by Kylie Scott
“He certainly seems committed.”
She shrugged. “It’s probably his idea of a joke. Or maybe he’s punishing Joe for lying to you, or something. I don’t know. Men work in mysterious ways. Too bad all of our eardrums have to pay the price.”
“Yeah.”
“For the record, I wanted to let you eat in peace. But I got outvoted,” said Lydia. “Eric’s too afraid to go against Nell no matter how crazy the idea. And Boyd just stayed silent, same as always.”
“Boyd?” I hadn’t really heard much about him.
“He works in the kitchen.”
“Ah.”
“I think it’s the pregnancy hormones,” Lydia continued. “Now that Nell’s in the second trimester she’s just so hyper. She doesn’t know what to do with all the love and extra energy, so she’s funneling it into other people.”
Lucky me. “Here comes Joe. Enjoy your pizza.” With a parting finger wave, Lydia wandered off in the direction of the teenager and his parents. His parents seemed to actually be enjoying the music. But someone should probably stop the kid from trying to saw his head off with a butter knife. It couldn’t be hygienic.
With two beers and a frown, Joe returned to our table. He took one long look at the pizza and hung his head, mumbling the kind of obscenities that would have taxed even the mightiest of imaginations. I highly doubted goats were actually that flexible, though.
“Right. That’s it,” he announced. “We’re out of here. Can you carry the pizza? Just because my friends are insane doesn’t mean we should waste good food.”
“On it.” I stood up, putting on my wool coat. Then I lifted the wooden board our heart-shaped carb, bacon, tomato, and melted cheese goodness sat upon. “Lead on.”
Up onstage, Vaughan abandoned Aerosmith for a rousing rendition of “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston. It was disturbing, to say the least.
“Walk faster,” I urged Joe as we headed toward the kitchen.
He did as told.
Back here there were lights, white tiles, and plenty of stainless steel. A big guy was stacking plates while a petite redhead checked on something in one of the industrial-size ovens. Nell’s burgeoning belly was only just visible beneath her white chef’s coat. The room smelled divine. A combination of every savory and sweet yumminess you could imagine. All of the goodness clearly came from right here.
“Say goodbye to Nell, Alex.” Joe lifted a beer in the redhead’s direction.
“Hi. Bye. And thank you!”
“Wait,” Nell yelled, pretty face panicked. “You can’t leave. You haven’t had the strawberry shortcakes. Boyd was just about to whip the fresh cream.”
“We have to go,” said Joe. “The, ah, candles are setting off Alex’s head cold. Real shame.”
I forced out a cough.
“Later, Nell.” God love Joe, the man didn’t slow down in the least. “Thanks for the food.”
I gave her my sickliest smile. “Thanks again!”
Down a hallway and past a small office, out a heavy back door and into the cold night air we went. Already I felt freer, saner. Without the evil love songs filling the air, the world seemed a brighter, happier place. Even the heart-shaped pizza didn’t bother me quite so much. I could almost laugh about the Whitney impersonation.
“Up we go.” Joe started up a sturdy set of metal stairs, climbing the back of the building.
The Bird Building was a two-level brick beauty from the twenties housing a music store, a tattoo parlor, a couple of empty shops, and the Dive Bar. Midtown had none of the tourism glam of downtown, where I’d been staying. In this area, things were a little shabbier, quieter. Peeks of modern and hip were slipping through, however. Rejuvenating the area. Across the road was a slick-looking hair salon, and the tattoo parlor below exuded cool and professional.
As we went higher I could see the roofs of houses, the bare limbs of massive trees spreading out beneath the stars. We were pretty much surrounded by suburbia.
“We’re going up to the old offices and storage rooms?” I asked, following.
“You might as well see them before you go.” Keys jangled and Joe opened a door, letting us inside. He flicked on a light. “Plus, we’re free from nineties ballads and nosy friends up here. Come on in.”
It wasn’t much warmer inside and the air smelled stale, dusty.
