by Land, Alexa
“I’d have to be nuts to call you after tonight. Don’t you agree?” Despite myself, I picked up his hand and laced my fingers with his as I said that.
“Yes. Completely certifiable.” He leaned in and brushed his lips to mine, then rolled his eyes at the resulting chorus of whistles and whoops from his relatives.
“I really have to think about this, Vincent,” I said quietly.
He kissed my forehead, and I looked up at him as he reached out and gently caressed my cheek. There was so much longing in his dark eyes. I really wanted to take him in my arms, but I stopped myself.
“A minute’s up,” Carla announced, coming up behind me and taking hold of my shoulders, then steering me away from her cousin. I glanced back at Vincent, who gave me an apologetic little half-smile before turning and heading in the opposite direction.
Chapter Four
I had to work the lunch shift just a few hours after my wild night with Vincent. As soon as I arrived at Nolan’s, Cole said, “Can I talk to you a minute, Trevor?” That surprised me. He was one of the waiters at the restaurant, and we’d had a very awkward first (and last) date a few weeks ago, during which he’d caused a big scene by accusing his ex-boyfriend Hunter of hitting on me. He’d apologized for it later, but since then, he and I pretty much avoided each other.
What he needed to tell me had nothing to do with the two of us, though. We sat down on the bench in the employee dressing room and he said, “I answered a call on the restaurant’s main line a few minutes ago. It was a girl, she said she was your cousin Melody. She sounded really upset.”
“Oh no. Did she tell you where she was?”
“No, she didn’t say much. She just asked for you, and I told her you’d be here in a few minutes. Then it sounded like she started crying. I asked for a number so you could call her back, but she said she was at a payphone and hung up.”
“Damn it,” I murmured.
“What’s going on? Is she in some kind of trouble?”
“Melody’s seventeen and pregnant. I came to San Francisco with her to get away from her abusive father and thug of an ex-boyfriend. But soon after we got here, she met some guy and took off with him. That call was the first time she’s contacted me since then.”
Jamie, my employer, happened to come into the dressing room just then with a stack of clean aprons. He sat down beside me and said, “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but that sounds serious. How far along is she in her pregnancy?”
“Seven months. You don’t think she’d be going into labor this early, do you? I was sure she’d come back to San Francisco to deliver the baby, because I promised I’d be there for her. She was so scared to go through childbirth alone.”
“What do you know about the guy she took off with?” Jamie asked.
“Nothing, I never met him,” I said. “One day, I came home and found a note saying she was in love with this guy and that they were going to be traveling together. She only knew him a week. Melody has the worst taste in men. She always picks these total scumbags, so I can’t imagine this one would be any different.”
“Did she tell you his name?”
I sighed and said, “Only his nickname, Slayer. Doesn’t that sound awesome? I don’t even think she knew his real name.”
“Did she say anything else, maybe mention where he worked?” Jamie asked, setting the aprons on the bench beside him.
“She claimed he was a talented tattoo artist, but also said he was unemployed.”
“That might be enough to go on,” Jamie said. “If you ask around at the local tatt shops, someone might know him and have some idea where they went.”
“But then what? If Mel wants to be with this guy, I can’t exactly drag her back here.”
“Well no, but you could go check on her and make sure she’s alright,” Jamie said.
“She’ll probably call back,” Cole chimed in. “If she needs help or if she went into labor, she’ll call again.”
“Did she call here, at the restaurant?” Jamie asked.
“Yeah. I’m sorry about that,” I told him. “I don’t have a phone, so this is the only way she can reach me.”
“That’s totally fine. I just asked so I can tell everyone who might answer the phone to come and get you immediately if she calls back,” Jamie said. “In fact, I should do that right now, in case she calls soon.” He got up and left the dressing room.
“He’s a really nice guy,” I murmured.
“Jamie’s the best. The bar’s gone through a few owners in the two years I’ve worked here, but ever since Jamie and his husband Dmitri took over, this place has really felt like a family.” Cole grinned and added, “Not in the dysfunctional and driving-you-insane sense of the word.”
I grinned too. “I didn’t realize there was any other kind.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
I sighed and said, “I don’t know why I thought I could help Melody. We had this crazy idea to come to San Francisco and find my father, who took off when I was three. I don’t even remember him. Of course we couldn’t find him, and even if we had, it was such a long shot that he’d be willing to help us. We just really had no one else to turn to, though.”
“You know, Jamie used to be a cop and most of his family is still in law enforcement. I’ll bet he could track down your dad.”
“I don’t even know if I want to find him now. Like I said, it was a stupid idea to think he’d help us.”
“Aside from needing his help, wouldn’t you like to see him? I mean, my dad and I had a really strained relationship, but then he died in a car accident when I was twelve. I’d give anything for one last conversation with him,” Cole said, his brown eyes pained behind his thick glasses.
“But my dad didn’t want me, Cole. He took off and never looked back. Even worse, he left me with my mother, who was a hot mess. If he cared about me at all, he wouldn’t have left me with her.”
“Where is she now?”
