Hot Sauce

by Tabatha Kiss

  I nod. “About four years old. Brown hair. Cute face. Have you seen one around here?”

  She arches her blonde brows. “No…”

  “Okay. Thanks, anyway.”

  The woman takes a wide step around me and walks off into the bakery. I slink back to the corner and look in the windows, scanning the tables and chairs again for those colorful, familiar eyes.

  Just one glance at my daughter and I’ll go. That’s all I ask.

  “Hey, Milo.”

  I jump and spin around to find Anna standing behind me in the alley. “Detective!” I choke on my gasp. “Hey. What, uh… What’s up?”

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “Just in the mood for a cupcake,” I say, playing it cool. “Thought I’d swing by on my lunch break.”

  “Lunch break from what?”

  I almost answer my taco truck, then I remember that I don’t really have that anymore. She knows that. “Um…”

  Anna crosses her arms and smiles. “My sister-in-law just told me about some weirdo standing around outside trying to kidnap little, brown-haired girls.”

  “I did not say that!” I pause. “Though, I see now how it could be interpreted that way…”

  She rolls her eyes.

  “That was your sister-in-law?” I ask.

  “Evey,” she says. “She owns the bar next door.”

  I glance between the thick walls on either side of us. “The barmaid and the muffin man. That’s adorable.”

  “What do you want?” she asks, her voice rock solid.

  I let my smile drop. “I just wanted to see her.”

  “Why?”

  “To make sure she’s all right,” I say.

  “How did you know we were here?”

  “Well, you weren’t at home and I figured, single parent and all, that she probably spends a lot of time here with her uncle, so… I took a wild guess. It takes a village, you know?”

  “Pretty solid detective work,” she quips.

  “Thank you. Can I please see her?”

  “Milo…” She closes her eyes. “What exactly do you want here? Visitation rights? Partial custody?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “Because she’s not used to people coming in and out of her life like this. Thought I had a few more years before she had to learn about abandonment and disappointment.”

  I frown. “You’re making a lot of assumptions about me, Detective.”

  “I don’t want you forming a relationship with her that you can’t commit to,” she says. “You’re Milo Murray right now but how long is it until you drop that identity, become someone else, and leave town? She already seems to like you and I don’t want a heartbroken kid on my hands.”

  I open my mouth to argue, but I really can’t. “That’s fair, I guess,” I say.

  “Look, Milo, I’m trying to keep a level head about all of this. Honestly, just seeing you here complicates things, so I think you should leave and maybe, after the dust has settled, we can work something out. Okay?”

  I dip my head, trying to make eye contact with her. “Complicates things how?”

  She avoids me. “I’ll keep in touch,” she says, turning around and walking back into the alleyway.

  “Hold on.” I follow a step behind her. “Complicates things how?”

  “Haven’t we been over this already?” She pauses and points between us. “Cop. Bad guy. Incompatible.”

  “Oh, come on.” I chuckle. “Just because I do bad things doesn’t mean I’m a bad guy and you’re not a good girl just because you’re a cop. You kissed me, remember?”

  “No,” she says. “You kissed me.”

  “Yeah. After you asked me to.”

  “Yeah. After you kissed me the night before.”

  “Yeah, well…” I stutter. “You masturbated to my sperm.”

  She exhales hard, dropping her head. “Just go home, Milo.”

  I stay close as she beelines for the bakery’s alley exit. “Wait, Anna—”

  “Detective.”

  I grab her wrist and spin her around to face me, pinning her back to the door. “Detective Anna.” She glares up at me. I feel her muscles flexing to try and slip free but I hold her tighter against the door. “Now, hold on…”

  I lock eyes with her, completely losing track of everything I was going to say. Her warm breath grazes my cheeks and I lick my lips as my mouth waters for another chance to taste her.

  “What?” she asks.

  Her voice is soft and shaky, though I can tell she doesn’t want it to be. She wants to scold me and yell at me and push me away but she doesn’t.