“They all run off a hallway that goes pretty much the length of the building,” he said, indicating left and right with the beers. “The main entrance for this level is beside the first shop. They just shut it up and filled the space with shit when business got quiet in the eighties. Only ones using these spaces were shop owners needing storage. But the staircase and everything is still there. It just needs clearing out.”
It was all wooden floors and dirty old white walls in desperate need of cleaning and repainting. What looked to be original polished wooden doors with beautiful old-style silver handles appeared at regular intervals. Joe opened the closest, flicked on another light, and ushered me in. Nothing inside except more dust and a few cobwebs. But the space was big, beautiful. God, actually being here, checking it all out, sent my imagination into overdrive. The things you could do. What this place could be. It got me way too excited.
I did a slow turn, still holding our heart-shaped pizza.
I faced windows in a similar style to those below, only smaller. Someone had already pulled off some wall paneling to expose the brickwork. Off to the side was a small room, which I assumed was the bathroom. An ugly old kitchenette from the seventies came next. Gorgeous old plasterwork decorated the ceiling, framing the ancient light shade, and running around the edges of the large room.
“What do you think?” he asked, setting the two beer bottles down in the middle of the floor.
“I still think this would be a great project for you.”
He paused in the act of taking off his coat. “As long as the apartments all sold, it would pay off well. Couldn’t do it on my own.”
“You did downstairs.”
“I had a lot of help,” he said, laying the coat down on the dusty wood. “Nell and Pat, her ex-husband, came up with a lot of the style and ideas. I mostly just swung a hammer. Andre, the guy that owns the building, he loves the idea of doing something with up here and he’s up for helping as much as he can. He’d definitely give me a fair share of the profits. But still, it’s a bigger job than I’m used to. Guess that’s part of the draw of it, the challenge. Come and sit. Floor picnic.”
I stared, a little stunned by the gentlemanly act. Though I shouldn’t have been. For days he’d been putting himself out for me. “You didn’t have to get your coat dirty. My jeans would have been fine.”
“Sit,” he repeated, taking the pizza out of my hands. “You must be starving.”
“It really would have been fine. You shouldn’t have…” My words died off.
He didn’t bother to respond.
With a frown, I did as told, scooting over to the edge of his coat so there was plenty of space for him too. But the big guy sat on the dirty ground, leaving me with all the room. He placed the pizza between us and handed me one of the opened beers.
Funny, ever since I’d wed Malibu Barbie to Tuxedo Ken a few dozen times at age six, I’d thought the slick guy with the cool hair, hip clothes, and pretty face was the dream. Plastic perfection. We’d adore each other. Me and my man would have total honesty between us. And with him I’d feel safe and free to say whatever, to be myself, without fear of … well, pretty much everything.
Joe was as far removed from Ken as could be. Tangle of long blond curly hair. The beard. His big brown boots, worn jeans with a hole in one knee, and faded green Henley. Tuxedo Ken would have had a coronary. To be fair, I didn’t have a whole lot in common with Barbie, the big-breasted, skinny-waisted blond ho. I rubbed at the little indent in my forehead. Then I realized what I was doing, and made myself stop. Such a stupid old childhood habit.
Speaking of bad habits, rabidly inhal
ing Joe’s rampant manly sex appeal most definitely qualified. God, him in that towel. The memory haunted me. Except if I owned up to being into him, things would get complicated. My ability to avoid anything resembling a relationship was truly at an Olympic level. This shit needed to stop. Time to start being braver, more open-minded.
Yikes.
“Cheers,” he said, lifting his own brew to his mouth.
“Cheers.” I forced a smile.
We both drank.
“You’re frowning,” he said.
“No, I’m not,” I lied.
He just looked at me.
Undaunted, I stared back.
“Just because I put my coat down for you to sit on doesn’t mean I’m going to try and hit you up for sex later,” he said mildly. “Relax.”
“I wasn’t thinking that.” Which was at least 50 percent the truth. 49 percent at worst.
