My hand started shaking. Embarrassed once again, I pulled it back and tried to ignore the heat spreading over my cheeks.
Then I noticed the entire café had grown quiet. I glanced around to realize we’d somehow become the center of attention. The spotlight flustered me even more, and the pitcher slipped from my hands. It didn’t go far. Reyes caught it, his movement too fast for my mind to comprehend.
He held it for me, waited until I had a good grip on it. Once I did, he stood. I stepped back but still had to crane my neck. He towered over me in the best – and most frightening – way possible.
And then he spoke the very first words he’d ever spoken to me. His deep, rich voice dissolved my bones. I almost responded with “Of course I’ll have sex with you before you sacrifice me to your gods.” Then I realized he’d asked me where the restroom was.
I cleared my throat and pointed. “It’s just down that hall and to the right.”
That could’ve been embarrassing.
His gaze swallowed me a moment longer, his expression almost unreadable if not for the faintest hint of sadness. Or perhaps… disappointment? Before I could grasp the emotion exactly, he stepped around me and headed to the back.
I filled my lungs at last. With cool air this time, realizing just then how his presence scalded me both inside and out. Talk about things that go bump in the night. Metaphorically and literally. I also realized that the onlookers were no longer paying attention to me. Every head turned toward Reyes as he walked past.
“You okay, sweetie?” Cookie asked from beside me.
But something I’d seen in my peripheral vision pulled my gaze back to the table. There, branded into the wood, was a word written in an ancient Celtic language. A language that was no longer used. It was a word that referred to the people and culture of the Netherlands. In a literal and modern-day translation, however, he’d written the word Dutch.
4
Being an adult means never having to show your work on math problems.
—T-SHIRT
Cookie glanced at the table and back at me. “What is it, hon?”
She couldn’t see it. He’d seared the wood, but not in the tangible world. How was that even possible?
Another realization hit me. I knew a Celtic language, a dead one, and there was only one possible explanation. I faced Cookie with eyes rounded. “I think I know what I am.”
“You do?”
“Cookie, I am a genius.”
She chuckled. “You are?”
“I am.” She followed me back to the prep area. “I’m smart. But not just smart.” I took a quick sip of my coffee before explaining. “I’m, like, stupid smart. I’m probably a prodigy of some kind.”
“You think?” she asked, clearing Osh’s plate off the counter.
“What kind of prodigy?” Osh asked.
I was still reeling from the possibilities of it all. And the fact that Reyes had talked to me. “I don’t know, but I’m freaking smart. I know shit.”
“Like your name?” he teased.
My face did a deadpan thing. “Fine, I don’t know my name, but I know other stuff.”
“I’m sure you do,” Cookie said as though talking to a child. I was glad she was wiping down the counter; otherwise she probably would have patted my head.
“I’m serious. I think I’m a savant. I might be an astronomer. Or a mathematician. Or that guy who invented Friendbook.”
Cookie handed me a plate for immediate delivery while she balanced the other three on her left arm. She was getting really good. “I’m pretty sure you’re not the guy who invented Friendbook.”
“How do you know?”
“He has short curly red hair.”
“And,” Osh added as Cookie and I rounded the counter, “a cock.”
“Osh,” I scolded, glancing around for kids. Thankfully the only one in the whole café was out of earshot.
“It’s okay,” he said, all grins. “You can have mine if you want.”
I rolled my eyes. The little shit. We delivered Cookie’s order. When we got back, Lewis, another of our busboys, was leaning his head through the pass-out window, summoning me with a psst. A very loud psst. Not sure who he thought he was fooling.
The café was beginning to clear out, and I glanced back to make sure Bobert was sticking around. I wanted to catch him before he left. He was such a sweetheart. Always checking on Cookie. Waiting for things to slow down so they could eat together. Picking her up from work so she wouldn’t have to walk. Either that or he was a controlling ass. It was hard to tell at this juncture.
Lewis, a prime customer for those big and tall men’s clothing stores, jerked his head to urge me closer. He was in his early twenties with rich olive skin, neatly trimmed brown hair, and eyes the shade of wet moss. The effect was quite stunning, but many girls, including the one he was pining over, would never see past his large waistline. Then again, he played bass in a metal band called Something Like a Dude. I couldn’t imagine he had much trouble with the opposite sex. And yet his heart was set on the one girl who didn’t know he existed: Francie.
“Is everything set for tomorrow?” I asked him. I could feel the reservations he was having as clearly as I felt the draft coming from the open back door.
Lionel, the prep cook, had probably propped it open again. Sumi was going to stab him in the face one of these days.
“Yeah. But, I mean, are you sure about this?”
“Positive. Until Francie sees you in another light, she is not going to give you the time of day.”
He still seemed unconvinced. And it was his idea!
Okay, it was my idea, but he contributed.
“Dude, look, your cousin comes in during the afternoon lull, pretends to rob me, you rush up, clock him, and he runs off with no one the wiser. What could go wrong?”
He lifted an unconvinced shoulder.
“I’m not saying you’ll get the girl, Lewis, but until you do something to get her attention, she’ll never give you the time of day.”
Though I would have preferred Lewis find someone who saw him for who he was, the poor schmuck was in love with Francie. She was a cutie with shoulder-length red hair and an adorable pug nose, but she had the arrogance to match her looks. I was certain she’d grow up someday, but at this point, she saw only Lewis’s size. Not how wonderful he was. Or talented. Or dashingly handsome.
Then again, who was I to argue? I was attracted to evil incarnate. Our libidos didn’t always take the safest paths. And if I was completely honest with myself – again, something of a rarity – I wanted Francie’s eyes as far away from Reyes as I could get them. Not that her lack of interest would give me a snowball’s chance, but in my warped brain – the same brain that screamed for me to run in the opposite direction every time Reyes was near – it would up my odds that he would notice me. The heart wasn’t the most logical organ. The spleen, however…
What Lewis didn’t know was that, while I was going along with his plan to win Francie, I was secretly placing stimuli, kind of like those ads that used subliminal messages to get consumers to buy their products. Only I wasn’t quite as subtle.
“So, I heard Shayla was at your concert this weekend.”