7. Eva #2
He’s so happy. It makes all of this Dmitri bullshit worth it to keep that smile on his face after everything we’ve been through together.
Sal spots us coming through the door and his whole face lights up.
“There they are!” he calls out. “The nerd and the nerdette.” He’s already pouring a ginger ale without being asked, because Sal learns people’s orders by the second visit and Wolfe’s a no-alcohol guy. Always.
“I’m not a nerd,” I say, sliding onto my usual stool.
“That’s right,” Sal says. “That’s reserved for him.” He nods in Wolfe’s direction. “You’re the nerdette.”
I shake my head and sit down. God, if he only knew.
Sal turns to Wolfe. “Wolfe, my man. Ready for the taste test?”
“Ready.”
“He takes promises very seriously,” I say to Sal. “It’s one of his few redeeming qualities.”
“Few?” Wolfe says.
“I’m being generous.”
Sal grins and looks between me and Wolfe like he’s mentally picking out centerpieces for our wedding. Same expression he had when I brought Tommy Lucero home in tenth grade.
“Don’t,” I say, pointing at him.
He pretends to look surprised because he knows exactly what he’s doing. “Don’t what?”
“Whatever’s happening behind your eyes right now. Shut it down.”
“My eyes are my own business.” He disappears into the kitchen, still grinning.
Wolfe and I sit at the bar and the silence between us feels heavy, more so than usual. The parking garage encounter is still fresh in my mind. Dmitri’s cologne is still stuck in my nose, the ghost of his fingertips on my shoulder pressing against me.
Jesus, I really have made such a fucking mess out of things. All because I was too damn smart for my own good. Too principled. Too na?ve.
Never again.
“You okay?” Wolfe asks. But he doesn’t look at me. He stares at his glass instead.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’ve been clenching your jaw since we sat down.”
“I said I’m fine.”
He doesn’t push. Just sits there with his ginger ale and lets me get away with my non-response. Somehow that’s worse than pushing, because it gives me room to feel the thing I’ve been shoving down since the garage, and I don’t want room for it. I want to stay numb.
Sal comes back with plates of braised short ribs over polenta. “New recipe. Marco’s been at it all week. Be honest.”
I take a bite, the delicious flavors dancing on my tongue. I damn near swoon “Oh my God.”
“Good oh my God or bad?”
“Sal. This is incredible.”
He turns to Wolfe. “What about you?”
A red flush creeps up the sides of Wolfe’s face as he stares at the plate. “I don’t really know if—”
“Trust me, it’s great,” I say, interrupting him. “It’s not Honey Nut Cheerios but give it a shot.”
“Okay, for you, I’ll do it.” He sweeps the fork around his plate like he’s trying to find the perfect bite. He takes the smallest amount of the short ribs and polenta on his fork and slowly raises it to his mouth, like he’s giving himself a little pep talk.
He puts the fork in his mouth and chews carefully. I watch right along with Sal for his reaction. Finally, Wolfe swallows and looks at Sal. “The sauce could use less heat. It’s fighting the sweetness of the polenta instead of working with it. But the meat is perfect.”
Sal stares at him. “Did you just give me a professional critique of my short ribs?”
He shrugs. “You asked for honesty.”
“I asked if they were good.”
“And I told you how to make them better. That’s more useful.”
Sal looks at me. I shrug. “He’s like this about everything. You should hear him talk about cereal.”
“Honey Nut Cheerios are a perfectly—”
“Don’t start,” I say, holding my fork in the air. “You’re doing so well.”
We keep eating. I’m painfully aware of his knee, so close to mine under the bar. Not touching. Just there. My pulse kicks up.
“What’s the deal with the music?” I ask, nodding at the Black Sabbath logo on his shirt. “You’ve been cycling through band t-shirts like a very angry jukebox since we met. I wouldn’t have pegged you as a metal guy.”
“What would you have pegged me as?”
“Classical. Like elevator music. Something that sounds like a screensaver.”
“Classical is too organized. My brain doesn’t need more organization. It needs something loud enough to shut everything else up.” He taps the side of his head. “Hard rock is the only thing louder than the noise in here.”
“Interesting,” I say. “I was just surprised because you don’t seem like a metal guy. It doesn’t really fit with the rest of you.”