  I push in and caress her cheek with my lips. My nose brushes her hairline and I inhale a deep breath of her, smelling a bit of cherry-scented perfume behind her ear.

  She quivers, looking around. “Milo…”

  “Shh,” I whisper. I drop my mouth to her neck, pursing my lips slightly against her skin. Her muscles loosen and I release my grip on her as she submits.

  “Detective…”

  The door swings open behind us. Anna falls backward, gripping my jacket out of instinct, and I slip down into the bakery along with her.

  We slam to the floor. I catch most of my weight with my arms, locking my elbows to keep from crushing her as she lands on her back.

  “Ouch…” She winces.

  I tower over her, desperately trying to ignore the splendid feeling of her knees hugging my sides. “You okay?” I ask.

  “Yeah, I’m—”

  “Ahem.”

  We look up at the man standing over us in an apron holding the door open. He glares from her to me and all the way down to her wide-open legs, his scowl digging deeper into his face every second.

  “Hey, Vin…” she squeaks.

  The muffin guy. Her brother.

  Ah, crap.

  I slide backward, glancing around the kitchen at the other wide-eyed faces, including the woman in black from outside and another young woman with bright red hair poking in from the front desk.

  “So, I’m gonna go,” I say. “It was nice seeing you again, Detective—”

  “Stop.” Vincent points a stiff finger at my face. “Who is this guy?” he asks Anna.

  Anna’s little eyes hop around, shifting from me to him and back again. “I, uh…”

  The wheels turn in her head and I silently wonder just how much information she’s going to spill here.

  “This is Milo. He’s…” She looks at me, her lips twisting into an awkward smile of defeat. “He’s Charlotte’s biological father.”

  Okay, all of it. All the information.

  My breath catches and I glance up at the towering inferno of man standing over me. Vincent crosses his arms and stares at me with a hint of steam billowing from his nose.

  I give a quick wave. “Hi. How ya doing?”

  His eye twitches.

  Yup. I’m a dead man.

  Twenty-Three

  Anna

  “I thought you got a donor.”

  I nod at Vincent as he paces back and forth through the kitchen. “I did — and will you please stop moving around like that? You’re making me dizzy.”

  He pauses to peek out onto the main bakery floor. I follow his eye-line, catching sight of Milo sitting at the corner table with Evey and Charlotte and my heart skips a beat or two.

  Charlotte’s laughing. She’s looking up at him and laughing, almost like they were old friends. And Milo… he’s grinning from ear-to-ear, telling her who-knows-what over coloring books but Evey doesn’t look at all worried.

  Vincent furrows his thick brow. “Aren’t those things done anonymously?” he asks.

  I look away from Milo. “They are,” I answer him. “And this was.”

  “Then, how do you know he’s Charlotte’s father?”

  “I met him the other day,” I say. “We got to talking after I noticed his eye defect. It didn’t take long before we put one and two together.”

  “M
et him where?”

  “At the police station.”

  He squints. “Was he a witness?”

  I hesitate. “Not exactly.”

  His head falls and he rubs the bridge of his nose. “Jesus, Anna…”

  “Nothing is going on, Vincent,” I say. “We’re just—”

  “Making out in my alleyway?”

  “Not technically,” I say, raising a hand. “You interrupted us before anything could happen again.”

  “Again?”

  I sigh. “I know it’s wrong, Vin, and if you’d been in that alley thirty seconds earlier, you would have heard me tell him that. Believe me, no one’s beating me up more than I am right now.”

  He softens, letting his shoulders ease down a bit. “So, who is he?” he asks. “Is there anything I should know about?”

  I chuckle. “How much time you got?”

  Vincent rolls his eyes and exhales.

  “Oh, my god, Anna…” Evey pokes her head into the kitchen. “You didn’t tell me Charlotte’s sperm baby daddy was such a hunk.”

  Vincent frowns at her and cranes back to eye the corner table again. “You said you wouldn’t leave them alone, Evey.”

