by Hazel Parker
Marcel took a deep breath through his nostrils and exhaled slowly as if trying to lower his heart rate.
“If we take the diplomatic approach,” Marcel said. “You need to do it. And you need to pursue it through back-end channels.”
“I understand.”
“Give me a second to elaborate, Biggie,” Marcel said. “This isn’t just about you and me against Kyle. This is also about you and me, both as brothers and as club leaders, against Kyle, our brother and our enemy. We cannot look like we’re backing down in public. Whatever attempts you make to reach out…we can’t let other members of the club know. Not even Uncle.”
“Especially not Uncle.”
For the first time that meeting, both of us shared a brief smile.
“Let’s do it like this,” Marcel said. “I’ll let you do whatever you want to do to solve the issues diplomatically. But you do it as a brother, not as a Savage Saint. When you’re with the club and facing everyone else, I expect you to follow my lead. You don’t have to be like Uncle and say we need to condemn him to hell or any of that nonsense, but I need you to be on my side. OK?”
“OK.”
Marcel smiled and stood up. I followed his lead, and the two of us put our arms around each other as we walked out of the door.
“Uncle can be a real pain in the ass, huh?” Marcel said with a laugh.
“Yeah…just a smidge,” I said with a smirk. But we need him. Everyone who is in this club is someone we’re going to need.
“Go get some rest,” Marcel said. “I’ll keep an eye out on the shop. Uncle and Niner are staying here as well. I assume they just went for a smoke. I’ll see you tomorrow, OK?”
“Alright, stay safe, bro.”
But I had no intention of just going home and heading off to bed. For starters, I didn’t fall asleep until two in the morning on a typical night, and second, because of the nature of the meeting, there was no way that my mind was going to slow down enough for me to get to sleep even if I was dead tired.
So instead, I decided to go for a walk in the area.
Such walks before might have proved suicidal with the presence of the Bloodhounds, but their elimination had at least spelled a temporary reprieve. And it wasn’t like said walk was going to take me right into the middle of the ghetto—I was intending to only walk in the most public of areas, spots where, even if an enemy saw me, he’d have to be truly desperate to make something work.
The scent of rain was everywhere, even though it had let up over twenty-four hours before. The feeling after a rainstorm in this part of town was always one of “lingering.” The scent lingered. The moisture and puddles lingered. In some ways, it felt like the mood the rain cast even lingered, although that was more a function of the current state of affairs than anything else.
I passed by the building that was once Southern Comfort. The sign for the store had been removed, though no one had moved in. Last I had heard, Uncle had invested an undisclosed sum on Niner’s behalf to help Carrie get her steakhouse off the ground. That was what I meant when I said Uncle had a heart of gold—he was never someone you wanted to spend more than fifteen minutes with, but he was someone you didn’t want out of your life, either.
I saw the coffee shop across the street and thought of getting something but decided against it. I’d already been to that coffee shop before, and if I was going to go someplace to help me clear my mind—and maybe even come up with some ideas for the club—it needed to be in a new place that would command my attention.
I walked another two blocks before I found such a place. It was a shop with blurry windows that made it impossible to look into, almost like a diner of some kind. It very much said “P.M. Coffee” though, also marketing itself for the night owls of Brooklyn. It was, in other words, the kind of place designed for someone like me.
I crossed the street, double-checked the hours, breathed a sigh of relief when I saw it was open until midnight, and opened the door.
The barista at the counter was checking her phone, obviously not having a rush of customers to deal with. The place had a brighter-than-expected atmosphere, though it was still pretty dark for a coffee shop. I looked to my right and saw a woman closing her laptop. She was stunningly attractive.
Perhaps by coincidence, perhaps by luck, perhaps just by random chance, her eyes locked with mine as her laptop closed.
Neither of us were able to tear our eyes away.
I smiled.
She smiled.
I walked over.
Chapter 2: Lilly
I’d gotten two chapters into my next pass and felt pretty good about it.
So much so, in fact, that I decided to give myself an early out for the evening. I was in the process of closing my laptop and getting ready to say goodbye to Lisa, the barista, when I laid eyes on a man that looked incredibly familiar.
I couldn’t peg him exactly from my past—he was bald, had a cute smile on, and a bit of a five o’clock shadow on his face. He looked like a teddy bear with some stubble on, and though that may have made him sound haphazard and unkempt, it honestly just made him quite cute. The fact that he was smiling so perfectly, his lips curled back and his white teeth on display like in a modeling ad, only helped his cause.
But where the hell did I know him from? His face looked like someone I knew, but that was only from the eyes down—I didn’t know anyone who was bald that looked like him. Middle school? High school? Someone from elsewhere in my childhood who had once had hair but had lost it to the inevitable scourge of genetics and age?
It wasn’t a big deal to not place him. He was walking toward me, anyway, and I’d learn soon enough who he was and what connection he had to me. And in any case, even if he was just a stranger, he was cute enough that I’d chat with him for a couple minutes. Brooklyn had so many people—and New York City as a whole had so many more—that it was almost impossible for people to not have doppelgangers or, put more humorously, an evil twin somewhere.
