Alejo never would have foreseen this, but he was finding it fun to have a restaurant. And he totally loved Pakistani food. As soon as he got to Cochabamba, Alejo met up with Bashir for a beer and soon their restaurant was born. The place was on a quiet little alcove close to the Recoleta, a hot spot in the city for trendy restaurants and cafes. Alejo’s restaurant was tiny, but the place was looking awesome with domed lamps in ruby and jade glass, mosaics of Islamabad skylines, and the smell of curry and chai always in the air.
Cooking was pretty relaxing. Alejo just stood there, stirring a giant wok full of caramelizing onions, listening to oil spark and the fan hum overhead.
He remembered it again, just like a thousand times before: the last time he saw her in Morocco. They’d evacuated Timbuktu and spent a few days at headquarters. Alejo had spent his last night out under the dark pine trees, trying to talk with her, trying to find something, anything to keep his heart from dying.
“I’m sorry!” Wara had cried again, wrapping her arms around herself in that orange and gray hoodie, rocking back and forth in flip flops on the cold grass.
Alejo shot his eyes up to the stars, leaned against the rough bark of a tree to steady himself. Then he looked back at her, two feet and a million miles away. “You’re still in love with him? Is that what you didn’t want to tell me? Is that why you saved him?”
“No!” Wara snapped. “I…I just thought that all the bad decisions before meant I was linked to him, that I had no choice, that all this was my fault! I couldn’t let it go, be someone else.”
Alejo swallowed hard and it hurt. “And what about now?”
“Of course I don’t want…that. Him. Look, I don’t know what to think about Lázaro. He had some horrible stuff done to him, some of it by me. But the fact is, he’s gone. And I don’t want to think about him. Ever. Again. I love you.”
That night Alejo packed up his stuff and left headquarters at first light. The new job in Bolivia was waiting.
And here he was, back in the land where he was born, after a long, long journey.
It wasn’t the same, without her. Nothing was.
When he left Wara in Morocco, Alejo had thought there was no choice. He’d lost her, and it was over. The only thing left was to try to understand. And find some way to live while feeling like piranhas were constantly ripping his heart out.
But what Lalo said to him that day back in Amadou’s living room just wouldn’t go away.
“Are you just gonna let her go?” Lalo had said. “People hurt each other. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you.”
“Don’t let her go because you can’t forgive her,” Lalo said. “Just let her go if you don’t love her anymore.”
Wara said she did love him. That night when they talked about getting married and Alejo held her in his arms and painted her with henna.
She told him she loved him again the night under the pines, the last night Alejo saw her.
And so, for the past four months, Alejo chose not to give up.
He knew she was working at a coffee shop in Bozeman, and he’d been sending her little brown packages with air mail stamps from the ancient post office downtown: braided necklaces with seeds he bought from hippies in the plaza, Bolivian chocolate with quinoa, a letter he handwrote one day on paper made from papyrus.
He didn’t really know what to say, but all he could do was not let her go. And he’d told her he wanted her here, still did not want to be without her. Because he loved her.
And…Alejo had heard nothing back. Not a text, not a phone call, not even a rumor she wasn’t dumping the stuff he sent in the trash.
So, all in all, there was a hole in his life here at the safe house. He wasn’t gonna lie. But there was peace. Working at the restaurant was healing. The pace was slow. And he did not have to carry a weapon.
“Dude!” Bashir was narrowing his eyes at Alejo from across the tiny kitchen. “Leave the onions. I think I hear someone at the counter.”
How Bashir could hear any customers over the drone of the fan Alejo would never know. “Ok, I got it.”
He shook off memories of Wara and pulled the apron off over his head. Today Alejo was wearing a tight black t-shirt and jeans with a couple holes. When he’d first started cooking Pakistani food, he’d thought aprons were stupid, and ruined an entire stack of clothes with crime-scene-sized splotches of spicy oil and red pepper. Since Alejo thought shopping sucked, he’d rather wear the apron.
Alejo left the kitchen and passed the huge mirror in the hallway that led to the restaurant. His hair was military short, and he was still getting used to the black hoop earring and the black Celtic tattoo on his right bicep.
He kind of liked the look.
Alejo ducked into the dining area with its soft Pakistani music, smoking incense holder, and six totally empty tables.
Bashir was right, though. It was barely five, and people in Cochabamba usually wouldn’t show up to eat until at least seven. But there was a girl leaning against the counter, back to Alejo, checking out the menu.
A really hot girl.
Alejo, who totally never knew what to do around attractive women, stared at her as he rounded one of the tables at the wall open to the street. He pretended to fiddle with the placemats, hoping to look useful and intelligent and maybe cute before he asked the gorgeous customer if she needed anything.
Her legs were the color of caramelized vanilla, and he could see a lot of them thanks to a short denim skirt with a flare of red flower fabric around the edges. She had on these awesome leather gladiator sandals with ties that ran almost up to her knees. Then there was the tight black tank top and hair braided into a hundred braids and dangling shell earrings that brushed her bare shoulder. She had a very nice butt.
“Hey,” she said, half-turning with a twist of her waist and flashing her eyes to meet his.
Yep. She was hot.
“Uh, hey,” Alejo grinned back, took a step to walk over towards the counter…and missed the floor. His foot hit the step that went down to the street, and Alejo went down. Right into the glass and wood partition that divided he and Bashir’s restaurant from the street.
Alejo and the entire partition hit the pavement with the sound of a thousand shards of shattering glass. One of the chairs came down after him and thumped into his chest. He tried to leap up, untangle himself from the chair and the twisted wood partition frame, get out of the sea of glass shards splattered all over the sidewalk in front of his restaurant.
The people from the neighboring shops were outside and gawking. Alejo felt his ears burn as he stood up, waved to let them know he didn’t seem to be cut into shreds.
Yup, nothing but his pride.
He might have a little piece of glass sticking out of his butt, but he would take care of that in a sec.
He looked into the restaurant, and there was the girl, eyes huge, staring down at him on the street.
It was Wara.
And she was grinning.
At him.
Alejo did a double take, then felt himself start to grin. He stood there on the street with Wara smiling at him, and even though Bashir was running out of the kitchen swearing up a storm, all Alejo could do was grin.
There was a huge mess out there in the world, and a big one right here on the sidewalk.
But it didn’t matter. In this second, everything stood still and none of it mattered.
Alejo had everything he ever wanted.
If you liked Burn, check on the first two books in this series:
Prism
Reverb
Visit my Amazon author page or LIKE me on Facebook!
Rachel Moschell
scale(100%); -o-filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share
Burn (Story of CI #3) Page 34