Chapter 7
chapter seven
Angelo
Mia’s house wasn't a far drive from my parents' neighborhood.
Like most places in the county, one highway ran through several towns and cities, and luckily the traffic was nothing at all like the stop-and-go grid iron in the five boroughs.
I had a truck for work purposes, but the most travel I'd ever done with it was the trip I took from the Bronx down to Coconut Creek with my few boxes and my parents' old furniture I couldn't sell before the move.
Maybe she couldn't tell, but the entire car ride I was locked in on the road, hands at ten and two, avoiding any flitting looks toward the passenger seat for fear I might get caught up and veer over the median.
Mia was weaseling her way onto my skin like sunburn did.
Burning and aching, overtaking, and even when I thought the worst of it was gone, my skin would start peeling off and I was stuck remembering exactly the effect of her.
She lingered. She had been lingering since our last showing, and then she had the gall to show up in the car of a Suit.
It was always a fucking Suit. And the feeling in my chest when I realized it was the first moment I figured out that I didn't want any less of Mia Russo in my life. I didn't like the feeling of another guy parading her. I wanted what he had.
Somehow, that's where I found myself after two weeks of this.
The pack of cigarettes in my center console was calling my name. But Mia would hate it. So I fidgeted with the fraying seam on my jeans until, due to the grace of God, Mia pulled a pack of mint gum out of her purse and offered me a stick.
"My condo is right up here." She gestured to a short driveway, solar lights lining the loose stone walkway, large square pavers ending in front of a tall door that looked normal-sized against the two-story gray stucco.
Her unit was on the end, complete with a one-car garage and a small patch of grass that looped around the side of the building.
She had only a couple neighbors attached.
"Nice place," I noted, putting the truck in park. "Looks expensive."
"That it is," she said. "I have my own palm trees. Cuff and Link."
My eyebrows cinched together. There were indeed two palm trees towering at the edge of the property, but that wasn't what gave me pause. "You named your palm trees Cuff and Link? Like the turtles in Rocky?"
"Is it more interesting that I named the palm trees, or that I named them after two obsolete pets that got a one-second mention in a six-film mega franchise?"
My head dropped back against the seat and then lolled toward Mia. The golden streetlights were giving her dark-brown hair an auburn halo, and her already soft features were even more buttery. She was somehow that same girl giving me hell, and a totally new one in the same moment.
"I think you're an anomaly, really. Twenty minutes ago I expected to be driving you to a dungeon and tucking you into your coffin for the night."
This broke out the laugh she'd been keeping from me. It was sweet, and full. She laughed with a grin as wide as her face, and I couldn't help but mirror it.
"Are you disappointed?" she asked.
"Mildly. Now I'm curious what the inside actually looks like. Architecture is solid from out here."
"I told you it was expensive," she volleyed.
"That you did."
Mia paused, her teeth getting caught in her bottom lip, and my fingers twitched against that seam on my jeans once more. Any minute now she'd get out of the car and go home and I'd be at the mercy of a listing link until we could do this again. Whatever this was.
Two weeks had passed with a quickness I had been praying for but now resented.
She lifted her bag onto her lap. "Do you want to come inside?"
She might be luring me to my death. I still couldn't find a reason to say no. I only stared at her blankly as if the words that left her mouth were foreign.
"To check the architecture," she added. "No pressure."
"Right, to check the architecture," I replied.
Then she was letting herself out of the passenger door, and I was floating behind her—awkwardly, at that, my hands in my pockets, not sure whether to trail close by or give her the space to change her mind and be able to play it off like I knew it was a joke all this time.
But before long, she was keying us in on a security pad and flicking on the lights in the expansive front room.
I stepped onto a rug that was more expensive than anything I'd ever owned, and followed her lead as she slipped off her shoes and padded up a flight of stairs to the second floor of the condo.
"I wasn't expecting company, so don't look too closely at anything, and definitely ignore the Cheez-It crumbs on the sofa. They’re a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine."
"Will do," I said, somewhat in a stupor.
There were things I thought I knew about Mia Russo that vanished into thin air the moment I stepped into her space.
What I thought would be cold and calculated, somewhat boring or like a veneer over an otherwise unique space, was exactly the opposite.
