Chapter 6
SIX
Nico
We don’t say another word until we start seeing the signs for Philly.
“Wanna eat?” I ask her.
She starts. She seems to drift for a moment, as if she’s trapped in the pages of her book-world, before slowly lifting her gaze.
Disoriented, as if she just remembered she was in a car with her worst enemy.
I can only see her out of the corner of my eye, but I’m sure she looks particularly gorgeous right now. “Yeah,” she says. “I can eat.”
“I know a good place.”
“I love chicken parm.”
“I don’t only eat chicken parm, Annie.” I did have it for dinner last night, but she definitely does not need to know that.
“Are you saying that if I cut you open, you wouldn’t bleed marinara sauce?”
I sigh (should I get a nebulizer?), and thankfully she’s silent until I pull the car into the small parking lot.
Annie looks around. “Okay, cheesesteaks I get, because we’re in Philly, but we’re not going to go to one of the famous places?”
I turn the car off. “This place is ten times better.”
She eyes the storefront suspiciously. “You sure?”
“Positive.”
I climb out and start making my way to the other side of the car to open Annie’s door, force of habit really, because Ma would slap me upside the head if I didn’t, but then I stop short when I realize that Annie Li would fuckin’ hate it and would never stop raggin’ me about it if I opened that door for her.
She stares at me with an eyebrow lifted in a dare and opens her own door.
I, at the very least, hold the door to the shop open for her on the way in.
It’s a small place, a little more renovated than the last time I was here, but it’s crowded as all hell, way more crowded than the last time I was here. I make my way to the counter, to the woman running the register. “Hey. Is—” but I don’t need to finish.
“Nicoooo!” Gino yells as he walks out of the kitchen.
“Nico! Cheryl, check out this kid. Come here, you gorgeous, brilliant boy, you.” He steps out from behind the counter and wraps me in his arms. Now, I consider myself a pretty big guy, got some meat on me because of the nature of my job and all, but Gino makes me feel like a delicate ballerina.
“Gino, my man,” I say into his chest.
Gino wraps my head in an arm, a half approximation of a headlock, presenting me to the middle-aged woman behind the counter. “Cheryl, you know who this is?”
“Nah, Gino,” she answers.
“This guy here deserves the Nobel Prize or some shit. Smartest kid I ever met. Saved this business, made it what it is today,” he says, gesturing to the crowds of people in the shop.
“Nice to meet you, Cheryl,” I nod my head.
She sucks her teeth, as if acknowledging me has cost her something.
I suppress a smile.
Gino turns to Annie, who is standing there looking a little bewildered.
“And who’s this stunning bambina, Nico? This your girl? She’s too pretty for you.”
She snaps out of it. Her face breaks into a huge smile, a wide grin that knocks me speechless for the second time because I’m so used to her scowling or glaring at me like she wants to flay the skin from my flesh.
I ignore the stab of awe in my chest, but I stare at her.
I mean, I gotta. She’s a gorgeous pain in my ass.
“You’re right, I am too pretty for him,” she tells Gino, striding up to him to shake his hand. “I’m Annie. I’m his nothing. My sister is marrying his friend, and we’re driving down to the wedding together. Nice to meet you.”
“Gino. Nice to meet you, and congratulations to your sister.”
“Thanks. I don’t think it’s worth celebrating though, since Nico’s friend is a massive—”
“Annie,” I warn.
Gino turns to me and slaps me upside the head. “Not so smart after all, kid, if pretty Annie is your ‘nothing.’”
“She hates me,” I say, at the same time Annie says, “I’m not his type.”
Gino looks between us. “What’s his type, then?”
“Someone who isn’t a miserable fuckin’ hurricane of serious issues who causes fuckin’ problems for everyone around her,” she says out of fuckin’ left field, with a smile that’s so fake it looks like it’s slapped on and scotch taped. What the hell is that? What…
It suddenly hits me like a battering ram, and I realize with a start that those are my words. My words from when I was pissed on the beach.
I stare at her some more. At the current forced nonchalance of her posture and smile.
And if I’m reading her right… Is that… No.
It can’t be. She’s hurt. Prickly, thorny Annie Li, with skin so thick that even the weight of the world would barely make a dent, who at eight-years-old kicked a boy twice her size in the nuts because he pushed my little sister, is hurt by a comment I made. “Annie—”
“Or maybe like a cheerleader or something,” she interrupts, “and certainly not this,” she gestures up and down her body, seemingly at the tattoos that cover every inch. “Didn’t you play football in high school or something?”
