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“Okay. Let me know what’s up. Your next appointment isn’t until three. I can reschedule it if needed.” I thank her, but my mind isn’t on appointments and clients and schedules.
It’s on Lola and debts and mafia bookies who take the words of a dirty mayor and victimize his helpless daughter.
Fuck.
When I get to the center stairwell between our places, I try the bakery door first.
A shiver runs through me when the door is unlocked.
I fucking told her,I think. How manyfucking timeshave I told her she can’t just leave doors unlocked like this? On the boardwalk, there are so many fucking idiots wandering where they shouldn’t be. It is going to get her into trouble.
I pop my head in, reaching over to flick the light on.
“Lola?” I say, loud, my voice ringing in the clearly empty bakery.
No mess.
No signs of distress or struggle.
No Lola.
Nothing.
I’m not sure if I should be relieved or even more anxious.
Before I can feel either emotion, I back out of the bakery, locking the fucking door behind me, thinking about how I need to change this lock to one that automatically locks when it closes.
Then I head up the stairs to her apartment.
I knock.
No response.
I knock again, this time pounding on the door, my heart racing.
This fucking woman.
I’m about to reach for the key and let myself in when I hear it.
A cough.
Followed by a voice.
“Don’t knock that fucking door down, Benjamin!” The words are followed by more coughing.
I should laugh. In another universe, I would laugh at Lola calling me Benjamin.
In this one? Not at all.
“Open the door,” I shout through the door like an idiot.
“No! Go away!”
“Lola, open the fucking door!”
“What are you doing here?” Jesus Christ.
“Your bakery is closed.”
