Page 4 of Hustle

I should leave. I should fucking leave.

But I don’t.

2

Seamus

After she wraps up with Muppet Biker, Evi heads into the lobby and eventually turns in the direction where I’ve been sitting – responding to emails on my phone as fast as they come in – for over an hour.

Don’t get me started on how much billable time I’m losing today.

“Let’s get pizza.”

Evelyn tosses a small leather jacket on over her tank top and tips her head at the door. She reaches out and touches my arm for just a second before her fingers fall away. “You’ll need me to escort you. You look like you wandered in from the financial district. Don’t want you to get mugged.”

She looks so relaxed, the day’s work behind her. The glossy hair and the leather jacket and the fuck-you makeup. Swallowing hard, I take her in. The aesthetic is all Evelyn. So different from my Italian designer suit. And yet, the edges of my resolve not to get sucked in, not to do more than just talk here in her shop, crack under the weight of that knowing stare.

“Always thinking of everyone else,” I quip, moving to follow after her.

She smirks up at me, gray eyes sparkling with mischief. It’s been a long time since we were close friends seeing each other daily. Yet on the rare occasions I see her, she’s free with a hug or an arm squeeze – and a part of me that I don’t think about too deeply warms to her touch.

“See ya, Toby!” She shouts at Green Hair Kid. “Don’t forget to lock up this time, okay?”

If this kid neglected to secure the property, Evelyn should’ve fired him. He’s probably one of her strays, though, and it’s not worth the fight.

Stepping into the early evening, I realize that it’s still warm out, too warm for my suit jacket. But I never sweat: Not in the courtroom, not when my father asks me to sort out his shadier business dealings, and not now.

As Evelyn and I walk down the sidewalk, the loud din of traffic drowns out the ebb and flow of Boston Harbor, which is just on the other side of Columbia Road.

“I can see why the Stacys want to buy this property so badly,” I muse, slowing my pace to match Evelyn’s. She’s tall, but I’m taller.

“Because he’s a self-absorbed gentrifying prick who hates the great unwashed?” she offers, an edge to her voice.

She’s not wrong.

“That too. I just wish we could hear the water better.”

“You can smell it,” she laughs “Isn’t that enough, Seamus?”

“Mmm, rotting trash and algae. So, anchovy pizza?”

She laughs again, light and musical. She’s always been generous with her laughter. Something tightens in my chest at the sound. As frustrated as I am about the Stacys and her tattoo shop, I’m glad to be here with her. In a way it’s like old times and it’s not often that I feel anything approaching relaxed these days.

It’s all too easy to forget why I can never be with a woman like Evelyn. Why I can never be with Evelyn specifically.

The pizza joint is one we’ve been going to since grade school, though I haven’t been in years. The door jingles overhead as we open it, and the big-bellied Italian owner greets us warmly.

“Evi! Hello, angel! Santa Maria, is that you, Seamus? You look like you’ve got deep pockets in that suit, son. Here to buy this pretty lady some pizza?” His eyes twinkle the exact same way they have for the last twenty years. I’m not just fighting the Stacys for my father or for Evi. It’s for the people that make up the fabric of this city.

“Hi, Rico. And yes, I am. I’m working with Evelyn on blocking the redevelopment.”

He clasps his hands in prayer. “Good, my boy, good! Then the garlic knots are on me. The Santuccis sold out already,” he bites his thumb and pretends to spit on the ground.

“Cowards.”

“Rico,” Evi says, moving gracefully toward him and placing her slender hand on his meaty forearm. “You know the Santuccis don’t have any children. They don’t have any money to fight with. They had to sell.”

His face crinkles, some of the anger dissolving at her words.

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