  “I’m just getting some coffee.” She slides the coffee pot off the heat and pulls a to-go cup off the stack beside it. She winks at me. “I didn’t think they made Ivy League dudes who looked like that.”

  “Well, he’s not actually…” I swallow it, not wanting to give Vincent more reasons to despise him.

  He walks over and snatches the coffee pot from Evey’s hand. He places it back on the heat and grabs the decaf pot to give her instead.

  She sneers at him. “I forgot how boring you get when I’m pregnant.”

  He sighs, turning back to me with deep lines creasing his forehead. “He’s not actually what?”

  “Okay…” I speak slowly. “I’ll tell you, but first, you have to promise you’re not going to freak out and go all Navy SEAL on him.”

  “Freak out?” He scoffs. “When have I ever—”

  I arch a brow and he pauses to regain composure.

  He clears his throat. “He’s not actually what?” he asks again, this time a little calmer.

  Twenty-Four

  Milo

  I can’t remember the last time I held a crayon.

  It’s strange to think that one day I picked up a crayon, put it back down, and then never touched one again. There was a time when a brand-new box was the highlight of my week but then, suddenly, that changed. I grew up. I grew out of them. I was too cool for coloring.

  But there’s no way in hell I’m too cool to color with my daughter.

  “What do you think?” I ask, spinning the book around to show her.

  Charlotte leans over the table to check my work. She laughs, loudly, and covers her mouth.

  “What?” I ask.

  “No!” she says.

  “No? What’s wrong with it?”

  “He’s pink!” She giggles and points at the page.

  “You’ve never seen a pink dog before?” I ask.

  “No!”

  I gasp. “I have!” I point to my head. “Right up here. Pink dogs. Green kittens. You name it, my brain can make it happen. Yours, too.”

  She rolls her eyes, looking a little too much like Anna’s bullshit detector, but I’m hoping she takes that advice to heart. I suppose one could argue that I shouldn’t be teaching her the basics of using logic against people to aid confidence tricks and other scams, but hey, I’m only human.

  “You!”

  I look up, along with the rest of the customers sitting around the bakery.

  Vincent marches out of the kitchen with a thick finger pointed at me across the room.

  “I need to talk to you—”

  “Vin, stop!”

  Anna appears behind him and rushes forward to block his path before he can plow through to me. She grabs his arm and yanks him back into the kitchen with Evey’s help.

  “Soothing breaths,” Evey says, guiding him back. “Deep, soothing breaths…”

  He points at me again. “Don’t you go anywhere.”

  “Vincent, come on,” Anna says, pushing him through the doorway. “Knock it off.”

  He and Evey disappear into the kitchen. I look at Charlotte and we share a look of confusion.

  “Your uncle seems like a very nice man,” I say.

  She laughs.

  I glance up as Anna lets out a huge sigh on her way toward our table.

  “Well, I can only imagine what that was about,” I say.

  She slides into the chair next to Charlotte. “Let’s just say Vincent is a little more… protective than your average little brother.”

  “Well, I guess it’s not every day your sister tells you…” I pause, my eyes falling to Charlotte again. I’m not actually sure what she knows about her origins yet. Better not say anything without consulting her mother first. “Well, you know.”

  Anna nods. “Hey, Charlotte, you want to go give your uncle a big hug for me? Tell him I owe you a double cherry-cherry cupcake.”

  Charlotte’s face lights up as she slides off her chair.

  “Wait, Charlotte—” I say. She stops and looks at me. “Come here.” She hops back to me and I point to the turtle in my coloring book. “Close your eyes and tell me what color to draw this.”

  She closes her eyes for a few seconds. “Red!” she says.

  “You want a red turtle?” I ask.

  “Yes!”

  I reach out and poke her cheek just beneath her eyes. My eyes. “You got it, girl. Go get your cupcake.”

  Charlotte spins and bolts through the bakery to the kitchen.

