So why do I feel like reaching up and seeing what those lips would feel like if I kissed them? Why is there a spark in the air so explosive that it might blow up the entire building?
He lets go of me with a start like I’m an electrical socket he shoved his hand into by mistake. He spins around without another word, storming out of the door, not looking back.
“And they call me weird,” I mutter to myself as I continue to the jukebox. I manage to get there without falling over, rolling in a coin, and picking my favorite. I can feel where the stranger grabbed hold of me, a lingering sensation that refuses to fade away.
The song starts to play. “Really?” Maisie says when I get back to her. “Again?”
“What’s wrong with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds?”
“Nothing but you have to go with the Elton John version. I swear, the Beatles are rolling in their graves.”
“Hopefully just the dead ones. bit weird otherwise.”
“Look, I’ve got to get back but here’s your phone and you now have a date for the same time tomorrow night. You’re welcome.”
“What? Seriously? After this one?”
“Be here and be not so much square but at least a shape with four sides.”
“A diamond?”
“If you want.”
“No, a kite, I’ll be kite-shaped.”
“Fine, you be a kite. I better get back to work. You going to finish your dinner, young lady?”
“Yeah, I might as well.” I take my phone from her and manage a smile. “Thanks. What the hell, it can’t go any worse than tonight, right?”
“Marriage and babies ahoy.” She blows me a kiss. “That’s what nipple magic fairy lesbian gaylien godmothers are for.”
I watch her head back to the kitchen as I pick up my fork and start to eat. I’ve no idea that the man who just walked out of here is the same man who destroyed my life once, and is about to do it again.
2
ENZO
* * *
My car is twenty feet from here. I could get in it, drive back to the city, tell Umberto that I couldn’t find her. Tell him she’s moved away. Anything so she gets to live her life in peace. I can’t kill her, not now, not ever.
I’ve stopped walking standing still in the parking lot outside the diner. It looks like it’s about to rain. There’s electricity humming in the air just below the conscious level. Tension and pressure in the sky. The same feeling I got when I caught her as she was falling straight into me.
It hit me when I wasn’t expecting it.
I expect everything. That’s my job.
Didn’t expect to feel… well, anything though, did I? What is it about her?
She’s not like the women in my life. They’re all plastic surgery and Botox and nails so long they can’t make fists anymore. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone so naturally good-looking. Even longer since I felt anything for a woman.
It’s why I got out of there so fast. I was supposed to meet with the sheriff and get her file. What am I doing instead? Standing here, not moving.
The job’s simple. Get in, get the stuff, get out. Leave no trace I was ever here.
Pretty big trace if I go back in there and seduce her.
I should go. Leave. Forget this whole thing. Give the job to someone else.