Chapter 13 #2
I stalk out of the office and through the store, driven by the need to see her.
“Is it too much to hope you just had a genius brain stroke that’s going to make us all rich?” Giovanni asks from the register.
“Strokes are bad, numbnuts.” Nico smirks at him from the sandwich counter.
I ignore both of them and step out into the cold air. On my way up, I look for the slippery spot on the steps, then head back inside to get a shovel to take care of it.
I’m not doing it for Lucy; I just don’t want anyone else falling down the steps.
I pass the flyer again and pause in the doorway, making a point to open it but stay outside.
My gaze only takes half a second to find her, not behind the counter but sitting at a table in the back with a latte and a book in her hands.
She’s staring down at it, her curls cascading toward the pages.
Botticelli would have been pissed that he’d never had the privilege of immortalizing her in paint.
Even though I haven’t sketched in years, not since those days of bird watching with my nonno, I find myself wanting to sketch her.
“In or out, son,” says a grizzled old man near the door.
“I don’t want to get arrested.”
A woman at the table next to him gasps. “Why, it’s the handsome man from that flyer. I thought it was a joke.”
“No joke, ma’am,” I say. “I got banned for talking to one of the owner’s assistants.”
Charlie, who’s standing behind the counter, throws a dish towel at me and laughs when I catch it.
“Ignore everything he says, folks. He’s a known menace.
” Then she calls out to Lucy—who must be reading something engrossing, because she appears to have missed our entire interaction—saying, “Your nemesis is here, Lucy.”
She drops the book, then curses and frantically thumbs through it to find her place. I barely feel the cold as I watch her, taking in the slightly red blotch on her right cheek. That must be where she collided with the door.
“Can I speak with you in private for a moment, Lucia?” I ask as she marks her spot in the book with a receipt unearthed from her bag.
“You’d better go with him,” Charlie says. “He’s letting in the cold.”
“Why don’t you just come in?” Lucy asks, her eyes moving over me. “You’re not wearing a coat.”
“I’ve been banned,” I say wryly. “Even though certain promises were made to my grandmother, the flyer’s still out here, collecting new graffiti.”
She puckers her lips and gets to her feet. “Let’s take a look at it together. I take defacement of my property very seriously.”
“Don’t forget your coat,” I say.
She gives me a look that accuses me of being half a dozen things, a hypocrite first and foremost, but I merely smile at her in return.
She puts on the coat, so I guess this once she’d prefer being warm to being right.
“I’m calling the cops if she’s not returned safely within ten minutes,” Charlie taunts.
Lucy rolls her eyes at her friend, then steps through the door I’m now holding for her. Her body passes a whisper away from mine, her coat brushing my shirt. Should the brush of fabric against fabric feel this erotic?
Probably not, but this woman is my kryptonite.
I follow her, letting the door shut behind us.
“Are you trying to get hypothermia?” she asks me, gesturing to the snow.
“Feeling hopeful?”
A smile flashes across her face for half a second, and then she tugs at her scarf. “Do you want this?”
It’s covered in red flowers.
I hold back a laugh. “So your friend can take a photo and put up a new flyer? No, thank you.”
“She’s busy with customers.” She arches an eyebrow, smiling smugly, a dare in her eyes. “Are you not confident enough in your masculinity to wear flowers?”
“I have two Hawaiian shirts.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I didn’t say I bought them. But I’m still not putting the scarf on.”
“My scarf is offended.”
I’m about to banter back when my gaze catches on the flyer. Right. I’m not here to flirt with her. “I’m offended.”
“I suppose you’ve heard about the paper,” she says stiffly.
“What paper?”
Her mouth scrunches to one side. “There was something in Lady Lovewatch about us.”
A groan escapes me, and I rub my temples. “No, I haven’t seen it. I’ve been distracted by other news. I heard you threw cookies at my grandmother this morning.”
Her eyes widen, and she adjusts the scarf nervously. “Did she say that? Because it was definitely an accident.”
I lift my fingers to the red spot on her face, and she flinches.
“Does it hurt?” I ask.
“No…you touched me.”
As if I have a transmittable disease. My momentary good humor slips away, and suddenly all I see are the fresh blemishes sketched onto my face on the flyer.
I lower my fingers. “Does it hurt?” I repeat.
“No, it was just a silly accident. I wanted to apologize to your grandmother.”
“But you mentioned my mother to her.”
Both of her cheeks are red now, the little bruised spot barely darker. “I was trying to be nice.”
“Lucia, everyone in Hideaway Harbor knows better than to mention my mother around my grandmother. Around anyone in my family.”
She grimaces. “I’m sorry.”