Huh? “If by football, you mean Dungeons and Dragons,” I reply slowly.
She frowns at me. “I seem to remember you being a dumb sports jock at Stuy.”
“Annie, I was valedictorian. You know this, so fuckin’ enough about that. But I was also the captain of the Science Olympiad team and the Mathletes team. Not to mention president of the chess club and sci-fi club.”
Annie stares at me, incredulous and slightly horrified. “You didn’t play sports?”
“I think I played ping-pong for a minute?” I scratch the back of my head. “But back to that other thing—”
“Well,” Gino says, clapping his hands together once and cutting me off, “looks like you guys got some issues that need workin’ out, so why don’t you two go sit down and I’ll get you something to eat.” He shoves me towards an empty table, with Annie following not far behind.
We sit. I take her in while she looks me directly in the eyes with another dare in hers.
She doesn’t back down, doesn’t flinch, doesn’t avert her gaze.
But still, it’s there. I can see it. A flicker of pain, of hurt, of self-doubt.
Something soft. And just like that, I have to apologize to Annie “My Worst Fuckin’ Nightmare” Li.
At least, I try to.
“Don’t,” she says quietly, cutting me off. She finally looks away. “I don’t want it.”
Gino takes that moment to plop down two cheesesteaks. “Davey just made these. Fresh off the grill. Bon appétit.”
We mutter our thanks, Annie blasting Gino with that megawatt smile. The real one.
“So how did you help Gino do all of this?” she quickly asks after he walks away, erecting another wall with breakneck speed.
I don’t answer. “Annie. Come on, honey.”
The fire in her eyes reignites. “I’m not your honey.”
I blow out a breath. “Fine.” I’m not going to win. “I taught him about a particular chemical reaction.”
She takes a huge bite of her sandwich. “Holy shit,” she says around a mouthful of steak. “This is incredible.”
I nod, because it is. “The reaction happens when proteins and sugars react at high temperatures and create hundreds of tasty as fuck flavor compounds. I used the tenets of that to give him a bunch of tips for improving his sandwich.”
“Like what?”
I chew and swallow a bite. Damn, this really is incredible.
“You gotta remember that browning is good. So I told him to use thin-sliced ribeye ‘cause its marbling allows for faster rendering of fat, which enhances browning. To heat his griddle real hot. Also to cook in small batches for a proper sear. Too much meat on the grill will make steam, and that’ll stop the reaction and browning from happening.”
“And you just strolled in here like Robin Hood and told him that?”
I shrug. “Kinda. I dated someone who lived nearby for a hot second. I came in here all the time when I came down to visit. We got to talkin’.”
“Nice of you.”
I eye her. “Despite this ridiculous image you have of me, I’m a nice fuckin’ person, Annie.”
“That courtesy seems to extend to everyone else but me,” she says cooly.
“Christ, Annie, I wanna apologize for what I said on the beach, but you won’t let me.”
“Because that’s not all of it, not even a fraction of what you need to be apologizing for, so I don’t want it, Nico,” she growls.
I stare at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Drop it,” she says dangerously. “I told you I don’t want it.”
“You’re giving me fuckin’ whiplash,” I tell her, running my hands through my hair. It’s already a disaster from the top down of our car. “This is too much.”
“Then leave it.” She slams her hands down on the table.
I half expect quills to shoot out of her skin like a cartoon porcupine.
For the first time, I catch a clear glimpse of the tattoos she has across her knuckles.
Her right hand spells out PLUM. On her left, the four suits of a deck are etched across each finger—spade on her index, heart on her middle, diamond on her ring, and club on her pinky.
“Fine,” I say.
Because she’s right. I do need to fuckin’ leave it. My life is already freakin’ ridiculous as it is. This porn star does not need to add Sexy Enemy Apologist to his CV.
Our car doesn’t start up again while parked at a rest stop in the Middle of Nowhere, Maryland, and Annie vibrates next to me with barely restrained glee.
“Just don’t, Annie.”
“Oh, but I must.”
“Just hold it in.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“Try harder.”
“Told you,” she squeaks out.
I am unable to hold it in. “For the last fuckin’ time, Annie, I didn’t have a fuckin’ choice about this fuckin’ car so just fuckin’ enough, okay?”
She tries to smother a grin and fails.
I pull out my phone and dial the rental company.
“I’m gonna go get some candy,” Annie says, hopping out of the car and leaving me in peace.