“It fits perfectly with the rest of me. You just don’t know the rest of me yet.”
I nod, a small smile lifting my lips. “That’s fair.”
“Metal also has the most complicated rhythms in popular music,” Wolfe says. “Most people hear noise. I hear how it’s built.”
I nod at his shirt. “You listen to Slayer because of how their music is built.”
“Partly.”
“That is the most ‘you’ thing you’ve ever said.” I take a sip of water. “What about something a normal person might enjoy? Something that isn’t about structure?”
He actually thinks about it, like I asked him a hard question. He taps his fork against his plate for a few seconds. “There’s a Deftones song called ‘Digital Bath.’ I don’t listen to it for how it’s put together.”
“Why do you listen to it?”
He looks at me. “Because I can’t figure out why I like it. And that doesn’t happen to me much.”
Sweet Lord.
The air shifts. He said that like it cost him something…like admitting there’s a thing his brain can’t explain or figure out.
“What about you?” he asks. “What do you listen to?”
“Anything loud. Concerts are on my list.”
“What list?”
“The list of things I’m going to do when my life isn’t a dumpster fire. Loud, sweaty, terrible concerts where you can’t hear for two days after.”
“That sounds—”
“Don’t say counterproductive.”
“I was going to say loud.”
“It’s supposed to be loud. That’s the whole point.” I put my fork down and lean on the bar. “What else do you do besides work and eat cereal?”
“That’s a pretty complete list.”
“It’s a depressing list.”
“I play basketball against my brother Cillian.”
“Are you any good?”
“I beat him most of the time.”
I grin. “So either you’re good or he really sucks.”
“Or I’m just really good at predicting his pattern of play,” he says in a serious voice.
I can’t help the chuckle from slipping through my lips. “Okay, anything else, LeBron?”
“I read.”
“What do you read?”
“Whatever’s interesting.”
“Vaguest answer in history.” I smirk. “Tell me one real thing about yourself that I don’t already know.”
He’s quiet for a second. “I used to take things apart as a kid. Everything. Watches, radios, the lock on my bedroom door. My dad thought something was wrong with me. He sent me to specialists. They told him I was fine, just wired differently. He didn’t buy it.”
He says it in a monotone voice without a shred of self-pity in it. But I hear the kid underneath…the one who needed to understand how things worked and the father who looked at that need and saw a defect instead of a person.
“He was wrong,” I say. “Your dad.”
“I know.”
“Really? Because it doesn’t sound like you really believe that.”
His eyes drop to his plate and my heart clenches tight.
“The taking things apart,” I say in a softer voice. “That’s not broken. That’s just your brain doing its thing.” I shrug. “For what it’s worth, I think it’s one of your better qualities.”
A hint of a smile lifts his lips. “Now I have more than a few redeeming qualities?”
“Don’t push it. You’re at like, three.”
“What are the other two?”
“You’re a straight shooter, no bullshit, which I appreciate. And you look decent in glasses.” I slide off the stool before my mouth gets me in any more trouble. “Goodnight, Sal!”
“’Night, E!” Sal calls from the kitchen. “’Night, neighbor!”
We walk out into the cold. The street is quiet. Our breath clouds the air between us.
“Thanks for dinner,” I say, shifting from one foot to the other.
“Sal made dinner. I just showed up.”
“Yeah, well.” I shove my hands into my pockets. “You keep doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Showing up.”
He looks at me. The streetlight catches his glasses and for a second, I can’t see his eyes, just the reflection. Then he moves and they’re back…clear and blue and penetrating, like he could see through to my soul.
If I let him.
“Goodnight, Eva.”
“Goodnight, Wolfe.”
I walk in the direction of my building. When I get into my apartment, I lock my door and check the deadbolt twice.
This morning, a man grazed my shoulder to remind me he owns me. Tonight, a different man sat at my brother’s bar and told me he used to take things apart to understand how they work, and his father thought that made him broken.
Two men. Two kinds of dangerous. One wants to use me. The other one looks at me like I’m the most interesting thing he’s ever tried to figure out, and I can’t decide if that’s better or worse.
I’m in trouble. Real, actual, no-way-out trouble.
Because the man I should be afraid of isn’t the one who touched my shoulder today.
It’s the one who made me feel something.