“In jail. That should tell you a little something about the woman he left me with.” I tried to change the subject away from my family drama by saying, “What about your mom, where is she?”
“In a shitty little hell hole called Gomsburg, Idaho. She moved in with her mother about ten years ago, soon after my dad died.”
“So you grew up there?”
“Yeah, for the latter half of my childhood. As soon as we could afford it though, my then-boyfriend Hunter and I made a break for it. We moved here and never looked back.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Let’s just put it this way: Gomsburg is a town of less than 900 people, most of them potato farmers. Redneck potato farmers. I’m half-black, half-Jewish, and gay. What do you suppose growing up there was like for me?”
“Oh man.”
“My mom was crazy to move us there. Didn’t it even occur to her that I was going to get beat up every single day of my life in a place like that?” Cole shook his head, then stood up and grabbed an apron from the stack on the bench. “But whatever, I survived. And what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, like the cliché says, so I must be the Man of Steel after all that shit.” He said that as he tucked in his green Nolan’s t-shirt, tied the black apron around his narrow hips, and stuck an order pad in his pocket. “Anyway, see you out there, Trevor.”
He left the dressing room and I pulled my buttoned-up cardigan off over my head, then checked the pocket. The business card was still there from last night. Or technically, this morning. I had no idea what I was going to do about Vincent, but right now I was too worried about Melody to give my love life much thought. I put the sweater in my locker and took a quick look at myself in the full-length mirror. My blue-green eyes were a bit bloodshot after my late night and my dark brown hair was a mess, I was way overdue for a haircut. I finger-combed it as best I could, picked a thread off my plain white t-shirt, and went to work.
Every time the phone rang at the hostess station, I rushed over. But after a couple hours, I realized
Melody wasn’t going to call back. A knot of worry settled permanently in the pit of my stomach.
Toward the end of my shift, River and Skye came for a visit. “Hey dude. I have a present for you,” River said. He took my hand, flipped it palm up and placed a little silver cellphone in it. “Don’t get too excited,” he said. “It’s just a pay-as-you go dealie, nothin’ fancy. And you only have sixty minutes on it right now, try to make ‘em last.”
“Thanks. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know, but you and I have that big wedding gig coming up and need to be able to call each other. Oh, here,” he said, and dug in the pocket of his denim jacket. He pulled out a wall plug and a wad of paperwork, which he handed to me. “Your number’s on one of those pieces of paper. I already programmed it into my phone, and put my number and Skye’s in yours. But don’t call Skye unless it’s an emergency, because he’ll talk your ear off and burn all your air time.”
“Call me anyway,” Skye said with a grin. “We can always buy more minutes.”
“Um, no you can’t,” River told him. “You spent all your money on the nightmare face.”
“Nightmare face?” I echoed.
“That’s what River calls my gorgeous Man in the Moon clock,” Skye told me. “I was trying to get it working today, by the way. I think I might have succeeded, if it hadn’t crashed into that tree. That really didn’t do it any favors.”
“I thought you were going to take it apart and use its gears in your sculptures.”
“I am, but I wanted to see if I could get it to work first, just for the hell of it,” Skye said. “Oh, I should warn you, River is totally insane with that saving minutes thing. He doesn’t understand that they round it up to a whole minute, no matter if you talk for two seconds or fifty-nine. So I get calls from him like: Skye! Buy cheddar! Then he hangs up on me. He also yells his two-second messages, like maybe that saves a fraction of a second.”
“I don’t do that,” River insisted.
“You totally do that. That was exactly what you did yesterday. You called, screamed about cheese and hung up, like a crazy person.”
“Well, air time is expensive.” To me, River said, “We gotta go dude, we have a bunch more errands to run. Plus, you’re working and all, but I just wanted to give you that.”
“Thank you, I appreciate it,” I said. “I’ll pay you back, too.”
“No need. I can write it off as a business expense, now that I’m a real caterer and all. See you tomorrow at Mrs. Dombruso’s, right?”
“I’ll be there.”
River headed for the door, but Skye grabbed my arm and whispered, “Please tell me you’ve been considering moonlighting as a dancer with me. And don’t tell River, he doesn’t approve.”
“There’s no way, Skye.”
“Don’t say no yet, not until you come and check it out.” He pressed a business card into my hand. “Here’s the club’s address, I’m working tonight from eight to midnight. Come visit me. Please?”
“I’m never going to agree to working there.”
“Come and see me anyway. Tell them at the door that you’re there to see Skye Blue, they’ll let you in.”
“Skye Blue?”
“That’s my stage name, but I’m actually thinking about changing it for real. It suits me a lot better than Skye Fleischmann.”
I grinned at that. “You’re right, it does.”
He turned and jogged after his brother, who was already outside. But as he crossed the dining room, he called over his shoulder, “Come and see me tonight, T! Do it! Don’t break my heart!” He flashed me a huge smile before he disappeared out the front door.
I took a look at the business card in my hand, and an instant frown line appeared between my eyebrows. There was a color photo of a shirtless blond boy on the card, who barely looked eighteen, and the name of the club was Daddy’s Boiz. Ew. Okay, there was no freaking way on earth I’d work at that place, even if the thought of me being paid to dance wasn’t completely laughable.
