by Eden Butler
He held the base of the umbrella in one hand, pushing it open wider and wider and I spotted the black and gray ink that twisted around his wrist and onto the top of his left hand. Roses with rosary beads linked through the stems and thorns. The entire piece disappeared under the sleeve of his black coat.
“And what did those umbrellas do to deserve that?” I was mesmerized by the way he moved, how straight he stood, how focused on the task he was while still keeping his eyes alert to the spattering of rushing shoppers around us.
“Like most things in her life, they were in the way.” When I grinned, nodding as I looked away, the man’s smile widened. “There ya go. Got a smile out of you.” He extended the umbrella, handing it to me. “And a laugh. Guess I haven’t lost my touch.”
“Thanks,” I said, motioning with the umbrella. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I did. Busted right into you.” I didn’t know why hearing him say that, while he wetted his lips had me forgetting myself for a minute.
“Well, yeah. You did.”
When he rubbed his mouth with his fingers, I noticed the small silver hoop in the corner of his bottom lip, but he moved too quick for me to stare. “What’s all that? If you don’t mind me getting in your business.”
I followed the direction of his nod, glancing at the mess in my arms. “Oh. Cake decorating tips.” He frowned, not seeming to understand why I pointed to the silver pieces jumbled together among the molds and wet, brown paper. “For icing? Making filigree and roses on cakes.”
“You need that many?” When I nodded, he moved his eyebrows up, glancing down the street toward my bakery, then back at me staring for a second at the messy bun at the top of my head. “Oh, you’re the redhead who bought Old Lady Watson’s cake shop.”
“How do you know that?” The rain wasn’t easing and despite the clever work he made of my umbrella I wasn’t willing to risk the onslaught of pelting rain to move away from the relative coverage of the pharmacy window awning.
“One thing you gotta understand first? Cuoricino is the smallest damn town in the world.”
“Doubtful,” I offered thinking of the trip across the south my best friend Jada and I took during spring break of our junior year at Tulane. We’d made it to a place called Bunkie in the middle of nowhere. Nothing but dilapidated empty store fronts and train tracks and hardly any people our own age to be seen.
“Well, it’s small town as small town gets.” He looked to his right, then back again. “It’s home. Didn’t always think it was, but when I was gone from it, I missed it.”
There was something I couldn’t define in the look on his face. Something that reminded me of the nights sitting next to Jada in the hospital as she fought to hang onto breath and braveness just so Makayla wouldn’t be left without her. It ended up being a futile fight. Most of my memories were fragmented, but Jada and Makayla were the beacons of light that never dimmed and even the dark memories lit me up.
I shook loose the recall of my friend and her little girl curled together on that hospital bed. “And the small town-ness is why you know who I am?”
“All small towns have gossips.” He turned, leaning a shoulder on the frozen glass behind us, his hot breath, shooting out like misty clouds with each word. “And you know…” He didn’t smile then, just lowered his gaze from my face, down my body and up again before he grinned like there was a joke in his head he wouldn’t share. “A beautiful woman comes into town, taking over the shop of an old woman whose face is probably in the dictionary next to ‘blue-ribbon cherry pie winner for New York state.’ Yeah, people are gonna talk.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He’d delivered the compliment with ease, stating it as fact, but he was still a stranger. He’d have to do better than “beautiful.”
“You on your own?” When I shot a look at him, not smiling, he grinned again, holding up his hands in surrender. “My bad. I forgot. You don’t want anyone knowing your business.” He said that with an exaggerated glance, eyes wide and worried. It was funny enough to make me laugh, make me forget just for a second that I should never volunteer information or drop my guard.
“I don’t have any family…” I said, not willing to give him more than the bare minimum.
“Except the Junior Scientist.” He pointed to my pocket again. When I pulled my eyebrows together, frowning, he held his hands up a second time. “She’s got a mouth on her. Hard not to hear that shit about some little asshole cheating with scones.” He stared right at me, softening his voice. “She’s your people?”
