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Chapter 15
João's wasn't a restaurant I knew, and I ended up getting lost on my way there. I took the B Line to Allston, passing the club where I'd been just last week, but then had to continue walking down Allston Street for several blocks. As the streets became less and less crowded, that feeling came back again––the one like I was being followed. It was hard to shake––you don't grow up as a woman in a large city without knowing that feeling of a stranger on your tail. I wouldn't be able to count the number of times I'd been catcalled or even tracked for multiple blocks by men in New York. Losing a creepy stalker was a survival skill in an urban jungle.
But these days that sense was clearly off. Twice I stopped suddenly and whirled around in the evening twilight, but each time there was no one there, just empty sidewalks disappearing into the dusk.
"You're going crazy, Crosby," I muttered to myself as I turned down another quiet street and finally found the restaurant.
I stood outside for a moment, looking at the place with some skepticism. It was barely discernible as a restaurant, marked only by a small sign in the window and the glass door that had a menu taped to it. I doubled-checked the address Brandon had texted me. This was definitely the place.
The bell that sounded at my entrance rang through the empty room like a siren. A head popped out of a door in the back which I presumed was the kitchen. The man who spotted me looked momentarily surprised at my presence, then his body followed his head as he walked out to welcome me.
"Alô, senhorina," he said in a language I guessed was Portuguese. "You are here for dinner?"
I looked around the restaurant, which was really just a plain white room with clusters of metal tables and chairs scattered around it. It was also empty.
"Um, I think so," I said. "There was supposed to be a reservation. Under Sterling."
"Yes!" the man said, clapping his hands together. "He is in the back table."
I looked around the man to the single occupied table in the far corner, where Brandon was hunched over a few papers, so lost in his work he hadn't even registered my arrival. But as he sensed my presence innately, he looked up and grinned, his smile lighting up the dank room.
"Hey, beautiful!" he glowed as he shuffled his papers to the side and stood up as I walked over.
The papers were a few messy drawings of some kind of contraption. The sight made me smile––for all of his glamorous façade, Brandon was really just a big nerd who liked messing with wires in his spare time.
"You look...wow. As always."
I glanced down at my simple black T-shirt dress and the red slip-on sneakers. Knowing we weren't going anywhere fancy, I'd opted for casual comfort.
"Thanks," I said as I accepted his kiss. "You look good too."
Brandon was dressed as simply as I was in a pair of jeans, a red T-shirt, and his favorite worn Sox hat. I had to smile. For once we looked like an average young couple, not a mismatched pairing of a high-powered CEO and a not-quite-minted lawyer. But the fact that we were in a restaurant that was completely empty on a Friday night wouldn't let me relax completely.
"Um, Brandon?" I asked as we sat down. "You...you did call off the security, didn't you?"
Brandon frowned, clearly confused. "Yeah, of course. Why do you keep asking me that?"
I shrugged and held my arms around my middle. "No reason. You know me, suspicious New Yorker."
If he got a whiff that I was worried, I'd definitely have a security detail following my every move. I really didn't want that. Instead I looked around the restaurant.
"This place is weird. It feels like a front for something."
Brandon blinked at me for a second, then suddenly burst out laughing.
"A front?" he asked with a huge grin. "Christ." He looked around, as if noticing for the first time that we were literally the only customers there. "Yeah, I guess I can see that. But, ah, no, Red. The Brazilian barbecue here is wicked good. I..." He looked a bit sheepish, pulled off his hat and started to worry it between his hands. "It's not a front. I just bought out the place for the night so we wouldn't be watched."
Suddenly the restaurant seemed about three times larger. It was a compliment, in a way, that Brandon would buy a restaurant's entire night's worth of business just to take me out. But it was also a demonstration of the extravagant lengths he was taking to keep me a secret. I clasped my arms over my chest, studied the wrinkles in the dingy white tablecloth, and tried to swallow back the tears rising unbidden.
"Red. What is it?"
I looked up, but still didn't answer. I didn't want to make things harder for him than they had to be.
"It's weird, isn't it?" Brandon asked. He sighed and pushed his hat backwards over his flattened blond curls. "Damn."
I shrugged, knowing I had no talent for hiding my feelings. Brandon's features scrunched with sympathy; the movement made the small lines around his eyes and between his brows show up.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "Miranda just knows too many people. It's either someplace like this or The Martin, where I know for sure I can pay for confidentiality." He looked up, eyes pools of worry. "Would you rather just go back to your place? We don't have to go out."