Everything in Mia's condo was full of color.
Rusted oranges and deep greens, gold, blues—so many different shades but still a perfect soliloquy.
A coordinated chaos that made perfect, Mia-shaped sense.
All over the room were potted plants, creating a barrier around the one large window in the living room.
Giant terracotta pots with limbs of leaves snaking parallel to the curtains, umbrellas of ferns fanning over the arms of the sofa.
She had pebbled pea-looking plants folding over their hosts and spilling like waterfalls off shelves, with even more on the reclaimed wooden coffee table at the center of the colorful carpet.
Even in the shadows at the corners of the room, Mia had concocted some sort of artificial lighting situation, like a grow station of sorts for specific plants to thrive without a spot near a window.
"There's a cat somewhere, too," Mia added nonchalantly, opening her fridge and pulling out a decanter of what I assumed quickly was white wine. "Pickle Rick."
"Pickle fucking Rick," I echoed reverently. "I feel like I've entered an alternate universe."
"Why? Because you had a preconceived idea of me based on my family and my job that was more comfortable than reality?"
"I know what my brother knows and what he's gone through with your parents, for starters," I told her.
My only real introduction to the Russos was a warning to stay away from the alcoholic father, and not get caught up in conversation with the mother because I would find myself in a health and wellness pyramid scheme by the end of it.
"Would you say your parents are an accurate representation of you?" Mia sipped from a tall wine glass and folded herself into a chair at the kitchen island. I pulled out the one next to her and sat down, too.
"Are we getting deep now?”
“Just a question,” she added, blasé.
“In some ways, maybe." I shrugged. "Work ethic. Mindfulness. I think I know who I don't want to be because of them, and that's just as important."
She slid a glass of wine toward me.
"I thought you said you didn't drink while you were working."
"I'm off the clock, and it's Friday. I think I deserve it after a week of letdowns and no prospects in sight."
"We're close." My fingers brushed over Mia's reaching for the glass between us and she quickly pulled back, sliding her hand through the hair at the base of her neck.
A short breath of amusement split her mouth into a smile. "Two weeks ago, I would have bet money that this would be cut and dry. You'd be out of my hair in no time. Now look how far I've fallen from grace. You're in my condo, drinking my wine. It's not my proudest moment."
"I haven't taken a sip yet. I could leave right now, no harm, no foul. Send you to sleep with a clear conscience."
Mia's lips pursed. The sheen from her drink made them look wet and welcoming, and my throat was suddenly so dry I wasn't above begging for a sip.
She silently tilted her head, not giving me a clear yes or no, and I made her decision for her, lifting the glass to my mouth and swallowing the sweet, dry wine.
"Riesling?"
Her eyebrows lifted. "Savant, much?"
"No, Italian."
"I've uncovered a hidden talent," she mused. “Hey, Siri? Can you play ‘Dirty Work’ by Steely Dan?”
“You’re a crook.” I laughed. “Homeless guy, huh?”
“What can I say? I keep my cards close to my chest. It suits me to be as enigmatic as possible.”
Mia melted into the backdrop of her place.
I hadn't seen her look more comfortable anywhere else.
Even in her business casual button-down that was teetering on a dangerous tightness across her chest. One I shouldn't have noticed but couldn't keep myself from checking in on every few minutes, just in case.
"Is it common knowledge that you're Jane from Tarzan, living in a jungle?" I fiddled with the edge of a leaf potted in ceramic on the island in front of me.
"That one's poison," she said.
I snapped my fingers back into my palm. "What do I do?"
"Nothing." She sipped the dregs from her glass. "You have three hours or so until the points of contact turn gangrenous and eventually fall off."
"Mia, I know you're fucking with me," I said in a higher pitch than I was used to speaking, "but then again, based on our history I could be dead wrong. Your calmness is spiking my anxiety."
She giggled, humming contently, overly proud of herself. Instead of suffering in silence I lurched across the short space separating us and touched my possibly poisoned fingertips to the back of her hand.
A shocked, yet unaffected, gasp rang out. "You sick bastard."
"If I go, you go." My touch lingered on her skin, and she had yet to notice it, or yet to do anything about it.