But now I was concerned about my new friend. Even just from the business card, I could tell that the sleaze factor was through the roof at this club. I didn’t know much about Skye, but he struck me as really innocent and trusting. I decided to go and check it out this evening, because I wanted to make sure no one was taking advantage of him. More worry added to the knot already in my gut.
*****
When my shift ended I took the bus home, making my weekly stop at the Goodwill on the corner before continuing on to my building. My apartment was a fifth floor walk-up in a marginal neighborhood near Market Street, a studio measuring maybe ten feet by twelve. It didn’t currently have electricity because I couldn’t afford it, but it did have its own tiny bathroom with a toilet, sink, and stall shower. That made the place a real find as far as I was concerned.
The room was divided in half by a sheet suspended from the ceiling with thumb tacks, and I pushed it aside and put my thrift shop finds on the foot of my cousin Melody’s twin bed. I’d done well today, finding half a dozen baby clothes for fifty cents apiece. I’d been buying stuff for her baby ever since we moved to San Francisco about two months ago, and had built up a decent collection.
And yeah, I kept doing it even after Melody took off. I really believed she was coming back, especially after I’d promised to be by her side holding her hand when she went into labor. She and I had grown up together after her dad took me in when I was six, so she was more like a sister than a cousin. All we had was each other.
I dropped the curtain and headed to my own bed beside the front door. It was a foam bedroll topped by a puffy sleeping bag, which I really liked because it was warm and cozy. Since I’d gotten so little sleep last night, I decided a nap was in order before heading out to visit Skye. I kicked my shoes off and tucked myself in. Then I remembered something and pulled my new phone from my pocket, setting it on the floor beside me. I’d put slips of paper with my new number beside every phone at the restaurant. If Melody called back, all my coworkers knew to give her that information.
Even though I was tired, I didn’t fall asleep right away. Instead, I tucked my hand behind my head and stared at the ceiling. Despite spending most of the day worrying about my cousin, my thoughts now drifted to Vincent.
I had to stay away from him, I knew that for a fact. So what if he was the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen, and so what if we had great chemistry? I could have been killed last night during that high-speed chase, and who knows what would have happened if those men had caught us? Plus, Vincent readily admitted that he was a criminal. I had no idea what he was involved in, but it was obviously pretty hardcore. Why else would thugs be chasing him?
The rest didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that I kept thinking about his beautiful dark eyes and the way his hand felt in mine, or that I kept remembering the way he held me securely and rubbed my back soothingly while we were hiding in that storage closet. It didn’t matter that I’d always wanted to be held like that, and before last night, I never had been. It also didn’t matter than when we kissed, it felt like the first day of spring after a bleak, miserable winter.
It didn’t even matter that I wanted him with every part of me.
Spending time with him was obviously dangerous, maybe even deadly, and I had more than just myself to think about. What would happen to Melody and the baby if I got myself killed because I couldn’t stay away from Vincent? Mel needed me. She didn’t have anyone to look after her, certainly not that random guy she’d run off with after knowing him a week.
I rolled onto my side and wrapped my arms around myself, feeling really alone right then. It was something I was used to. I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of the city outside my building. There was constant noise in this neighborhood, a cacophony of traffic and car horns and people, the rattle of big trucks and buses, the not-infrequent wail of a siren. Oddly, all of that felt reassuring somehow, keeping me company until I finally drifted off to sleep.
&nb
sp; Chapter Five
It was dark when I awoke so I located my camping lantern, another thrift shop find. It was so bright that it illuminated the entire apartment. I took it to the bathroom with me, where I used the facilities and brushed my teeth, then dragged a comb through my hair. Since I’d slept in my clothes, same as always, I was ready to go once I slipped my feet into my sneakers. I grabbed my phone and left the apartment, double checking that the door was locked behind me, and as I jogged down the five flights of stairs I patted my pockets to confirm that I had my bus pass and a few dollars with me.
I wasn’t paying much attention to where I was going, so when I burst through the front door of my building, I almost collided with someone on their way in. “Well, that was easy,” a familiar voice said. I looked up at Vincent, who was smiling at me. “I thought I’d have to go apartment-to-apartment to find you, but here you are.”
“Oh! Hi. Did your cousin Carla tell you where I live?”
“Yes. She didn’t know the apartment number though, so this was lucky.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked. God he looked good. Vincent was wearing a form-fitting black cashmere sweater and dark indigo jeans. I stuck my hands in my pockets, fighting the urge to run my palms over his broad chest.
“I wanted to see if you’d come and have a drink with me. I would have called first, but I didn’t have your number.”
I hesitated for a long moment before saying quietly, “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“I see.” After another pause, during which I looked at anything but him, he said, “You weren’t going to call me, were you?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
“I didn’t mean to make this awkward. I was just hoping you hadn’t made up your mind about me yet.” There was something in his tone that made me glance up at him. It was as if he’d shut down his emotions, his expression grave. He stepped aside, clearing the way for me. “Don’t let me keep you, it looks like you have somewhere you need to be.”