“Take care of my baby. She needs you.” Jada’s words haunted me, and I couldn’t keep them from rising out of nowhere at any given moment. They stung like a papercut. They warmed me like the sun.
She was my people, my only people, but this guy didn’t need to know that.
“So…” He curled his arms together, ignoring my silence, his black eyes sparkling despite the clouds above us and shot another glance over his shoulder before he looked down at me, continuing. “No family, and from what Mrs. Blake, the old lady in everyone’s business says, no one moved in with you a few weeks back.”
“Word does get around.” The rain had begun to settle, the pelting rhythm slowing. The man took one small step closer, his scent and the bitter hint of rain moving around us in a soft mist.
“And no friends yet, I’m guessing.” He nodded down the street, toward my bakery. “Except the kids you hired to run your shop and trust me, you don’t wanna be too friendly with Ty Yuen and his little cousin Josie Currie outside of shop hours.” He smiled, a slow crawl of a gesture, probably at how wide my eyes had gotten. “Those two are liable to swindle you into buying beer for them.”
My heart skipped a beat, and instinctively I moved a step away from him. How did he know about the skinny Filipino guy and his lankier cousin I’d hired to run the bakery in the afternoons? “How—”
He reached for my forehead and the slip of hair that flew into my eyes, his fingers shaking, gaze shifting to my face then he went still, jerking back his hand like he realized his touch wouldn’t be welcomed. It wouldn’t, not by this man I didn’t know, not with his sidelong gaze and clenched jaw. Not by any man.
Above us, thunder rumbled, and streaks of lightning brightened the clouds, announcing a thicker onslaught.
“Shit,” I muttered, clutching helplessly to my frayed bag.
The man met my eyes, lifting his glance above me and toward the pharmacy door.
“Come on.” He nodded to an old woman as she stood behind the counter and didn’t smile at him. “Mrs. Stafford is kind of a bitch, but she won’t deprive us of shelter.”
Frozen and drenching, I followed him inside, to the thick rug near the window where several wet umbrellas leaned against the white brick wall.
“Small towns,” he said, moving his chin toward a couple huddled together as they hurried down the sidewalk.
“What?”
No one bothered us here. In fact, the swift, judging looks he got and the sharp ones landing on me had me doubting his promise the Stafford lady would let us ride out the storm inside.
“This place.” He pointed to a few more people running down the sidewalk before he looked over his shoulder, a frown denting his features as the customers in line behind us at the counter stared openly and none too pleased in our direction. “Small-town people talk.” He glanced back, moving his eyebrows up as if the tell the old woman watching us, “you got a problem?” before the gawkers turned back to the counter and away from us. “Not so much to me, as about me, but who gives a shit, right?”
“Oh.”
“Well, there’s only one way to squash the gossip.” His voice was lower now, deeper but the small shake in his fingers hadn’t slowed.
“And that is?” My mouth had gone dry and in the back of my mind I heard Jada’s weak, angry voice reminding me why I had to keep away from cute Italian guys who tried to sweet talk me.
He leaned on the window, crossing his
ankles. “Let me take you out.”
Blinking, I shook my head, refusing to look at him while I waited for the surprise quickening in my chest to ease. “I don’t even know your name.”
“That’s remedied quick.” He stuck out his hand, then mimed shaking mine when I shrugged pointing to my full arms. “I’m Marco.”
“Marco.” He didn’t strike me as a Marco. I had no idea who he was supposed to look like, but Marco wasn’t it.
“You got a name?” He returned a glare he got from a young woman and her friend as they passed him but otherwise didn’t speak.
“A few.” I liked his smile, how it made the small lines around his eyes disappear. He looked instantly younger when he grinned like that.
Wait. No, I don’t like his eyes. Jesus, idiot. Stop.
“Wanna give me any of them?”