I just told myself to not judge this book by its seemingly familiar cover. Now, if my readers would just do the same goddamn thing for my books.
“Hey,” he said, his voice so friendly and relaxed.
“Hi,” I said back.
A brief pause came as both of us, just smiling at each other, waited for the other to say something. It wasn’t awkward at all; in fact, it was kind of sweet and cute. Whoever this guy was, he was making me feel happy in a spot when I perhaps should have just been looking to get to the front door as quickly as possible.
“Guess I came to the only coffee shop in town with some privacy, huh?” he said.
I giggled a little. He couldn’t have known that I actually had complete privacy—save for Lisa, but she never came from behind the counter—for the last hour and a half. And before that, I had only had to share the shop with two other people—a couple that was more content to watch the world go by than one that insisted on blabbering on and on about the gossip in their lives. In other words, the perfect couple for having as background, but not as a distraction.
“Just a little,” I said.
“I don’t mean to interrupt your privacy; I just saw you were closing your laptop—”
“No! No, no, you’re fine, you’re good,” I said with a laugh. “You’re right that I normally don’t talk to strangers. But then again, I usually don’t take writing breaks.”
“Well, I hope the sight of me entering wasn’t the reason that you closed your laptop.”
I didn’t even know this guy’s name, and obviously, it was a far cry from being able to say anything about him other than he was handsome and funny. But there was a certain feeling stirring in me that gave me hope that he was a little different than most of the guys I met. Most Brooklynites and New Yorkers had a “take charge” attitude to a fault; they were bold, but always to the point of going past good manners. Just once, I wanted a guy who knew how to balance being bold with being polite.
No, I couldn’t say that I knew for cert
ain this guy would be that. But I had reason for hope.
“Not at all,” I said. “In fact, I could use some conversation for my work. Why don’t you grab yourself a drink and sit down?”
“Your work, huh? You a reporter?”
I smirked.
“A reporter of a different kind, let’s say. Go ahead.”
“Oh, perfect. I’m Jack, by the way.”
“Jack,” I said, trying the name on. It came seamlessly from my mouth. I almost wished I had used the name in one of my fantasy novels. “I’m Lilly. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Lilly, likewise. My friends call me Biggie, so you can call me that if you want.”
“Biggie? Like Biggie Smalls?”
“Not nearly as cool, but yes.”
I laughed. If only he knew that I wasn’t looking for someone who was “cool.” If only he knew that what he had just said was a point in his favor.
“Well, I like Jack. It’s more authentic. It’s hard to find that in the world these days. So it’s OK if I call you Jack?”
“Absolutely, Lilly.”
Oh, the way he says my name. It makes me feel good.
I watched him as he went up to Lisa and tried to figure out where I knew him from. The name didn’t mean anything to me—Jack or Biggie were not names that rung any bells. I knew of some Jacks from high school, but none spoke like he did or, frankly, were as nice as he was.
His personality reminded me of plenty of people, but if I wasn’t going to place him by his name or his face, then his personality wasn’t going to help, either. Perhaps he was related to someone that I knew? I just assumed that at some point, if we kept talking beyond this, I would find out.
As it was, I didn’t normally talk to strangers, but I figured Jack would give me the chance to relax a bit after having concentrated so much all day on my writing. It would give me a chance to decompress, think about what I had written, and maybe even generate some ideas for my writing. Plus, as a writer, I frankly didn’t socialize as much as I should have; any little bit I could have done to get myself out there was a good thing.
Jack came back with a small latte, looking like he hadn’t added anything.
“You like it black, huh?”
“I know that if I add sugar or cream, it’s going to give me headaches. So, yeah, I like it black.”
It’s not sweet like you. Luckily, I wasn’t so crazy as to say something that direct quite so soon.
“So, you said you’re a reporter of a different kind?” Jack said. “What does that mean? Are you like an agent or something who files reports for her office?”
“If only,” I said. It would probably pay better and more consistently than what I make now. “No, I’m an author.”
“An author!” Jack said excitedly. “That’s cool. I don’t meet a lot of people like that.”
I know a ton of people like that, I thought, though I did a poor job of reminding myself regularly that it was the world I inhabited, so of course I would know more people like that. Whatever Jack’s world was, he would know far more people than I ever would.
“Well, we probably won’t be the coolest people you ever meet—”
“Luckily, I’ve learned the so-called cool people are usually just arrogant jerks.”
Jack, you become more impressive by the second.
“What sort of stuff do you write?”
“Oh, fantasy.”
“Oh, cool. So like Star Wars?”
“Not quite. More like…Harry Potter but grittier? It’s more urban fantasy. My current book is called Fires of the City.”
“Ohhh,” Jack said as if I had just revealed to him the coolest book title that anyone had ever produced.
Of course, Jack wasn’t aware that I barely made enough money to make ends meet, that I often became frustrated by the people who didn’t realize the themes and motifs that I put in my story, and that there were plenty of writers who were producing more commercially viable fiction that were outselling me by ratios well above ten to one, if not twenty to one.