“Ask me questions. We’ve been talking for months but you don’t feel like you know me anymore,” he said. “And that’s my fault. So eat, ask me whatever. Go for it.”
“Let me think.”
Thus the consuming of pizza began. No matter the silly shape, as usual, Nell’s cooking tasted divine. I think she’d used at least three cheeses. Fresh garlic and basil. Delicious slices of juicy tomato. While I chewed, I thought. I thought good and I thought hard. And then I said, “You have cheese in your beard.”
“I was saving that for later.” He fished out said string of cheese and popped it in his mouth. “Thanks.”
I took another bite, chewing slowly, taking my time. “I get that Eric can charm women. He’s an attractive guy.”
Joe just watched me, sucking his fingers clean of cheese and oil.
“But you’re not without your own assets. Why the issue with your brother?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. Man, the dude had a thick neck. Strong. “Are you still attracted to him?”
“I thought I was asking the questions.”
“Indulge me,” he said.
“No.” More pizza. More chewing. “Intellectually, I understand he’s pretty with the long dark hair and that face and everything. But no, he doesn’t actually attract me anymore.”
There was a moment’s silence as Joe took that in. Whatever was going on behind his dark eyes, I had no idea.
“Little shit’s been a pussy magnet for about as long as I can remember. Women just go gaga over him. Always have.” He shook his head, snorted. “More than once I’ve been used by some girl wanting to get close to my brother. Yes, I should be over it. But no, I’m obviously still getting there.”
I nodded. Went back to work on my pizza. “Is that why you wrote to me? To get back at him?”
Brows drawn tight, Joe stared off over my shoulder. “No. I just wanted to talk to you. Eric hates technology. He bugged me till I helped him set up the profile on the site then the minute it was done, he pretty much lost interest. Typical. I only meant to shut it down, but I don’t know … your emails sucked me in.”
“Okay.” Another bite. “How long would you have kept lying to me if I hadn’t shown up in town?”
“I don’t know.” He blinked, but otherwise kept staring straight at me. “I loved getting your emails, Alex. Even though I had to be careful about what I said, I loved writing to you. Honestly, I can’t see me having come clean to you anytime soon. I was too hooked. The whole thing about hitting Seattle at the start was Eric trying to line up sex while he visited an old friend. But the emails between you and me, they were something different.”
I didn’t know what to say. So clearly it was time for more pizza. Cheesy goodness to deliver me from evil and/or emotional upheaval.
“If I hadn’t stopped writing, how long would you have waited to meet me?” Joe asked.
Guess I didn’t swallow quite right. Somehow the pizza got stuck in my throat. I coughed and coughed then downed about half of my beer in one go. “Crap.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” I took deep breaths, tried to pull myself together. “I, ah … wrong pipe. All good.”
“Well?” he said eventually.
Shit. “I don’t know.”
He held his silence.
“In all honesty, I’m not the bravest. I’m not great at putting myself out there. Guess you could say I have my … issues.” I studied the dusty, dirty floor as if it were about to cough up the secrets of the universe to me at any moment. And while I did that, I fiddled with the zipper on his coat. “I might have been open for a hook-up at one time, but once we starting emailing regularly, really talking, things changed for me. You became important. It was scary.”
Silence across from me.
“It’s what I do,” I said, an uncomfortable smile on my face. “Guess that makes me sound pretty stupid. Cowardly. But I don’t really feel comfortable talking with many people. Not in the way I did with you. I loved getting your emails too, Joe. I would get so excited when one arrived. So, yeah … I think I would have found reasons to not be able to meet face-to-face in case it all went wrong.”
He sat so still. “Like it did.”
“Yes.”
We stared at each other. Everything seemed to have been forgotten, to fade away. The room, the food, the whole wide world. I have no idea how he did it.
“Who lied to you?” he asked, taking a sip from his beer. “You said you couldn’t have another liar in your life. Who was it?”
I didn’t hesitate. “A boyfriend. He cheated on me. It was a very painful experience.”
