Chapter 1 #2
She always used to choose sophisticated calm over intense emotion, but she gives me a big fucking smile back today.
“Where ya been, loca?”
The man standing behind her, facing the other way, pulls up straight when he hears my voice. Dark hair, buffalo-checked shirt, I can tell even from behind he’s not a pretty boy, but I don’t know what to make of him yet. I didn’t even realize she had anyone with her until I saw his spine straighten.
When he turns around, what I’m not expecting is to see a baby strapped to his chest, over a Henley, layered beneath the open button-down shirt over it. A little baby girl floats, cooing as she hangs from the carrier strapped to the scruffy man with the grumpy face.
“It’s Rory now,” he says to me, voice gruff and colder than I’d like. He wraps a possessive arm around Aurora’s shoulders, and that’s when I notice the boulder sparkling on her hand.
“This where you been?” I ask her, pointing to the man and baby.
She nods, eyes softer than I’m used to seeing them, not seeming to mind that she’s got a second asshole attached to her side.
“I moved back home. To Smoky Heights.”
“Well doesn’t that just sound lovely.” Like something you’d hear in a fairy tale, or maybe see on a postcard.
“This is the bodega guy?” her husband, according to the band on his finger—and that aura of fuck right off when you look at my wife—says incredulously, looking between his wife and me.
He doesn’t think we hooked up, does he? He’s acting like I’m a threat to his woman.
Could just be the generic vibe of danger most people pick up from me, no matter how good-natured I am these days. It’s not something I try to give off, but old habits die hard.
“Aww, you talked about me? How sweet.” I flutter my eyelids at her a couple times and hear a grumble from the guy she’s with.
Rory cuts me a look that says not to rile him up, and I back off, because after all those years of making her sandwiches, I’m not convinced she wouldn’t shove a heel up my ass if I pissed her off.
And considering it’s against my ethos to hit a lady, unless it’s a nice smack to the ass while I’m hitting it from behind, well… Better not push it.
“Name’s Wilder. Wilder Amante, good to meet you, amico.”
“Wyatt Grady.”
His handshake is firm, and I make an effort not to crunch his hand in mine out of respect.
“Visiting?”
She nods. “Indeed. Showing my face in the office, doing a number of in-person meetings, and bringing the best the city has to offer back home to tide us over until the next trip.” Her husband grumbles something I can’t hear, and she grins at him, love almost pouring out of her eyes in a way that I’ve sure as hell never had. Lucky bastard.
“So should I get in the car now or later?” I ask, waggling my brows.
Wyatt scowls, forehead pinching close to his dark green eyes. He’s a tough crowd.
“You found it. Best the city has to offer, right here,” I say, holding my arms out wide.
“We’ll take an assortment of your creations. Dealer’s choice.” She rests a hand on her husband’s arm to calm him down, and I watch it work in real time. Like salve on a burn, he chills the fuck out under her touch.
“But if you’re looking for some new scenery, maybe something a little cozier—” Aurora turns around, facing the front of the store where the sounds of the street can be heard all the way back here, then spinning to look at me again.
“—a little more peaceful, we are currently hiring for a new restaurant opening soon back home. Word on the street is they’re looking for a talented chef. ”
“You don’t say?”
“Had to mention it,” she says, holding her hands up. “It’s nothing fancy, but you can’t blame me for trying. Just some food for thought.”
“Well, let me get you some food for your stomach then.”
I whip her up four of my most popular sandwiches, including, of course, the Chicken Love Supreme.
While I work, I try to picture the offer she tossed out there.
Is there some alternate universe where I wasn’t born into a family of criminals, and found myself nestled in a sleepy mountain town, flipping burgers?
Sliding the wrapped packages across the counter, I give her a wink. “Let me know what you think of my meat.”
“Ew,” her husband says.
Wyatt distracts himself by kissing the top of the baby’s head, holding her hands and helping her dance in the carrier, kicking her little legs as her mom grabs the sandwiches and brings them over to the short, narrow counter along the side wall, where people can pause for thirty seconds, standing to scarf down their food, before they continue on their way through the city.
Aurora never used to take the time to stop and scarf. She probably inhaled on her commute, like most of the other New Yorkers. But today, I smile, watching her open up the Chicken Love Supreme and take a huge bite right here in the bodega.
Her eyes roll back in her head, mouth full, some of that white sauce dripping from the corner of her lips as she covers her mouth with one hand to speak.
