by Edwin Dasso
“A few of us are going out tonight after work. Wanna come?”
It wasn’t the first time she’d asked him out. A few weeks ago he’d finally agreed, and didn’t god punish him? The four hours he spent watching Claire and her annoying friends get hammered while belting out off-key karaoke tunes were among the longest of his life. He’d only agreed because Eden, the redheaded girl of his dreams, had said she was going. She certainly hadn’t mentioned that she was bringing a guy—her new boyfriend.
Noah had spent the evening ignoring the blonde oaf, which wasn’t difficult. Hayden didn’t try to fit in. The whole evening, he spoke only to Eden, acting as if Noah, Claire, and everyone else at the table was beneath him.
“Sorry. Can’t.”
“Hot date?”
Ignoring the note of jealousy in Claire’s voice, Noah shook his head. “I’m leaving on vacation tomorrow morning. First thing.”
“Vacation? Where? With who?”
“Just me, a backpack, in the Cascades. A whole week of nothing but trees and sky.”
Claire barked out a laugh and rolled her eyes. “Oh my god. Camping? Are you serious? My idea of roughing it is a three-star hotel without room service. I haven’t been in the woods since my mother forced me into Girl Scouts. I am happy to say that my days of peeing behind a tree are over.”
“It’s not for everyone.”
“You can say that again.” Claire’s shoulders heaved in a heavy sigh. “Well, lover, I’m on until closing. Stop by later to say goodbye.”
“Sure,” Noah said, knowing there was a better chance of him eating a live snake than dropping in on Claire.
His cell phone chimed with a well-timed text message.
“Duty calls.”
Claire wiggled her fingers in a flirty wave, the mall lights flashing off the rhinestones embedded into her fake nails, and Noah took his leave. He could never be interested in a girl like Claire. His tastes were much more… refined. Digging his phone out of his pocket, Noah checked the text.
Mrs. Yang called. Something about a report?
Ugh. That bitch. She had made good on her threat to call. No sooner had he read the text when his phone rang. His boss. Kurtis.
“Were you on break?”
“Just getting back,” Noah said, slaloming through the crowd on his way to the security office.
“Mrs. Yang?” Kurtis prompted him and Noah knew the drill.
“I’m checking the security cameras now. A kid. Girl. Wearing a hoodie. No face shot.”
“Dammit,” Kurtis growled.
“I know. I’ve told her a dozen times that she needs to move the bath bombs, but she doesn’t listen.”
“Okay. Finish the report and send it in.”
“Will do, boss.”
Noah hung up. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t looked at the surveillance camera footage. He’d seen enough of them to know how useless they typically were. He’d take a peek at it before logging the report. If Kurtis checked, he’d see the timestamp documenting the video playback.
The cramped security office smelled like a locker room filled with Cheetos. Dex’s size twelve Doc Martens were propped up on the desk. Orange smudges of Cheeto dust bracketed the crease of Dex’s black polyester pants. He was leaning back in his chair and staring at the surveillance cameras.
“Hola, Papi,” Dex said.
Noah rolled his eyes at the greeting. Dex was short for Dexter, and he was about as Latino as Chris Pratt.
“Hey,” he said, dropping into an empty chair and pulling up the surveillance footage from Mrs. Yang’s store.
“I hear you’ve had an interesting day.”
“Nothing special. Just living the dream.”
“Huh,” Dex said. “I heard that bitch, Mrs. Yang, is on your ass again.”
“We don’t call our clients bitches.”
Dex’s eyebrows inched up his forehead in surprise. “We don’t?”
“No, it pisses the bitches off.”
Dex laughed. Noah pulled up the surveillance footage and scrolled the timeline back. Sure enough, a half-dozen teenagers entered the store. They split up. Two of them flocked to the cosmetics section. The other four glommed around the bath bombs. And yeah, at least a few of them didn’t make their way back into the bins.