"That's tragically Shakespearean," she pouted. “It's really too bad the leaves are only poisonous if ingested."
"Now I know your biggest secret," I said.
"There are one hundred and thirty-six species of house plant in this condo," she noted mischievously. "You know nothing, Jon Snow."
“And why exactly are there so many plants? They look great, don't get me wrong. Very Bohemian. I feel like an anteater at an all-inclusive in Cancun."
Now I slid my finger slowly across the top of her hand, boldly rubbing my coarse skin over her perfectly smooth knuckles. Mia's tongue poked out against her bottom lip and she swallowed hard.
The air was so thin between us. I was hardly touching her, but she was letting me. She was safe and relaxed in her own home, and letting me graze her skin outright. Unmistakably. Heat was working its way into unseemly parts of my body. Just from a touch.
"I like taking care of them," she said softly. "I like interior design, and the versatility that nature brings to it. Not just versatility but humanness. Real life, vibrance, color. I bought one when I closed on this condo, and then one became two and then five and…"
"One hundred and thirty-six," I finished, now trying my luck at drawing a circle around the bone on her wrist. I caught Mia's eye in the hanging low light above the island. Her cheeks had gone from a pale white to rosy, her chest a pink hue to match.
"Now I can hardly fit any in the natural light. I wasn't accounting for so many plants, obviously, when I bought this place. I had to resort to artificial and indoor grow gardens. Eventually I'll move on into a house with floor-to-ceiling windows. The more, the better."
"It's cozy," I said. "Warm, vibrant, mature. You know what you're doing. Maybe you could design my place. I'm no good at that stuff. The building? I got that. Decor?" I blew a soft raspberry through my lips.
"We said one month."
"I know what we said," I answered. My heart was steadily thudding against my chest as Mia turned her hand over, letting me spread my fingers across her palm.
I repeated that same slow circle of movement from her wrist to the center of her hand, gliding suggestively back and forth, not unlike how I might touch her elsewhere.
A short tremble of breath dropped from Mia's lips and my eyes snapped to hers, half-lidded and watching my fingers roll in a figure eight pattern across her skin. "Oh, sweetheart…"
Then she snatched her arm back against her body spastically. As if I'd been a thief about to steal something and run. I let out my own huff of breath, which was muffled by the pounding of my pulse in my ears. "What's wrong?"
"We can't." She stood up with her wine glass, walked it quickly to the sink, and ran the tap, swishing water around the inside.
"Mia…"
"You're my sister's brother-in-law."
"What does that even mean?" I jeered.
"And you're my client."
"Is that in the manual?"
"It’s common sense. Oh my god, I'm such an idiot." Mia whirled around with her hand on her forehead, then grabbed my glass and splashed the remaining wine into the sink.
I frowned. "I wasn't finished with that."
"This"—she gestured between us—"is not a thing. It will never be a thing."
I shrugged, tauntingly. "It was almost just a thing."
She shoved my chest, backing me toward the landing of the stairs. I let her try her hardest and stopped us at the edge.
"See, this is what I mean," she snapped. "You think playing handsy means something, and it doesn't. It was a temporary loss of cognitive function. I didn't eat lunch and that Riesling went directly to my head."
"Don't try to play this off like you're tipsy, Mia. I've seen you drunk, and that girl would have been face down, ass up the second I followed you in here."
"Ugh!" She beat at my chest again. "Get out, get out! I cannot believe I even let you in here."
"I can't believe I let you play platonic handsies with me."
She growled and steered me down the stairs to the front door, handing me my shoes and watching me balance on one foot to put them on.
"Good night, Angelo. Thank you for the ride."
"What are you so worried about?" I asked. "That it won't be a one-time thing?"
In an instant, Mia's cheeks burned scarlet again. Her little manicured fingers worried themselves with the linen material on her blouse.
"That you won't be able to go back to the Suits anymore afterward, like a good little rich girl?" I continued.
She stood there staunchly, angrily. Bloated silence filled the air all the way up to the vaulted ceilings. That was enough of an answer for me. I was satisfied with it.
Against all better judgment, I leaned down and planted a soft kiss on her tomato-red cheek, and let myself out.