He’d find out, that much I knew. A ten-minute conversation told me enough about Marco. He was beautiful if not a little rough around the edges. He had olive skin and tattoos that made him seem a touch dangerous. Danger and a handsome face had always been my Achilles heel. Point being, he’d find out who I was. It was useless being close-lipped.
Releasing a defeated sigh, I shook my head, glancing at his face, cursing my gaze paused on his full mouth. “Ava Anderson.”
My mother would roll over in her grave if she heard me now. Both Ava and Anderson had come from the fed, Alex Washington, back in Boston who sorted out an entire new identity for me in exchange for information I had and a raid I’d helped facilitate. The raid got botched, but I still landed in Witness Protection, sporting a new name to keep well underneath my ex’s radar. It was necessary. When people disappeared from their lives, the old things got discarded. Like the name my mother gave me. It had been my grandmother’s name. She was a fierce woman. There were parts of her still left in me, but Ava was who I had to be now.
“Beautiful name.” He lowered his eyes, glancing at me then away. The shyness was a little awkward but charming, and I found myself not stepping away from him when he moved closer. I should have walked away right then. I should have pretended this man hadn’t said more than “hi and goodbye.” But loneliness plays tricks on people. It forced them into a false sense of security. It chipped away at their self-preservation. For a second, I forgot everything Alex had taught me about keeping myself safe.
“Thanks,” I said, looking up at the sky again.
“Ava and Marco.” The low rumble of his voice did something to my gut, had my stomach twisting like rhinos were doing the cha-cha somewhere around my small intestines. “I like the way that sounds.”
“Do you? I don’t know. Sounds like a second-rate vaudeville act to me.”
“You got a boa and some dirty jokes?”
“No boa…”
He nodded, resting back against the glass. “I don’t know. Ava…” He moved those two syllables around his mouth like they were expensive whiskey, savoring them as though he liked the taste on his tongue. “I think we’d make a good team.”
“And there you go thinking.” I took a step away from him. “Dangerous for a pretty boy like you.”
His lips twitched, but he hid the expression by looking away quickly, like the compliment surprised him and he didn’t want to show it. He seemed to recover, meeting my gaze, forcing back the grin on his lips. “You think I’m a pretty boy?”
I covered my wince by watching a white Cadillac move through the stoplight across the street. There was no dismissing the laugh that jumped past my lips. “I think you’re full of shit.”
“Damn. That hurts.” Marco pushed away from the window and stood several feet in front of me. The line in front of the counter got shorter and the looks he received from the exiting customers got sharper.
I shook my head at an elderly couple as they moved to the door, the old woman staring at Marco for longer than was polite.
“You don’t seem too popular around here.”
Marco looked over his shoulder, laughing as the man hurried his woman out of the door. “Yeah, well, I was a bit of an asshole when I was kid.” He looked back down at me, shrugging. “Some people don’t like giving second chances.”
“Maybe that should be warning enough for me to keep away from you.”
His mouth broke into a gesture that was more smirk than smile. “But I’m your only friend in town.”
When I laughed, covering my smile with a long look out of the window, Marco came to my side, his voice soft and lowered when he spoke. “Look, I’m just messing with you, but you know, Cuoricino is a tight-knit place. Lot of folks don’t like strangers.”
“Or you, it seems.”
“Yeah, but they like my family,” he mumbled, and if I hadn’t been standing next to him, I’d have missed it. He leaned a palm against the window, glancing at me like he was just filling up the air with lines he hoped I’d buy.
I kept my focus on his face, not giving him anything. No smile. No grin. Just my attention. “You’re a stranger.”
He rewarded me with another appearance of the tip of his tongue against the silver ring in his lip. Mouth twitching on the left, Marco nodded once. “To you. Out here,” he pointed toward the sidewalk, “you’re somebody no one knows. You got zero friends.”
“And you want to fix that?”
He passed another glance over my body, letting that dimple make an appearance again. “I’m just trying to be friendly.”
