, and drive him crazy,” Damon said, turning away. “I’ll be outside.”
And with that, he was gone, the door slamming shut behind him. Kim turned back to Cristov wide-eyed.
“I thought he was the silent one,” she said.
“Sometimes I wish he were more silent,” Cristov joked, pulling on a light jacket. “Kennick cooked you some damn fine food, Little Mayor. Hope you enjoy it.”
“Little Mayor?” Kim scoffed, wondering what the hell kind of nickname that was.
“Well, ain’t you?” Cristov asked before following Damon outside. Kim didn’t know if he could possibly know how honest a nickname that was.
“Tweedledee and Tweedledum gone?” Kennick’s voice surprised her as he emerged from his room, wearing a loose-fitting white undershirt, presumably to give the raw flesh underneath it some room to breathe.
“Yeah,” Kim smiled. “Can I help set the table?”
“Oh, I think I can handle it,” Kennick said, pulling some plates and utensils out. A bottle of wine – or, what Kim assumed to be wine, since it had no label – already sat in the center of the booth that served as the dining room table, and he poured out two glasses, bringing one over to where she stood. Kim momentarily questioned the safety of drinking strange, unmarked alcohol, but it smelled alright, if a little ripe. And she definitely needed some liquid courage for this date.
The trailer had a similar set-up to Ana’s, except instead of having the living room on one side and the bedrooms on the other, there were two bedrooms on one side of the kitchen-slash-dining room, a living room on the other, with Kennick’s bedroom right beside the bathroom on the far end. Unlike Ana’s brilliantly decorated trailer, this one was very indicative of the men who occupied it. It was neat, but relatively bare, with only a few framed family photos on the walls and a huge, psychedelic print tapestry behind the couch in the wood-paneled living room.
She’d gotten a quick peek into Cristov’s room and seen some bright, colorful prints on the walls, but hadn’t managed to study them at all. Kim was naturally sort of a nosy person, though in a far more subtle way than her sister. She secretly dreamed of being left alone in someone’s room to touch their belongings, examine their books and keepsak
es, study the art they chose to hang. She was fascinated by the way the things people owned told you more about them than anything else.
“So, I made mushroom risotto and warm kale salad,” Kennick said, starting to pull the fragrant dishes from the oven. Kim was a bit surprised; she hadn’t expected this smart, handsome, buff man to also be a good cook, but it was clear from the smell that he was. As he doled out two heaping portions, she slid herself into the booth, mouth watering. She hadn’t eaten much that day, not wanting to look bloated in her little black dress, but she was starting to regret that decision. The last thing she wanted was to look like a pig shoveling food into her mouth.
“Where’d you learn to cook?” she asked, wide-eyeing the food as Kennick took his place opposite her.
“Here and there,” he said, stabbing into his own plate. “Mostly there.”
Kim studied him across the table. She firmly believed in the reality that when something seemed too good to be true, it usually was. She remembered the things she’d read that day, when she should have been working. She needed to know, before she got to talking to Kennick and liking him even more than she already did, what the hell was going on.
Why had he invited her on this date? She knew it wasn’t customary for Rom to date non-Rom people. So was she just a quick lay? If she was, that wouldn’t necessarily be the worst thing in the world. Especially not the way her body kept reminding her of that dream, and that she hadn’t been with a man in longer than she cared to remember. But she needed to know now, before she fell head-over-heels with someone ultimately unattainable.
Kennick seemed to sense her question and he paused his chewing, narrowing his eyes at her.
“You look a bit concerned,” he said. “Are you allergic to mushrooms?”
“No,” Kim said quickly. “It’s not that. It’s…I just…I have some questions?”
“Was that one of them?” he asked playfully. When she merely smiled in response, he let his fork fall back to the plate and leaned back. “Shoot.”
“Well,” Kim said, spreading the paper napkin across her lap, eyes averted. “I mean, okay…I did some reading and, well, it seems like…”
She was interrupted by his laugh, her eyes darting up towards his. He had his fork full once more, and it was raised halfway to his mouth, but he had his dancing gaze trained on her.
“What sort of reading have you been doing, keshalyi? I can’t wait to hear.”
Now, he did place the fork in his mouth, and chewing through his smile he waited patiently for the blush to recede from Kim’s cheeks. She couldn’t help but smile back.
“Just…oh, it’s stupid, I know. I just looked online at some websites. I was curious, I guess,” she said, and took a modest bite of the food. It was as good as it smelled, and Kim’s stomach rumbled for more, but she took her time chewing.
“Well, whatever you learned, I hope you take it with a grain of salt,” Kennick said, readying his fork with another heaping sampling of the rich risotto. “Hell, take it with the whole ocean.”
“So what should I know?” Kim asked, taking a long swallow of the strange wine, her fork barren.
“There’s not much you need to know,” Kennick said with a shrug between bites. “We follow some traditions – not others. The fun ones, we keep those. We like the fun ones. Parties and travel and feasts. Drinking and dancing. My cousin Tula, she’s a great drabarni. That means psychic, basically. We speak the old Romani, at least sometimes. But other than that…” he opened his palms, spreading them across the table, showing he had nothing to hide or hold back from her.
“So you’re not…you’re not, like, only allowed to date other Rom? I’m not, like, stepping on some girls’ toes by being here?” Kim nibbled a bit more of the warm kale salad. It had a rich, smoky, aromatic flavor that made her mouth water for more. Kennick’s eyes watched her chewing and his brows furrowed slightly.