  I grab the box of crayons and poke through it until I find a red one.

  “Are you having fun?” Anna asks, smiling.

  “Hell yeah. I’m having a blast,” I say. “Forgot how relaxing this is…”

  She chuckles as I start coloring in the turtle’s shell. “So, you should probably lay low for a while.”

  I glance up at the kitchen doorway. “How much more did you tell him?”

  “Just enough, it seems.” She shrugs. “Need-to-know details only.”

  “Like?”

  “Like…” She tilts her head, watching closely as I continue filling in my turtle. “You’re her father. You lied on your donor profile. You have a criminal record. You were arrested for murder…”

  “Tip of the iceberg, then,” I joke.

  Anna smiles. “And that you saved our lives,” she says. “And that he should give you the benefit of the doubt, like I am.”

  I set the red crayon down. “And what’d he say?”

  She laughs. “Not sure if he’s been able to form a complete sentence that’s not grumbles and growls just yet, but I’ll let you know.”

  “Sounds good,” I say, smiling.

  I look down at my coloring book. A puffy pink dog and a bright red turtle hanging out on the beach. I sign and date the bottom with a black crayon, drawing a little heart next to my name.

  From your friend, Milo.

  “I should get going. Don’t want to cause any more trouble for you.” I close the book and slide it over to her. “Make sure Charlotte gets that, all right?”

  Anna pauses, barely blinking as she stares across the table at me. “Okay,” she finally says.

  I stand up, taking my duffel bag with me. “Bye, Detective. Thanks for letting me hang with her for a bit.”

  “No problem.”

  I turn to leave but Anna slides forward.

  “You know,” she says, making me pause, “I meant what I said before, about how we can work something out. If you wanted to hang with her again sometime, I mean.”

  I nod as my stomach twists into knots. “Sure. We’ll stay in touch.”

  She gives a short smile. “Bye, Milo.”

  I commit it to memory. The way her smile tugs on her jawline and brightens her eyes. The way her ponytail hangs just slightly over her right shoulde
r. Her cheeks suddenly flushing and slowly fading again. Her hands folded together on the table, slightly twitching.

  I don’t want to forget what she looks like, just in case I never see her again.

  “Bye,” I say again before walking outside.

  When I first came to Boston, I arrived at this same train station. Seems fitting that I’ll leave from it, too.

  I decided not to choose where I’d go to until I got here. I wanted to stand where I am now, stare up at the long list of destinations, and choose one at random. Letting fate decide has usually done well for me in the past but, then again, that’s how I ended up in Boston to begin with.

  Boston wasn’t a total bust, I suppose. Still led me right back here again, though.

  New York? Miami? Chicago? Maybe I’ll try out Canada for a change.

  Or…

  I walk up to the counter and the man behind it smiles. “I need a ticket,” I say.

  “Destination?” he asks.

  “Surprise me.”

  I lay down a credit card and he nods, barely looking up. A few clicks on his computer and he swipes the card, triggering a ticket to pop out of his machine.

  “Have a good trip, sir,” he says, laying it all down in front of me.

  I blink. “I expected more of a reaction than that.”

  He shakes his head. “Happens all the time, man.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where do you usually send people?”

  “You’ll find out,” he says with a smirk.

  I grab my ticket. “Well done, sir.”

  I sit down on an empty bench and turn the ticket over to read my next destination.

  Annapolis. Really, dude?

  Fate’s a cruel bitch.

  I drop the ticket into my duffel bag at my feet and stare into the passing crowd. My train doesn’t leave for another hour, so I have some time to kill.

  After a few minutes, a woman walks over and stops in my eye-line. Her closed umbrella drips a small puddle next to my foot. My eyes glide upward in annoyance, taking in her pale, white skin and red knee-high — oh, goddammit. Give me a fucking break.

  “Hello, Mr. Murray.”

  I raise my head and Morgan McGregor flashes that snake-like smile at me again. “Morgan,” I grunt.