“Oh my God,” she moans.
It’s sinful.
“You have to try this,” she says around her mouthful, shoving the culinary masterpiece in her husband’s face.
Begrudgingly, trying to pretend I’m not watching him put his lips around my footlong, he leans forward so none of it drips on their daughter as he takes a bite. Against his will—I’m sure of it—he groans when the flavors collide on his palate.
“Fuck, that is good,” he admits, chewing for a long time before he swallows.
“The secret’s all in the meat,” I say it like I’m letting them in on something special, leaning forward to join their little family moment. “The meat, and my love sauce.” I wink at the man, and he looks like he’s going to gag.
“Is that what you’re calling it?” Rory asks me, lips turned up at one side, amused.
“Oh yeah,” I tell her. “My love sauce has the creamy factor. Salty and creamy, it makes all the difference.”
“Please stop talking,” Wyatt says, retching.
“Otherwise it’s just dry meat,” I shudder. “It’s just wrong. There is something so not right about it, you know what I mean? It’s gotta be juicy, salty, and creamy, that’s the trifecta where the magic happens when it hits your mouth.”
Wyatt stares at me, eyes bleak, face slack. “There is something wrong about every single thing that comes out of your mouth, bodega man.” He looks haunted.
Can’t the guy take a joke?
Already halfway done with the sandwich while Wyatt’s wasted his chance to enjoy it fresh, Rory grins at me, dropping a bill in my tip jar.
“This has been an absolute delight. Good to see you again, Wilder. Thanks for the sandwiches. And remember, Smoky Heights, S-M-O-K-Y—”
Her husband tugs on her arm, pulling her out of my corner, up toward the register so they can pay and get on with their visit and get back home.
I don’t blame him. If I had a woman that fine, I’d hog her to myself too.
Though, if you’re asking, I like ’em a little thicker. More meat on the bones. More to play with. I like to have fun with my woman.
Not that it’s been a priority for me, with two nearly full-time jobs in the service industry. But I can dream.
Sad news for me, there’s not a lot more fun to be had in my day. Not throughout the rest of my slot at the bodega, not even during my night shift as junior chef at the New American eatery I hear the douchey slimeballs who come up from Wall Street for a good time call the next Barbuto.
Pricks wouldn’t know what’s up and coming if they took two too many Viagra and it was staring them in the face. They just come to drop stacks and try to lure women out of their league with cash and name dropping the firms they work for.
It’s not until I’m unwinding, sometime past midnight, at a bar that wasn’t even on Lexington last week, that I spot an opportunity for some fun of my own.
A beautiful woman, slim, in a black, skintight dress, with her back pressed to the bar, glass of white wine in hand.
She’s not the fun.
The guy boxing her in, the reason her face looks so uncomfortable, that’s looking like a good time.
Something purrs in my chest, morphing into a rumble of a growl as I watch one of the stronzos I saw at table 72 earlier this evening—the one in pressed khakis, whose foie gras was “off” and needed his meal comped for his trouble (though he ate the entire plate, and the second one we brought to replace the first one)—not take a fucking hint.
Nose pressed to the woman’s neck, he runs it up to her ear, even when she pulls her head back, trying to get away from him.
You don’t have to have an English degree to read her body language. It’s screaming at him to fuck off, but he isn’t listening.
Me and my glass of tequila are across the bar, one eyebrow raised as I watch, so I can’t make out what words are being exchanged, but I recognize scum when I see it. I was around it for the first twenty-one years of my life.
I take in the strangers’ interaction for just long enough to give her the chance to knee him in the balls, throw her drink in his face, gouge her nails through his flesh, anything to get him away from her.
Instead, she goes for subtle. Looks of annoyance, twitches, shrugging off his touches.
This loafer-wearing coglione doesn’t speak subtle.
Lucky for him, I can be loud and fucking clear.
Taking another slow draw from my silver tequila (neat, so I can feel the burn the way God intended), I unfold from the barstool and take steady steps toward them.
The monster doesn’t have safety instincts, the kind honed when you grow up in a life like I did. Clearly, or he’d feel the threat at his back.
Instead, he pushes on, trying to prey on someone he assumes is even weaker than he is. His body flush against hers, one hand sneaking back behind her body, beneath the bar, intent on taking what he wants.
Strolling by him, my hip knocks into him. Would’ve used my shoulder, if he was tall enough I could reach him with it. But I’m a survivor. I adapt.