There was a pretty good face shot of a girl—maybe fifteen, shoulder length hair, of Asian descent. She was wearing a hoodie. Noah studied the image. He could print it out and attach it to the report, but it contradicted the story he’d already told Kurtis. And what did it matter anyway? It wasn’t as if they had a hope in hell of identifying her.
Noah dismissed the footage and began filing the report.
“The camera on the northwest corner of the lot is out again,” Dex interrupted, before wadding another handful of Cheetos into his mouth.
“Yeah, I know,” Noah said. “I already logged a repair request, but as usual, they’re taking their sweet-ass time.”
Dex crunched the Cheetos with his mouth open in that irritating way that always made Noah wonder if he learned his table manners from a pack of wolves. Or the Kardashians.
“They need to replace the camera.”
Thank you, Captain Obvious.
“I’ve told them. Maybe this time, they’ll get it right.”
Unlike what he’d told Dex, the company was typically pretty quick to dispatch a service tech. Depending on when the request was logged, it wasn’t unusual to have the tech on-site same day, but Noah had dragged his feet. Given that the afternoon was nearly over, there was no risk of having anyone arrive today. The automated ETA the company had given marked it late morning the following business day, which perfectly suited his needs.
Dex tipped the Cheetos bag in the air above his face and shook the last remnants into his gaping mouth. He crunched the bag into a ball and threw it into the trash can, three feet away, snapping his wrist in a layup just like the late great Kobe Bryant. The wadded-up bag bounced off the rim of the garbage pail and landed on the floor. Noah shook his head in disgust at the orange specs of Cheeto dust that littered the desktop and the keyboard.
Dex was a pig. He probably lived in his mother’s basement. She probably still did his laundry. Reaching across the desk to a nearby shelf, Noah grabbed a container of Clorox Wipes and pitched it at Dex.
“Clean it up.”
“Jesus,” Dex muttered, “You’re as bad as my mom.”
“Unlike your mom, my sole purpose on this earth isn’t to clean up your shit.”
Dex popped the top on the container, and the fresh scent of bleach filled the office. Plucking a few wipes, he cleaned the desk.
“Keyboard too.”
Begrudgingly, Dex did as he was told.
“Heard anything from the cops?”
The question caught Noah with the force of an uppercut. As part of the application process for the Portland Police, the recruitment team had reached out to the people Noah worked most closely with, which meant that everyone knew his business.
“Not yet,” Noah lied.
The rejection letter he’d received still pissed him off. Not only had he passed the written test with flying colors and finished the ORPAT in record time, he’d aced the panel interview. He’d gotten as far as the first psychological evaluation before his application had been denied. Months of his life studying and training, just to be rejected without explanation.
It didn’t matter how he’d answered their bullshit questions. The process was rigged. Straight, white guys like him didn’t stand a chance. They wanted girls. Minorities.
He’d thought about casting a wider net to some of the smaller police forces in the area. But hell, Noah had all but given up the idea of being a cop. He’d moved on. He had other plans now, and given the nature of those plans, maybe they were right.
Maybe he wasn’t cut out to be a cop after all.
9
The half hour before closing was Noah’s favorite time to patrol. The tumult of the rush had slowed. A f
ew hardcore shoppers trolled the mall while the skeleton crews manning the stores began their closing rituals. It was as close to peaceful as the mall ever got. Even the food court was dead tonight.
Noah skipped dinner, and though the scent of sweet and sour chicken was tempting, he was too nervous to eat. He waved to a few of the regular staff as he passed through on his rounds. His gaze drifted across the empty tables toward the ATM. The memory came to him, as it so often did when it was quiet.
The first time he’d seen her was right over there.
It was Christmas. The halls were fully decked out for the holiday season. Colorful lights encircled the massive tree. A non-stop lineup of parents with their kiddos waited in line for hours to get their photos taken with Santa. During the holiday rush, Noah’s workload doubled, as seasonal staff were brought on board to patrol the hallways and direct traffic in the parking garage. Theft, which was already a problem, spiked during the holidays. Tempers flared on account of the crowds and made a mockery of the so-called Christmas spirit.