Despite the apology in her eyes, I can tell from her tone that I’ve offended her again.
I shift my weight, trying to find a way to explain myself to her, and also to control my mood, which is everywhere today.
Up, down, and in the moon. “Something happened to our family over twenty years ago, and no one allows us to forget it. The busybodies are still talking about it. Talking about all kinds of things they have no business talking about. Telling strangers—”
“I’m not a stranger,” she says tightly. Then she glances toward the Sip to make sure the door hasn’t magically burst open before adding, “You propositioned me last week.”
“I’m glad you remember,” I say, smiling despite myself. “You know, I was worried someone might spread stories about you, but maybe I should have worried about you talking about me.”
She gasps. “As if. No one needs to talk about you. Your ego is already the size of Maine.”
“Only Maine?” I say. “Surely you can do better than that.”
She’s inched closer to me, seemingly without realizing it. We’re so close only a foot separates us, maybe less, the air between us a billowy white from our warm breath.
She pokes my chest, and despite her reluctance to touch me earlier, I layer my hand over hers.
“You’re freezing,” she says softly.
“I’m fine. My blood runs hot too.”
Our gazes lock in an intense stare-off.
Distantly, I register people passing us. People watching. But at this particular moment it’s hard to care.
“I wasn’t gossiping about you,” she says quietly. “And I’ll take down the flyer. I told your grandmother I would.”
This is the moment where I can let it go. I should let it go. I don’t hate this woman. I don’t even dislike her anymore. Maybe I never did.
But I do like this game we’ve been playing. It’s one of the only things that’s made me feel alive since leaving New York a defeated man.
So I say, “Then you lied to her face. I want you to keep it up. And I’m going to put up one of my own.”
Gasping again, she wrenches her hand from my grip. “You wouldn’t.”
“You’ve had so much fun with your little marker.” I gesture to the marked-up flyer. “I feel left out.”
Her chin tips up. “Don’t you already have a little marker?”
I laugh. “Always building me up, Lucia. No, there’s nothing little about me. And although I’ve been told my dick can work miracles, I still haven’t figured out how to write with it unless I’m peeing on snow.”
She gapes at me. “You’re disgusting.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m leaving.”
“Please do.”
But we stand there for another long, loaded moment, our eyes locked, the air between us fraught. I’m tempted to close the distance between us, to lift her stubborn chin and kiss her.
Maybe she even wants me to.
But that would be as good as a declaration, and even though I’m desperate to touch Lucy, I don’t want to walk hand in hand with her through the streets of Hideaway Harbor, the way her friend and my sister’s ex-boyfriend do.
And I definitely have no desire to see this moment recreated in the pages of The Almanac.
“My proposition stands,” I finally say.
She scowls. “So does my refusal.”
“Very well,” I say. “We can discuss it over dinner tomorrow night.”
“Like I said the other day, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” she says, her expression almost convincing. “But I’ve heard the only person who’ll give you a pity date in Hideaway Harbor is a woman old enough to be your mother. That’s got to burn.”
I grin at her, because arguing with this woman is addictive. “For a moment, I was worried you’d gone soft on me.”
“No, from what I’ve heard, you’re the one who goes soft.”
The look on her face says she’s hoping I’ll assume Rachelle told her something embarrassing. But there’s nothing embarrassing to tell. Not like that, anyway.
I shake my head. “I thought you weren’t a gossip, cara mia. Or a liar. But if you’d like, I’d be happy to prove you wrong. Anytime.”
She’s breathing rapidly, her chest rising and falling. My gaze takes it in hungrily.
“Have the day you deserve,” she finally says, “and put on a damn coat.” Then she stomps into the café.
I return to Hidden Italy, my teeth chattering, and pour myself a large coffee from the carafe by the deli counter.
“Who won this round?” Giovanni asks as he looks up from his phone.
“We both did,” I say with a grin, and I head back into the office.
I sketch Lucia, the way I used to sketch the birds in my book. She’s so beautiful the drawing can’t be seen as anything but a compliment, so I add a hairy mole to the middle of her forehead with a marker.
That night, it’s my turn to stay with Nonna Francesca.
She insists on making me dinner, saying she’s not worm food yet.
Afterward we watch her favorite Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, even though it always puts a saccharine taste in my mouth.
I must be truly bored, because I find myself wondering what it would be like to watch it with Lucy.
I’d keep up a running commentary about all the parts that were ridiculous and illogical, and she’d tear down my criticisms.
I’ll bet she’d enjoy that.
I certainly would.
Damn. I’m looking forward to seeing what she has planned for me at dinner tomorrow night.
Despite her protests, I have no doubt she does have something planned, and it’s almost certain to be awful.