“No,” he said, voice somewhat concerned. “Well, actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if you were stepping on someone’s toes. Call me the kumpania’s most eligible bachelor. But that’s no business of mine. Or yours. Gypsies adapt to what there is to adapt to. It’s what we’ve always done. We’re Americans now. We do as we please.”
“Oh,” Kim said, somewhat relieved, though a little taken aback by Kennick’s boldness in declaring himself a catch. He leaned forward then, his eyes darting from her empty fork to her lips.
“Why are you eating like that?” he asked, and Kim glanced down; her plate was still mostly full, while Kennick had made a considerable dent in his meal. She wondered if she was insulting him by eating in her usual demure matter. Was she expected to wolf her food down at the same rate as the massive man across from her? Her controlled manner of eating was something she’d perfected over a lifetime of worrying about her weight, about what someone would think of her if she dug right in to a meal like an animal. Like a man.
“It’s just how I eat,” she said, defensively, grabbing the wine and taking a prolonged sip, her eyes flitting to the side, looking out the window at the setting sun. The inside of the trailer was being bathed in a soft, purplish light.
“You eat like a bird,” Kennick said. “Or like you’re afraid to enjoy your food.”
“I’m not,” Kim said, stabbing her fork into the risotto, getting agitated by the way this date was turning out. First the whole “girls are lusting after me” thing, now he was going to tell her she wasn’t eating correctly? “It’s delicious.”
As though to prove him wrong, she slammed the forkful into her mouth, chewing pointedly, matching his gaze. When he broke into a wide grin, she gulped hard. Jesus Christ, it is damn good, she thought. He must have been putting some latent, gypsy psychic abilities to work, because he laughed; a rolling, thunderous bark that warmed Kim’s cheeks through her indignation.
“Little Mayor,” he said, suddenly reaching across the table to cup her cheek. Kim’s eyes widened and her fork clattered to the plate. “You’ve got some spirit…”
She wanted to pull her face away. She wanted to stop the shiver that was racing down her spine. She also wanted to roll her face into his palm, feel his thumb against her lips.
“..but you’re going to make me work to draw it out, aren’t you?” Kennick crooned, pulling his hand away. Kim’s shoulders leaned forward as though to follow it across the table. Her heart was doing double time. He was back at his food, and chased a huge mouthful with half the glass of wine.
“You should eat like you’re mad at me more often,” he said, barely containing his smile. “Eating is a passionate act. It’s carnal, and self-serving, even when you’re eating with another person, or a whole group. It feeds your body and your soul at the same time. A person who’s afraid to eat like they enjoy it, well…that’s not very Rom at all.”
Kim’s stomach flipped as she looked down at her plate. To really dig in, lose herself in the flavors and the act of filling herself with the rich meal, to be – in her mind – a pig, went against anything she’d ever thought about how to behave in public, especially on a date.
But she wanted Kennick to like her. Especially after the way her body had reacted to that touch. She thought the man probably had a lot of tricks up his sleeve beside gourmet cooking. And she very much wanted to see what was under those sleeves of his. If she was going to have to act like a glutton to impress him – so be it.
Putting her indignation aside, she mimicked his actions, loading her fork with a mix of the salad and the risotto and opening her mouth wide to accept it. The flavors danced on her tongue. She gave herself permission to enjoy it – really, truly, enjoy it. And she did. So much so that she moaned involuntarily, her eyes rolling back into her head. She eagerly sipped on the wine to wash it all down, tasting, for the first time, the way the sweet-and-sour liquid brought out the earthy tone of the mushrooms and the sharp green flavor of the kale.
“Now that’s more like it,” Kennick said, taking a break from his half-finished plate, leaning back with
one arm spread across the back of the booth.
15
“Why did your brother call me Little Mayor? And you called me it, too,” Kim asked. They had finished eating and were sitting outside, letting the warm night close in around them as distant sounds of laughing and music filled the air. Kim had surprised herself by eating the whole plate – with the help of some rather distractingly pleasant conversation, and generous helpings of the strange wine. They were on their second bottle of the unmarked beverage, and Kim had found the taste had grown on her quite a bit.
Kennick shrugged. He was sitting with his long legs splayed out in front of him, feet crossed at the ankles. In contrast, Kim’s legs were bunched up tight beneath her, knees pressed together, toes pointed downward. He eyed her posture and laughed.
“Relax,” he said, patting her thigh – she wondered if he had any possible idea how much that simple action affected her. Her whole body seemed to sigh when he touched her. She wanted him bad. Wanted him inside her, his stubble against her breasts, his hands on her waist…
“I want to know,” she pressed, taking another sip of the wine. She knew she was barreling right around the corner of tipsy into full-on drunk, but she hardly thought Kennick would mind. At least, that’s what the wine told her.
“And I,” he said, turning to her quite suddenly and grabbing the arm of her chair, pulling it across the ground towards him, “want you to relax.”
You’re not making that easy, she thought, heart pounding in her chest from his nearness. He was leaning in close now, his face inches from hers, and she wondered what he would do if she leaned forward, letting her lips close over his…
“Tit for tat,” she slurred, liking the way his face broke into a smile. “You tell me and I’ll…relax.”