The day he’d met her had been more stressful than most and he was nearing his wit’s end. Two guards had called in sick, leaving them short-handed. There had been at least a dozen reports of theft, three accidents in the parking garage and an honest-to-god fistfight had broken out in JCPenney over the last Instapot.
Two thirds of the way into his ten-hour shift, Noah was dead on his feet. On his last break for the evening, he headed for the food court. On nights like this, the food court was ground zero for the masses and a place to be avoided at all costs, but tonight, he desperately needed the boost of an espresso to get through the remainder of his shift. Girding himself for the onslaught of humanity, Noah made his way through the crowd to the coffee shop not far from the ATM.
A long line of pissed off customers extended from the ATM. Noah glanced over to see what the problem was. The machine was probably out of money. It had been hit hard all day. At least, he assumed that was the cause of the delay.
“Come on, lady,” a guy in the lineup grumbled.
Noah sighed. He could feel trouble brewing. Technically, he was on break, and this was someone else’s problem to solve, but there were no other guards in the food court, and he didn’t have it in him to break up another fist fight. Noah stepped out of line and approached the lady at the front of the ATM.
The petite redhead, dressed in jeans and a duster, slammed her palm into the ATM.
“Ma’am, is everything okay?”
“Yes. No.” She whirled on Noah and ripped her card from the clutches of the evil machine. “I just moved here from Montana and there’s something wrong. My card isn’t working.”
Their eyes met. An electric current of shock jolted through Noah. He had never seen a more beautiful girl.
“The bank’s closed and I don’t—” Her tiny hands gesticulated in a frustrated arc. “I’m hypoglycemic. I need to eat, but the bank’s closed, so I can’t call them to figure out what’s wrong with my stupid card.”
Tears surfaced in her eyes and she looked as if she might break down. Noah smiled reassuringly and guided her from the line, knowing this problem was easily solved. He reached into his pocket and handed over his last ten-dollar bill.
“Will this do?”
Her lips parted in surprise. “No, I mean it’s really nice of you to offer and all but—”
“Take it. You can pay me back some other time.”
“But I don’t—"
With a wave of his hand, Noah dismissed her objections.
“It’s okay. I was just going to blow it on an overpriced espresso anyway. Besides, if I need it back, I know where to find you.”
“What? What do you mean?”
Noah’s smile widened. “Your name is Eden. You work at Aphrodite’s, right?”
“How could you possibly know where I work? I just started there last week.”
“I could be a stalker or…”
He raised his eyebrows and gestured toward her name tag. She looked down and laughed. For a split second, the world stopped turning on its axis, and Noah wished he could live in this moment forever.
“Anyway,” he said, clearing his throat, endeavoring to sound official. “You’d be doing me a favor. If you don’t eat, you’ll pass out and then I’ll have to call 911. Then I’ll spend the next hour writing up reports that no one will read. I think we can agree that this course of action benefits us both.”
Noah thrust the money into her palm and curled her fingers around it. This time, Eden didn’t protest.
“Wait,” she called after him. Nearing the edge of the food court, he turned. “I don’t even know your name.”
“Noah.”
“As in, the arc?”
“Who better to call in a crisis?”
With a wink, he flashed her a peace sign and was gone.
Weeks later, all traces of holiday glitter had been wiped from the stores, plunging the mall into the gloom of winter in the Pacific Northwest. Noah was returning to the security office when he noticed her standing outside the door, her tiny fist poised to knock.
“Sorry ma’am. We don’t allow civilians in there.”
Startled by his unexpected arrival, Eden gasped and flattened her palm against her chest.
“Jesus.”
“Close but I’m the other one, Noah. Remember?”
She laughed at the joke. “Noah. Right. I, uh—”
She looked down at the coffee cup in her hand. “I stopped by to give you this. Espresso, right? I thought that’s what you were going to get the night you rescued me.”
Rescued. He liked the sound of that.
With a grateful smile, Noah took the cup. “Thanks, I needed this.”
“Oh, and here.”
