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“No shit, Lola’s your sister?” She smiles. “Girl’s got some good cookies.” Exactly. Lilah’s face morphs with relief before she replies.
“Tell her you know Lilah and she’ll throw in an extra next time you’re that way.” Sergio looks over at me, nodding.
“You said she’s your assistant?” he asks, tipping his head to my wife. I nod. “You should keep this one, Dante. She’s good for your business.”
“Don’t I fuckin’ know it,” I say, wrapping an arm around her shoulder as she walks back around the table, stopping her before she can return to her seat. I want to kiss her, to lift her and spin her, to tell Sergio that she’s my wife, but this will have to do. “You couldn’t pay me to get rid of my best asset.”
And I mean every word.
THIRTY-ONE
-Lilah-
It’s after five when we leave the transfer station and make our way to the boardwalk, finding parking easily in the off-season and then heading toward Libby’s.
“Lola’s shop is probably closed, but Ben’s should be open for a bit longer,” I say as we walk down the boards of the Ocean View boardwalk, my heels clicking as we go. It’s chilly, but just looking out at the water makes me feel at home in some way. “This was my mom’s favorite place. This beach, this boardwalk.”
Even the sound of my feet on the old wood boards feels good down to my soul. Like a part of me is returning to where it always craves.
Home is funny that way. I spent my entire childhood dying to leave this town where everyone knew me, where everyone protected me, where no one was their true self with me. And when I left, I was happy about it, but a part of me will always need this city. Will always need to come back occasionally, like a touchstone that’s forever connected to my mother, to my childhood.
“It's why your sister opened here, right?” he asks, and I nod. He’s holding my hand as we walk, and it feels like Lake George.
It feels normal.
Another thing my soul freaking craves—normalcy with Dante: a night out without him cosplaying as my babysitter, a day trip without the guise of it being for work.
“Soon, Lilah,” he says, gripping my hand a bit, somehow always knowing what I’m thinking without my saying it aloud. “It’ll be like this every day soon.”
I don’t have to ask what he means—I know he means this openness, the freedom of being together.
Soon, we’ll have it.
“There they are,” I say, pointing to two shops farther down the boardwalk. The perfect opposites—Lola’s bakery, Libby’s, named after our mother, bright and sunny with the cutest pink awning, next to Ben’s tattoo shop, all dark with his thorny logo on the glass. “Let’s go into Ben’s; the lights are off at Lola’s. She’s probably over there.”
The bell rings above us as we walk into the tattoo shop, me leading the way with Dante’s hand on my waist as he follows right behind.
“One sec, I just gotta . . . done!” the dark-haired woman at the desk says before lifting her head and smiling at us. Her black hair is cut blunt to her shoulders with blunt bangs, and her face has at least a dozen piercings in it, but I instantly know who she is.
And apparently, when she sees me, she knows who I am as well.
“No way!” I smile. “No way!” She walks around the desk with her arms in the air, squealing with excitement before pulling me in for a hug.
“Is . . . Is this your sister?” Dante asks under his breath with a very confused tone as the woman lets go and then shouts Ben’s name down the hall.
“Oh, god, no! But you! You look just like your sister. Well, like your sister if she got a tan and dyed her hair.” Her hands go to her hips as she looks me over. “You’ve got her curves, but you’ve got more tits.” Black eyeliner-lined eyes go wide while staring at said tits. “OH MY GOD, CAN I PIERCE YOU TOO!?”
Dante snorts behind me.
“Hattie, what did I say about yelling at clients?” a deep voice says from behind her, and even from here, I can see the distinct pleats of my sister’s red braids following behind him.
“It’s not a client—it’s family!” she says, stepping aside, and I smile big and put my hands in the air as if to say, Surprise!
“Hey ya, sis!”
“Oh, my GOD! Lilah!” my sister yells before rushing to me and hugging me huge, rocking us both side to side like it’s been years since she saw me last instead of a few months. “What are you doing here?! When did you get here?! Why didn’t you tell me!?” The questions come at rapid speed, and my eyes move to the side, where Dante is watching with a smile on his face.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I hear as Lola lets me go and looks me over like she needs to document every and any physical change that happened since she saw me last. “Let the girl fuckin’ breathe, babe.”
