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Somehow, I knew that the cleaner was also Mere.
And not only because I could just about make out two open bedroom doors in the hall.
One with more white walls and organization.
The other with the contents damn near spilling out of the door.
Polar opposites, these women.
“Thank you,” I said, reaching for my mug when Mere passed it toward me. Did I let our fingers brush? Just to watch the way her eyes widened and her lips parted?
Yeah, I did that.
“So, are you staying for dinner?” Vega asked. “We’re ordering in for a change.”
I should have excused myself, but my gaze slid to Mere instead.
“You can stay, of course,” she said, voice a little tight.
“This is going to be fun,” Vega declared, breezing past me in a fume of spicy perfume and sweet candy, going into one of the kitchen cabinets, and drawing down one of three matching binders.
Down the spine, it was clear what was inside.
Menus.
“You keep your menus in a binder?” I asked.
“Mere is quite fastidious,” Vega said in an easy tone as she plopped the binder onto the counter between all three of us, and started to flip it open. “Let’s pick a restaurant. I’m going to guess that having an Italian guy from the city means that our local non-Italian run Italian place is probably going to be a disappointment.”
“I’m not picky,” I assured her.
“Too late. It’s been decided,” Vega said, flipping through shiny, laminated pages while, on her other side, Mere was rubbing her thumbnail up and down her coffee mug.
A nervous gesture?
Nervous about what?
The food?
My presence?
I probably should have excused myself, said something about forgetting that I was going to meet Gav somewhere.
But I didn’t do that.
Instead, I gave Vega my order for Chinese food, then watched her walk away to place it.
“I know,” Mere said when I glanced back in her direction. “We couldn’t be more different.”
“Yet, it seems to work,” I said, shrugging.
“It helps that Vega hates housework, and I love it,” she told me. “And cooking. And running errands.”
“Has she lived here long?”
“Oh, this was Vega’s apartment first,” Mere said, surprising me, since her stamp was all over the place. “I only moved in a few years back.”
“From the area…” I asked, waving out toward Balm Harbour.
“No. No, I was in Ohio,” she explained. “I was born and raised there. Vega’s parents have always been kind of nomads, so she grew up all over the place before she finally decided to settle down here after college.”
“Interesting place for someone as… colorful as her.”
“Yeah,” Mere said, shrugging. “But, I think, if you are such a colorful person, in a city surrounded by other colorful people, you don’t stand out as much. Here…” she went on, waving a hand out.
“Seeing as I saw her in the grocery store wearing a faux fur coat over a cut-off top, men’s boxers, and knee-high socks, I’d say you were right,” I said, shaking my head.
Mere’s gaze skittered away for a second, looking at her cousin who appeared to be having a good old time talking to the people from the Chinese restaurant.
“It works out. She likes to stand out. I like to blend in. We’re the perfect duo.”
“Honey, you don’t blend in,” I said, watching as her gaze cut back to me, eyes wide. Almost worried. Like the thought of being noticed was terrifying. “You’re too pretty to blend in,” I added, watching as a slight flushed made her cheeks go pink. “That’s probably why you like working at the flower shop, huh?” I asked. “All that other pretty. Easier to blend in to all of that.”
“Damn, it looks like I missed something good,” Vega said, suddenly appearing beside us, smiling knowingly at her cousin’s blush. “What have we been talking about?”
“Why the two of you live here,” I said, only half lying.
“And what about you?” Vega asked.
“I lived here for a few years. Overseeing the business. Then I moved back to the city. I missed my family,” I explained.
“Do you come from a big family?” Mere asked.
“Fucking massive,” I said, shaking my head. “Lot of first names that end in vowels. Hard to keep ‘em all straight sometimes,” I added. “What about you guys?”
“My parents retired to Mexico,” Vega explained. She cast a quick glance at Mere before adding, “And, well, we don’t really have anyone else.”
I couldn’t fathom that.
Even just my immediate family was big. Lots of brothers and my sister. Then there were the cousins. Dozens and dozens of them. The men and women in my family fucked and procreated like bunnies.
“So, holidays for you are like the holidays in the movies,” Mere concluded.
“Bigger. Louder. More dramatic,” I told them, smiling.
As crazy as it was, though, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. The time I had been forced to spend away only reinforced my understanding that the city, with all the people I loved in it, was the only place for me.
