Page 49 of Veiled in Brick

“That wasn’t Jay,” I muttered.

“Hmm?” Brenda hummed as if she couldn’t hear me clearly.

“The man you gave my schedule to—I have no idea who that is.”

“Oh.” Her casual grin dissipated, and she noted hopefully, “Well, it seems like he likes you?” I sighed heavily, shaking my hands to increase the blood flow to my extremities, as my fingers had begun to tingle. Brenda squeaked, “Should I mention he also left a note?”

“Of course, he did,” I hissed under my breath. “Where is it?”

She scurried out of the back, presumably to the cashier’s stand, and returned quickly with the slip in her hand. She approached me, timid, and held it out for me.

“Kept it up front in a drawer for safe keepin’ in case any customers wandered in the back before you got here,” she murmured.

I grasped the paper in my hand, clenched my teeth, and opened it. It was in a scribbled blue ink this time, the scratches deep on the page as if they were written with a considerable force:

See you soon, love.

I crumpled it up and threw it on the counter with an aggravated growl.

“Sit down, Bee,” I told her in a breath. “I have to talk to you about something.”

Chapter 9

Naturally, Brenda was insistent that I go home. She told me that she could close up shop early whenever she had to leave or alert the owner, Noelle, to the situation at hand. I couldn’t, though. The first reason for that being that I didn’t want to be alone, not to mention alone in my apartment. The second was that this man was pissing me the fuck off. I didn’t want to allow him to run me out of my work and home. So, I stayed put. I felt like I was vibrating out of my skin for my entire shift, but I stayed put nonetheless.

Brenda was unable to stay until close. Though our schedules tended to overlap, she needed to be out the door by five o’clock sharp as she had to go home to tend to her two children. Thankfully, Liam’s hours were up for the day in time for the transition on what I was bitterly calling Zoey babysitting duty in my mind. I hadn’t alerted Liam to the additional rose nor the note that Brenda had passed along to me. The thought clung to my brain, and I itched to admit the knowledge, but I couldn’t find it in me to force it out of my mouth. Not yet, anyway.

Brenda was walking out the front door, none-too-subtly eyeing Liam as he rested on a grey chaise lounge chair that was situated in the front-right corner of the store with respect to the cashier’s stand. His skin held the sheen of someone who had been in the sun all day. There was a smudge of dirt on his left cheekbone. One of his arms stretched overhead in a display of relaxation, the other resting across his diaphragm, and his legs hung off the end of the chaise, his Converse firmly planted on the ground. He beamed at Brenda as he caught her staring, and I feared that her bulging eyes would escape her skull.

Liam lifted the hand off his stomach to waggle his fingers at her briefly. “Bye, Bee.”

Brenda appeared to have choked on her own spit. She coughed until she managed to return a high-pitched, hoarse, “Bye!” and she scampered out the door.

“You could have given the woman a coronary smiling at her like that,” I chastised him.

He chuckled. “Hmm?”

“Brenda,” I clarified. “She thinks you’re gorgeous.”

“Bee has good taste,” he joked. “I’ll let her look.”

I laughed softly, and he smiled lazily in my direction. The anger that I had felt toward him so recently had long dissipated with the stress of the now, and though I was initially pleased that our relationship was not so damaged that we were unable to speak candidly in one another’s presence, what emotions remained within me from our brief encounter had left me feeling raw. Our eyes met, and I was unable to look away. Our respective grins slowly dissipated, my face heated, and the crackle in the air made my breath hitch. The sound of my slight inhale woke my brain, and I looked to the counter, feigning busying myself with checking for an object in the drawers underneath the surface.

Liam seemed to stir as well, speaking up, “Um—how long until your shift is over?”

“Three hours.”

“Three hours?” he whined. “Why’d you tell me five o’clock?” I pressed my lips together tightly, and he stammered, “Ah, not—not that I mind, I just…y’know. Would’ve brought a magazine or somethin’.” I felt my teeth bite the inside of my cheek, and as I glanced to him, he questioned, “What? What’s wrong?”

I exhaled heavily, moving toward the door to the back. “Come with me, I have to show you something.”

Liam squinted at me, assessing how serious I was, and he stood. I didn’t wait for him to catch up to me. I simply walked through the door, past the table, and hovered near the fridge where the trash can resided. Just as Liam had done this morning, I had discarded the flower in a haste after the reality of its presence sank in. It, along with the note that accompanied it, was staring at me atop the rest of the garbage, mocking my very existence.

“Why are you showing me the trash?” he asked hesitantly as he took his final steps to me. I pointed to the bin, and he looked down. “Another one?” The word came out in a sharp mutter. I nodded, and he reiterated more angrily, “A-fucking-nother one?!”

“Yeah, a-fucking-nother one,” I replied, reaching my hand inside and grabbing the slip of paper.

I unfolded it to reveal the text to him, and Liam narrowed his eyes at it. The muscles in his jaw flexed. The whites of his eyes became visible, and he spoke in a forcedly calm manner:

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