But to Jack—just like it was to most casual readers—any author was a cool author. And I guess for at least one…happy random meeting, if not a date, I could at least enjoy it.
“So tell me about Fires of the City. Sounds intense. I’ll admit I’m not much of a reader, but—”
“Most people aren’t; it’s fine.”
“Well, I should read more.”
He’s too sweet. No way this guy is from Brooklyn. Of course, he has the accent, so…
“Well, everyone should read more, but I know time gets in the way. In any case, Fires of the City is about a city that gets engulfed in hell, but in reality, it’s about how a person can do good things even while they’re going through hell. It’s complicated, and I’m not nearly as good a speaker as I am a writer, but the basic idea is that everyone thinks you have to have a good soul to be a good person. But my book is to push the idea that bad people can be driven by their demons to do good things.”
The look on Jack’s face was one of confusion, which didn’t surprise me. I liked to think that I could write a pretty damn good novel, but ask me to produce something resembling an elevator pitch for any of my books, and I always found that I either lost the listener halfway through or I ran out of time in trying to do so.
“Damn,” Jack said, perhaps unable to say anything else. “Damn. Most of the people I hang around are meatheads. Kind of nice to be hanging around someone so smart!”
He let out a boisterous laugh that was a little excessive for the current situation, but it was so sweet of a laugh that I didn’t mind. It was the kind of laugh that, had I heard it while writing, would have driven me absolutely insane. It would have taken me out of my writing and made it difficult to refocus.
But when it took me out of nothing and put me into a happy place, it was hard to complain. In fact, it was quite easy to appreciate.
“Well, if struggling to make ends meet for your love is smart, then I guess so,” I said with a casual smile.
But Jack didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. I was curious what kind of a job he had—the way he was dressed, with a black, sleeveless jacket, a white undershirt, and jeans suggested that he did not come from the fucking awful world of finance or law. He didn’t seem like some pseudo-intellectual dipshit from one of the nearby universities. He instead seemed…
He almost seemed like a guy who was too smart for the job that he had, but because of life or personal choice, he had no desire to move from said job and was content to keep himself happy in his current situation. That personal ease that he seemed to have with himself was, well, yeah, it made me a little jealous. But in a good way.
“Well, we all have to pay our bills somehow, and better to do it by doing what you love. Who’s your main character? And how did you draw inspiration?”
“His name is Kris,” I said. “And I drew inspiration from someone I knew in high school. A tormented soul, but someone who seemed to mostly do things for good.”
The name Kyle Stone flashed to mind, but I didn’t see any reason for Jack to know who Kyle was. Kyle wasn’t the mayor or a senator; I think he worked in some small representative role on the city council or something else. It wasn’t the type of job that would have put him on TV, that was all.
“That’s cool,” Jack said. “Well, hopefully Kris’ tormented soul finds peace at the end. Wouldn’t want him to be miserable the entire time!”
“Not at all,” I said. “Well, I don’t want to spoil anything for you—”
“And I do want to read the book, so maybe I shouldn’t be asking such spoiler-filled questions!”
Again, that boisterous, happy laugh. The timing could not have been any better for you, Jack. If it had happened before I started writing, I would have tried to push you away. If it happened during writing, I would have resented you. Come by here four or five minutes later, and I would have been long gone.
I guess I’m not going to complain about this
timing.
“Well, we can talk about other things,” I said. “But it will have to be another time. I’ve got a cat back at the house named Spawn that’s waiting for me—”
“Like the comic book character?”
That honestly might have been the moment that I knew that I couldn’t let my interaction with Jack end right there. I would have to go home, but I couldn’t not see him again.
“Yes! Yes! Oh, now that’s rare. But anyway, I really appreciate your interest, Jack. Most people wouldn’t take the time to sit down and learn about my stuff.”
“Well, why wouldn’t they? You have an interesting story.”
I smiled and knew, just knew, that I was blushing. I wasn’t ashamed at all to admit that Jack was making me smile like an idiot, and I wasn’t at all ashamed to admit that I wanted him to ask me out.
I could have done it myself, but I was too shy. The most I could do was leave him my business card or my website, but that just felt a little too business-like, as if I was ignoring what he really wanted from me. It was sending him a message other than the one that I wanted to send to him.
“Where can I find your books? Or is this your first one?”
“Oh, no, no, I have other books! Here.”
I handed him a card that had my personal website on it. It also happened to have my full name, Lilly Fuller. And yes, I used my real name as an author.
“I hope to hear how you like my books, Jack.”
Among other things. I never even got to learn about you tonight. We have to meet again so I can know more about you.
“No doubt,” he said. “Have a good one, Lilly.”
I just loved how he said my name. How he made my body glow warm with his smile. How it felt like I needed to be on the other side of the table, not sitting across from him.
It had only been a brief visit, one that couldn’t have lasted longer than ten minutes or so, but it was one that was unlike any other I’d had with most guys here. It wasn’t crass; it wasn’t abrupt; it wasn’t awkward.