Joe tucked his hair behind an ear, nodding. “Okay.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say sorry. To apologize for being messed up long before he’d ever met me. I’d already revealed enough, however. Given him a close-up of my insides, the likes of which few had ever had. Time to stop and say no more. Time to run for cover.
CHAPTER NINE
Message sent two months ago:
Eric, that’s ridiculous. There’s no way they needed to kill off Han Solo. In fact, I hereby deny the very possibility. In my mind, Han will forever be flitting around the stars with Chewie, ripping off awful aliens and evading the authorities. I refuse to countenance any other possibility.
Message received two months ago:
Alex, be reasonable. Han had to go. He was always a man of action, so no way would he have been sitting around waiting while Leia went and tried to cuddle up to their psychopath of a son. I’m cool with Ren killing the misgonyist idiots along with Han, though.
Message sent two months ago:
You’re wrong about Han. And you spelled misogynist wrong.
Message received two months ago:
You’re wronger.
Message sent two months ago:
That’s not even a word. This conversation is over now. So there.
P.S. How’s things going at work? Is everything okay?
“Hey,” a new voice entered the room. Multiple pairs of heavy footsteps.
Joe recovered first, climbing to his feet. “Andre. Pat. Come meet Alex.”
The males did some handshaking, backslapping. First came a man who had to be about mid-forties at a guess. Touches of gray in his short dark hair. Wrinkles around his eyes and smile lines along his mouth. He wore navy trousers and a cool patterned button-down shirt.
“Hi, I’m Andre.” He held his hand down to me for shaking, smiling all the while. “Old friend of Joe’s. Pleasure to meet you. He’s been telling me all about you.”
“He has?” I don’t think my tone came out right on that one.
“Absolutely. Glad to see you out and about.” Andre sat, stretching out his legs and leaning back on his hands. “You feeling better?”
“I am. Thank you.”
The second guy wasn’t so friendly. Nor did he look approachable. For starters, he was covered in tats. Please note: In no way did I believe a love of ink made someone a serial killer. He was tall and lanky with long black hair, the sides shaved into an undercut. A beard, the
length of which left Joe’s in the dust, obscured most of his face. And a silver ring pierced his septum. His clothes were uniformly black and kind of ratty-looking. Not unclean, just really well worn. The flat eyes and joyless mouth sealed the deal, however. Scary.
At least they made a perfectly timed distraction from Joe and my too serious discussion. Hoo ya to that.
“Hey.” The man tipped his head in my direction and sat also, plonking a six-pack of beer down beside the pizza. Immediately he broke one off, handed it to me.
“Thank you.”
“Alex, meet Pat,” said Joe, reclaiming his patch of floor. “We went to school together. He owns the tattoo parlor. Andre owns the building and runs the musical instrument shop downstairs.”
“I was downstairs with Pat, giving him a hand with the accounts.” Andre accepted a beer from Pat as well, drinking deeply. “Heard the footsteps up here and thought we’d come check things out.”
“With beer?” Joe finished off his first bottle and held a hand out for a replacement.
“You could have been thirsty robbers, ax murderers, serial killers.”
“Ghost hunters,” added Pat in a low voice.
Just like that, the guys dug into our pizza. Lucky it was big. Still, I took another slice before it was gone. Andre nodded, taking a bite. “True.”
“We did a séance up here once when we were kids.” With a sly smile, Joe moved a little closer. “Andre snuck up the inside stairs, making all these freaky noises. Scared the hell out of us.”
“That was the intention.” Andre grinned. “You little dickheads. Took me ages to get all the wax off the floor from the candles you’d been burning. Dad was pissed.”
It sounded like a soft rumbling, Pat’s laughter. Thunder coming in from a distance. Here and gone in a moment. I almost thought I’d imagined it. Nice to know the guy could manage some happy, however.
“How about the bird shit?” asked Pat, hiding what might have been a small smile behind his beer.
Muttering obscenities, Andre let his head fall back and gazed at the ceiling with a pained expression.