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“I have rum cake.”
“No one told me,” George said, frowning.
“You’re on a diet,” Lillian said, getting up. “You can have a one-inch piece.”
“Why’s Pop on a diet?” I asked.
“When he was in the ER, the doctor gave him an ultimatum. Lose weight or have a heart attack.”
“And how is a one-inch piece of rum cake going to change that?”
“He’s on a calorie-count diet. Twenty-two hundred calories a day.”
“That’s a Big Mac, a large fry and a diet soda,” George said, making the rest of us laugh.
“I’ll have rum cake,” I said.
“You can have a quarter of it. Why are you so skinny?” my mother asked, cutting cake and placing giant pieces on paper plates.
“She spends all her money on cheap underwear,” my brother Rocko said, finally showing up. He leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “I heard the news. Literally, it’s all over the news. I guess that’s why you pulled your car up into the driveway.”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“The guy’s talking about you on the news,” Rocko said.
“Who?”
“Safadi. The guy you saved. He’s saying how indebted he is to you.”
“Get the remote, quick!” Lillian yelled.
“No! I don’t want to see it,” I begged.
“You should,” Rocko said. “The guy’s talking about honoring you, sister. This might mean some money.”
“I’ll pass,” I said, standing up. “Mom, can I get that cake to go? I’d better get home.”
“Sweetheart, stay,” George said.
“No can do. I’m scared the reporters will find me if I don’t move. No point in staying in the same place for too long.”
I left ten minutes later with the rest of the rum cake in a giant Tupperware container. My roomies would be happy.
But then curiosity got the best of me, and I kept going past our house toward the car wash. The streets were relatively empty, with only one car at the pumps and no one in line at the car wash. There was orange plastic fencing around the scene of the accident. The debris and destroyed pump had been removed.
My kiosk was dark, but there were lights on in the store. I pulled into the first parking spot. The only other car in the lot besides Skippy’s was a black Acura, an older model than the one Flynn Safadi had been driving the night before.
Looking in through the store window, I stretched to see over the racks of chips and beef jerky but could only see Skippy talking animatedly to someone out of view. Skippy glanced my way, and when he saw me, he got all perky looking and waved to whomever it was he was talking to. That was when a familiar, handsome face came into view, the white bandage across the left side of his forehead partially obscured by a lock of black curls.
It was Flynn Safadi. I ducked down in my seat, but it was too late, too obvious.
“Bella!”
God damned Skippy! Seething, I straightened up to see him coming toward me across the pavement. I gave him a look he was usually afraid of and avoided by making me mad as seldom as possible.
“Yes, Skippy,” I said, squinting at him.
“Bella, this is the guy whose life you saved! Flynn Safadi, meet Bella Roman.”
