In the outdoor dining area, seated on a wooden stool, is a woman with jet-black hair, glowing tanned skin, and high cheekbones, arm out to the side, flicking the ash off a cigarette onto the ground.
“Deedee?”
Her perfectly shaped brows slam down into a straight line as she looks amongst the patrons and out onto the street, completely missing me.
The four men surrounding her stop their chatter, collectively tensing. One of them has black ink tattooed on his pale, bald head. Beside him, there’s another Caucasian man with an eyebrow piercing. It’s hard to tell where they might be from, but the other two men could be Indonesian.
“Deedee!” I step beneath the fluorescent light.
She can get us passports and money, just in case. Maybe she’ll know where my shit is so I have the comfort of knowing I have a mode of transport that doesn’t involve drowning myself in saltwater.
Deedee’s on her feet and running toward me as soon as she spots me. I feel Ordus shift, ready to interfere.
“Holy shit, girl.” She yanks me into a hug I’d rather not be the recipient of. I cringe. Ordus moves closer, a low warning growl in his chest that I try to cover by angling Deedee away. “Where the fuck have you been?”
I wrinkle my nose from the ribbons of cigarette smoke wafting toward me, and I bat them away with the back of my hand.
“Someone trashed my place, and I got spooked.” I practiced the lie earlier in case I managed to locate a phone to call her or Nat.
Her eyes round, and she steps back like she’s examining me for bruises. “What? Are you okay?” She glances between me and Ordus, and her nostrils flare with a deep breath. Something shutters behind her eyes as she cranes her neck to look up at him properly. Her jaw drops to the ground in…Surpriseisn’t a strong enough word.
Astonishment.
Deedee’s brows hike up her forehead as she takes him in from head to toe, up to his head again, before turning to me with an emotion I can’t quite place. A dash of confusion, a bit of shock, and—I could be wrong—concern? Or is that anger? I can’t tell.
Deedee studies me with an intensity I’ve never seen on her before. I can only imagine what this looks like. I go MIA for a month then show back up with a tall, muscled, attractive guy.
The fact said guy is radiating violence and Deedee is aware I had a piece of shit ex? She’s probably thinking the worst.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I found a safe place to hunker down,” I say to slice the weird tension. I motion to Ordus, inching toward him to make it clear he’s not a threat. “He’s been helping me out.”
Deedee seems to snap out of whatever spell she’s under. She sidles next to me, grinning and batting her eyelashes up at Ordus. “And tell me about your friend?”
Something ugly and green turns my blood to simmering. I want to tell her it’s none of her business, to put the focus back on me. “Uh, Ordus.”
Her lips widen into a full-blown, satisfied smile. “Single?”
The simmer turns to a boil.
Ordus steps in before I can ruin a friendship. “No,” he snaps, like he can’t imagine anything more insulting.
I look over my shoulder at the same time Deedee’s bald friend stands and snuffs out his cigarette on the tray.
She giggles and playfully bats at Ordus’ arm. He jolts away, clutching his elbow like she left a fatal wound. Deedee’s attention falls back to me, so she misses him bare his teeth at her.
Her slender hand wraps around my arm as she all but yanks me toward her table. “Come. Sit, sit, sit. Eat. Dinner’s on me.” She raises two fingers at the woman behind the counterand sayssomething in Indonesian I don’t quite understand—other than the words forbabi guling—roast pig.
The clerk nods, and her flip-flops clap against the tile toward the back of the shop.
Deedee hustles me into a seat beside her and points at a wooden stool at a free table for Ordus. She moves empty plates and cups to the end of the table for the clerk to pick up when she passes, then mutters something in Indonesian to the guy beside her. He nods.
Ordus drops the stool beside me and lowers him onto it more aggressively than necessary. If I move even slightly, my knees will knock into his. I’m struggling to recognize him in a sun-stained, blueBintangT-shirt. I must admit, though, I can focus a little better without his abs on display.
It’s comical how much he sticks out amongst everyone else. Sure, he appears human, but if you stare long enough, you’ll start to notice there’s somethingotherabout him.
Especially in those murderous blue eyes.
We had a nice, long chat about human behavior, the dos and don’ts when we’re on the mainland. One of those things was that there’s to be absolutely no attacking or growling at or killing humans under any circumstance.
