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“He’s the mafia.”
“He’s former mafia.” I step inside the elevator and make my way to the back, so I have something to lean against and less chance of dropping on my ass from exhaustion. “His father was mafia. He left that life to become a normal, functioning member of society.”
“Minka…” Frustrated, she presses her back to the side wall and groans. “I’m trying to fall out of love here. Can you not make it so difficult?”
“But why are you doing that?” As soon as the doors slide open, I push away from the back wall and stride through the George Stanley lobby, past our security checkpoint, and through large, revolving glass doors.
We move from air-conditioned cool, to stifling street heat, so all-encompassing, it takes my breath away and hits me like a wall. My eyes shoot wide in response. My breath, stopping in my throat for a beat long enough to almost make me choke. A long day, low Factor in my veins, and a hungry stomach all coalesce and make me thankful Archer isn’t here to see me.
I take a moment to collect my bearings. To look right, then left. I take stock of the street we’re on, and the traffic backed up in both directions. But luckily for me, I live just a couple blocks to the right. And my apartment, thankfully, just so happens to be right next to Tim’s bar.
Swallowing the ache in my throat, and refilling the oxygen in my lungs, I start to the right and look at Aubree as we go. “Why are you trying to fall out of love with a man who cherishes the ground you walk on? I married a Malone, Aubs. I can recommend firsthand: being taken care of like that is pretty nice.”
“I just…” She frowns, wrestling through her thoughts and not allowing me to hear most of them. “I think the way I’ve acted the last year or so, the way I’ve wanted his attention…” she shakes her head. “It was to my detriment. I would change myself to have him look at me. If he mentioned he liked the smell of lavender, I would go out and buy anything that smelled of lavender. If he mentioned a band, suddenly I was listening to them in my spare time. If he mentioned beetroot on burgers, well hell, I was putting beetroot on my burgers.”
“So you’re mad you like the same things he likes?”
“I’m mad I changed my personality in my quest to get him to notice me! I’m mad that my spine is so ridiculously bendable, that I would so easily toss the real Aubree Emeri aside for even a scrap of his time.”
“He never wanted that from you.” I can love my best friend. And I can love my brother-in-law. I can want them both to be happy, and if we’re all lucky, they’ll find that happiness together. But that doesn’t mean I can’t defend the man who would set a city on fire just to keep her safe. “Tim isn’t ‘that guy’ who is insecure with himself, Aubs. He’s not going to try to change you, all to fit some weird mold the way weaker men do.”
“No, but?—”
“He wants you exactly the way you are.” I sidestep when a man on a bicycle zooms past us with no care for the pedestrians he might mow down in his rush. “Jesus, I think we’ve established how stupidly in love with you he is. He basically told the chief of police to fuck himself, sieged a police operation, and physically removed you from danger. Timothy Malone isn’t to be trifled with, Aubs. Not when it comes to you.”
“I know, but?—”
“You are a blonde-haired, pink-and-purple-streaked, glittery-shoe, bright-lipsticked beam of rainbows and sunshine! You fit in no mold. You’re a mold unto yourself. And he wants you exactly the way you are.”
“And yet,” she grumbles, dropping her eyes to her feet and frowning as we trudge through thick commuter traffic, “I still went to work smelling like lavender after he mentioned it. You’re so convinced I think he’s the problem. When really, it’s me.” Finally, she glances across and meets my eyes. “I can’t be in a relationship with him, or anyone else, if I don’t even know how to stay true to myself.”
She’s afraid of losing her identity. Losing who she is.
When we lack so many other things to bond over, this is something I can closely relate to.
“I’m this person, Minka. Loud and weird and obnoxious and goofy. I dye my hair different colors, depending on the season, and I match my shoes to my earrings, and my underwear to my socks. I still dance to MTV on the weekends, and I made friends with a filthy pigeon that flies in and sits on my windowsill at least once a day. I have the world’s biggest lady crush on my boss because she’s the coolest chick I have ever met. And I fell in love with the heir of a mafia fricken syndicate. Like, he’s not even the third, or fourth son, like Archer is. He’s Timothy Malone, and the dude before him was Timothy Malone, too. The other Timothy was the boss of the family. And he was an awful, awful man. This Tim is like a dark, dark stormy cloud, and I’m a rainbow Care Bear. He’s Wednesday Addams, and I’m that other chick. The loud one.”
“I don’t…” I glance ahead of us—one block till the bar—then I peer at my friend and try not to panic at the odd reddening of her eyes. “I don’t know what you just said.”
“Because you’re too cool for pop culture! You don’t know who Wednesday Addams is, and you don’t even care that you’re socially disabled.”
“Uh, disa—” Offended, I frown. “Excuse me?”
“You’re totally secure in who you are as a person. Which is why you can marry someone like Archer Malone, and you can be happy, and you’re both still exactly who you’re supposed to be. You’re not weak and waffly and at risk of becoming a lumberjack’s female counterpart.”
“Waffly?”
“I wear neon, and high tops, and ripped jeans, and bright hair.” She looks at me with big, blue eyes, widening in fear. “If I become Tim’s girlfriend, how long do you think it would take before I’m carrying an axe and pouring beer?”
“Um…” My lips curl higher at the mental imagery she hands over so easily. “Well?—”
“He could look me up and down tonight, ask me to help him behind the bar, and that would be it. The end of me. I’d give up my career and be whatever he wanted me to be.”
“So… your issue isn’t him at all.” My brain aches. My thoughts, slow. “Your issue is that you’re insecure about yourself. Or you worry that you’ll become insecure.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re content in who you are now. A doctor for the dead. A medical examiner, second only to the chief. You like your neon and color and volume.”