His name was written on the envelope in an elegant, slanted script.
“You didn’t have to.”
“Of course I did. And thanks again for the rescue.”
He clicked his heels together in a mock bow. “Next time you’re having a hypoglycemic episode, you’ll know who to call.”
“1-800-NoahsArc.”
That was nine months ago, and while the gift card she’d gotten him was long gone, he kept the note she’d written in his wallet, where he could pull it out and look at it whenever his thoughts drifted to her. Which was often.
Noah patrolled the first floor heading north, bypassing the Nordstrom entrance. Claire had already wasted enough of his time today. Aphrodite’s was an upscale lingerie boutique that made Victoria’s Secret look like Frederick’s of Hollywood. And that was just the G-rated stuff in the window. The shop catered to the kind of women who drove Maseratis and were willing to pay outrageous sums of money for the delicate and revealing silk chemises and full-length gowns they sold.
On a Tuesday night like this one, when mall traffic was at a crawl, there wasn’t a single soul in the store except for Eden. He paused. His heart jumped at the sight of her, the way it always did, and he stood barely breathing, as he admired her through the glass. He loved the way the silver lights shone off her hair, transforming it into copper fire. But it wasn’t just Eden’s looks that left him smitten. Unlike so many other pretty girls, she wasn’t obsessed with her looks, nor did she use them as a way to elevate herself above others. She was kind. Good.
She deserved better than a loser like Hayden. To a guy like that, Eden was nothing more than an ornament—a pretty girl to fit his pretty life. A prop. Noah would never treat her that way. She wasn’t the kind of woman you took to clubs. She was the kind of woman you built a life around—a life that included Christmas trees and kids, Thanksgiving turkeys, grandkids. Someday, they’d grow old together, sitting in rocking chairs on the front porch, holding hands.
Eden looked up, catching his gaze through the window, and Noah smiled. He strolled into the store, letting his fingers brush against the soft silk garments on his way to the counter.
“Keeping the world safe from would-be marauders, I see.”
“I am th
e watcher on the wall,” Noah said solemnly. He splayed a hand across his chest and bowed in a gesture of servitude.
“Game of Thrones. Oh dear. Are there dragons in my future?”
Her eyes twinkled with mischief as Noah approached.
“Not unless your boss is around. She’s the original dragon lady, is she not?”
Eden giggled with a nod. “Just so.”
“On by yourself tonight?”
“You know what Tuesdays are like. Just twenty more minutes to go.”
“Doing anything fun afterwards?” Noah asked, casually resting his elbow on the countertop as he awaited her reply.
Eden wrinkled her nose. “Not so you’d notice. Hayden’s planned a poker night with the boys.”
“His loss.”
“I know, right?” She laughed. “I could think of a thousand better ways to spend an evening.”
Noah could too, and none of them involved poker or Hayden.
“I don’t suppose you have this in another size?”
Noah whirled in surprise at the nasally sound of the woman’s voice. He’d thought they were alone. The customer held up a racy lace teddy that only a bad girl would wear.
“I believe we do. What size did you need?”
Eden hustled out from behind the counter. She led the customer toward the back of the store, where the two poured over the racks. Noah’s gaze strayed to the drawer beneath the cash register where Eden typically stashed her purse. He’d told her a thousand times that it wasn’t a safe place to leave it, and shooting an over the shoulder glance toward Eden, he knew that her lax security protocols couldn’t have come at a better time. He’d half hoped to send her on a coffee run, but with a customer in the store and with closing time fast approaching, this was as good an opportunity as he was going to get.
Eden’s voice receded as she walked the customer back toward the dressing rooms. Noah ducked out of sight behind the counter. He opened the drawer. With a slight jolt of dismay, Noah eyed the mess inside Eden’s purse. When she was his, she’d learn to keep better care of her things, but for now, he plunged his hand inside and sorted through the gum wrappers, crumpled receipts, tubes of lipstick, and lip gloss. Nestled at the bottom he found her cellphone. An unexpected find indeed.