Another laugh, one that had his grin returning, and I shook my head. “Oh, I bet.”
“I’m serious.” He pulled out a handkerchief, something I thought only old men still did, something that gave me a heavy since of déjà vu before he handed it to me, nodding at the small drops of rainwater falling from my hair and onto my forehead. When the sleeve of his coat grazed against me, I caught a whiff of that cologne again. “Let me feed you, show you around town. It’s the least I can do for bumping into you.”
“I don’t—”
“Bet you spent Christmas and New Year’s alone.” When I only stared at him, he nodded. “That means you probably have an empty fridge.”
“Why do you care?”
Marco slipped his eyes shut for half a second, as though I was exhausting him with my questions, but he recovered quickly. He jerked his shoulders then held up a hand, dismissing the question. “I’m just being a good citizen. Besides, I plan on dropping by your bakery, see what you do with all those tips.”
“And that means…”
He rubbed his neck, one swift, sure movement before digging a pair of gloves from his pocket. “It means you’ll see me around.” The gloves were leather, black, and expensive. I recognized the large G embossed on the cuff. “Might as well get to know me a little better now.”
“And if I say no?” It made me wonder in a way I wasn’t ready to admit to myself how he watched me tilting my head; how his attention got extended to my fingers when I adjusted my scarf. He recovered from whatever thoughts he had watching me fidget, and quickly he shoved his hands in his pockets.
“I’m not pushy,” he said, his voice light, like he wasn’t bothered if I turned him down. “But I’ll admit, you not letting me make it up to you might mess with my head.”
“That’s such a line.”
“Is it working?” There was a dimple in his cheek, deeper than the one I’d spotted earlier, and a long eyelash stuck under his bottom lid. I mentally shook myself to focus on his question.
Marco wasn’t wrong. I was on my own here for good reason. I knew better than to loosen my guard. I knew my past could catch up to me quickly. But I’d come to this town to seek out an ally. I doubted Marco was up for the job, but if he knew the town like he said he did, he might at least know where those allies would be.
“Fine,” I said, releasing a small prayer that I wasn’t being played with the sigh that flew from my mouth. “One dinner.”
“For now,” he said, his grin wide. “Eight o’clock. I’ll pick you up at your bakery.”
No. I had
to draw a line. He already knew where I worked. There was no way I was going to be alone with him—a total stranger, in a car. “I might be friendless, but I’m not stupid. You tell me where to meet you and I’ll walk there.”
He looked around, face tightening as the rain began to thicken and the thunder rolled in again. “In this weather?”
“Then I’ll drive.”
Marco bit his lip, moving his piercing with his tongue as he watched me. He scratched under his chin before offering a compromise.
“You like Vietnamese?”
I nodded, the thought making my stomach growl.
“How about this...I'm going to grab Vietnamese food at my favorite spot. Pho Kang.” He moved his thumb behind him, toward the end of the street. “Corner of Main and Mitchem. I’ll be there at eight. It’d be good if you were there. I could show you around. I know shit about this place you might wanna hear.” He stepped forward, pulling his hand from his pockets to adjust the collar on my coat, watching my face as he did. “You make it, cool. It’ll be my treat for bumping into you and messing up your...what nots.” The grin was back, and he dipped his gaze at my bag. “If you don’t, then I’ll take that to mean you really aren’t feeling your new town.”
I didn’t know what made me do it, made me relax around this stranger, but I pushed the bag up my arms, holding it to one side before I brushed the eyelash from his face. “Maybe me not showing might have something to do with you, and not me not wanting friends."
Marco moved his head and that slow, small smile widening. “Nah, can't be that. I’m freakin’ irresistible.” He paused, walking back toward the door. “See you at eight.” And for a second, I almost told him not to wait. For just a moment, the rejection teased the tip of my tongue, but Marco pulled up his collar, waved once, and disappeared out of the pharmacy and into the rain before I could utter a single word.
2
Dario