AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It would have been nice to see him tonight, but he told me he was going to have beers with the guys from the meat-packing company after work. I figured I could use the extra time to clean.
Here I am. Cleaning to some pop song on the radio. Trying to make an old house feel new. But no matter how hard I scrub, it can never erase the memories. Never erase the sound of her voice. Or even the scent of her perfume. Maybe because we didn’t have a lot of money, she used to buy it from the drug store. It was cheap but pleasant enough. Flowery. I smell it sometimes, but it only makes my stomach hurt.
Or maybe it’s something else that does. I don’t want to concentrate on that, though. So, I think about Lilo some more.
An hour or so later, a knock comes at the door. Hoffa, the kitten some dangerous guy gave Ava as a gift, runs toward it. She’s not a dog, but it seems like she thinks she is. If it’s someone dangerous, I hope she’ll act like a watch dog but scratch the person’s eyes out.
The thought makes me laugh as I open the door. My breath catches and I drop the dirty rag in my hand.
Lilo.
He’s standing under the light. He’s in a white t-shirt, dark jeans, and boots. His hair is freshly slicked back, and his cologne lingers in the air. When he looks up, his eyes are hard. Maybe he wasn’t expecting me to open the door?
“You didn’t even ask who it was,” he says.
“What?” The question comes out breathy because my heart grew wings at the sight of him. My stomach goes queasy and my palms tingle, but in a nervous way. Like looking down the tallest skyscraper, knowing there’s only one way down.
“When you opened the door. You didn’t even ask who it was. This is New York. Not fucking Mayberry.”
I shut the door in his face. A second later, he knocks again.
“Who is it?” I say.
“Open the door, Lucila,” he says.
I do, and I don’t think he finds what I did funny. His face is still hard.
“Okay,” I say. “Next time I’ll ask.”
“You should know better.”
I shrug. “You feel like the most dangerous thing in my world. And since you like me, I figure…I’ll be okay.”
I can tell he’s still pissed, but after a second, his face relaxes when our eyes hold. He grumbles something about like and then steps inside. He closes and locks the door, then heads toward the kitchen. Hoffa sniffs around his boots when she gets to the counter. Then, like a frigging dog, she jumps on his legs, setting her paws against them.
She senses no danger whatsoever. If anything, the kitten takes to him instantly. She seems to like Lilo better than she likes me. And I feed and take care of her. She’s purring like a fiend after a hit when Lilo scratches her head.
Meanwhile, I’m trying to figure out if there’s something I can do about the way I look. I’m in an old white t-shirt of Sonny’s and a raggedy old pair of sweatpants that Ava says makes me look like I crapped my pants because of the baggage in the back. My hair is up in a ponytail, and my feet are bare. My hands smell like bleach and lemon cleaner. There’s nothing I can do, though. He caught me off guard.
He’s already looking at me like I might disappear on him. He does that sometimes.
“Why do you look at me like that?” I say, my eyes softening against his.
“I never want to lose you, Lucila,” he says. “And I might fuck up someday.”
“Would you mean to?” I’m not sure why I ask, because depending on what he does—would it make a difference?
Some things are avoidable. An affair, for instance. No matter how many times a person says it wasn’t on purpose, that seems like a choice that’s plain and simple. That hurt can be avoided by saying no and ending it before the damage is done. But something else, like a choice between light and dark—I’m okay with him being in the shadows, for some reason. But I also don’t know what that truly means, other than what happened with the lunch lady and the guy at Coney Island.
He’s wild in ways that many people aren’t, but it only makes me feel safe.
He makes me feel safe, and that, that, is a dangerous thing. He already has my heart. A heart that’s just starting to heal after bitterness has worn it thin. Just like a body that’s been buried for too long.
“I would never mean to hurt you,” he says. “But it’s what I do. Eventually.”
His words make me think of him and Michele. The look of disappointment on his dad’s face when he looks at his son sometimes, and the immediate look of acceptance on his son’s when it happens. I think that’s where his comment stems from. It’s not about me, but about that. Maybe he tried to be everything Michele expected but always fell short. Because I can see the uncertainty in his eyes after he says it. Like he’ll see the same rejection in my eyes. He’ll come up short. Then I’ll lock him out.
Hoffa hisses at me as I move her out of my way, wrapping my arms around Lilo’s middle. Holding him is like holding a rock. He’s hard all over. But his warmth makes me pull even closer. He’s so tall I have to look up at him.