A few minutes later, I finally hang up and will my blood pressure to go down.
“Earliest we can get to you is 8:30 a.m.,” the rep chirped, like I won the car rental lottery. “But we’ve arranged accommodations for you about ten miles down the road. There’s a hotel we partner with. You’ll just need to get yourselves there.”
I hung up the phone before I lost it on the poor customer service rep or threw my phone out the window.
I settle in to wait for Annie, already opening my email to find comfort in Ali’s words.
I immediately bathe in the stab of pride at Ali’s first line, that what I’m doing is really cool.
And then I get hard. Again. We must refrain from sending our coworker a dick pic, I chant in my head. I start typing.
From: chef@
To: ali@
Why, thank you, Ali. It’s rare that I get that sort of feedback. Regarding the job, I mean. I get all sorts of weird and inappropriate feedback about the goods, though (now that I think about it, for some strange reason, that doesn’t include you).
Also, I don’t like when you talk about yourself like that. Tell me more, but this time, don’t be so mean to yourself. Tell me more about how Ali shines.
I’ll start.
1. You have such a way with words.
2. A way with words that gets me [Redacted for Work Email].
3. I don’t wonder what you look like every time I [Redacted for Work Email].
As I hit send on what I suppose some may classify as the written, not quite safe for work version of a dick pic, I hear a commotion outside the car.
I peer out the window, over to my left… and my blood pressure spikes hard enough to shrivel my erection and cause legitimate medical concern.
But underneath the alarm is something entirely unexpected: a visceral, primal surge of mine, must protect.
I decide to unpack this at a later time and jump out of the car and run over to where Annie, all roughly five feet and change of her, is standing toe-to-toe with a furious man about my size. Except he’s built like he’s been suckling pure HGH since birth.
“Annie, honey,” I cut in, “step back.”
Both she and the dude snap their heads toward me.
Her lip starts to curl back when the guy grunts, “She yours? Tell her to go get me a new—”
“Fuck you, you motherfucking roided-up jar of expired whey protein,” Annie snarls, entirely ignoring my request and taking a step forward like she’s not half this dude’s mass.
The violence of it stops me in my tracks.
“You knocked into this poor woman and tripped over your own over-inflated ego—then you wanna cry about your soda? Get a fucking grip.”
It’s then that I notice the elderly Asian couple behind her—both half Annie’s size, the woman clutching an all-white mobility cane, both of them visibly shaken.
I silently move to their side, at Annie’s back.
Annie jabs a finger in the dude’s face. “Go bench press some accountability, dick. You want a new drink? Why don’t you wring one out of your nasty-ass, creatine-soaked compression shirt?”
The guy blinks, stunned, like the rage circuit in his brain shorted out from the sheer force of being verbally bodied by someone half his size. “What the f—”
The three of us behind Annie collectively relax, because the situation now reads handled. I wonder, briefly, if I should de-escalate or hold Annie’s metaphorical earrings.
“Oh, now you’re speechless?” Annie barks, arms out.
“You’ve been snorting and grunting like a juiced-up buffalo and stomping your little hooves—,” I glance down and his feet are comically small, “—and suddenly you can’t form a sentence?
Why don’t you run back to your Mustang convertible—” I scrub my face at this, “—and drive back to whatever shithole gym you came from. Sweat out some of that toxic masculinity.”
The dude shakes his head. “Crazy-ass bit—” he starts, and I go blind.
I take a step forward. “Careful.” I surprise myself with the tone my voice has taken, all metal and danger and murder, while I am normally more of an extra marshmallows, please and do-you-wanna-hear-my-ranking-of-all-the-Spider-Verses kinda guy.
He glances between the two of us.
“You may have more muscle,” I inform him, then point to Annie, “but she will set your Mustang convertible on fire.”
He shakes his head again and storms off, muttering under his breath.
I look over at Annie as if to check her for injuries, but she’s already moved towards the elderly couple, speaking to them in warm, soothing Cantonese. The man clutches Annie’s arm with both hands. There is a lot of what I believe is “thank you.”
Annie makes eye contact with me and gestures me over. “Let’s walk them to their car,” she says, and I’ve never moved faster to take someone’s orders. The woman takes my arm with a frail hand, and we guide them across the lot.
After they drive away, Annie looks at me. I still feel juiced up with adrenaline and ready to, like, wrestle a hippopotamus or flip a tractor tire or scream into an abyss, or something.
Annie just nods, beautiful and serene. “Now I want a soda.”