Page 38 of Beautiful Rush
She dipped her hand into the plastic garnish tray again and came out with a handful of lime wedges. “I need some citrus for the road.”
“Good idea. I hear scurvy is making a comeback.”
She laughed and sunk her teeth into the lime wedge, ripping the flesh off the rind like a savage.
* * *
“It lookslike the kind of place you’d see in a classic black and white movie,” she said, her smile wide as her eyes roamed the restaurant after we were seated in a black vinyl booth.
I had brought her to an Italian restaurant my grandfather used to frequent. It was one of those places that you didn’t think existed in New York anymore. Nothing fancy. A basement restaurant with dark wood-paneled walls and tables with red-and-white checkered tablecloths lit with candlesticks jammed into the necks of wine bottles. Dean Martin crooned from the crackly speakers and the air was scented with garlic and tomato sauce. It was old school Italian. A blast from a past before either of us had even been born.
“You should have worn your fedora and pin-stripe suit,” she said after we gave our orders to a server who looked like Tony Soprano.
“You should have worn your diamonds and pearls.”
“Too bad I sold them at the pawn shop.” She dipped her finger into the melted candle wax and coated her finger with it. When it cooled, she peeled the wax off her finger and set it next to my glass of red wine, compliments of the house.
“Now you have my fingerprints, Detective,” she said with a wink.
I slipped her wax fingerprint into the pocket of my jeans. “I’ll keep this as evidence.”
She tapped her index finger against her lips. “What will be my crime?”
“A stolen heart.”
The server brought the calamari we were sharing as an appetizer and she squeezed lemon all over it. It was onlyaftershe dipped a piece of calamari into the marinara sauce and fed it to me that she asked if I like lemon on my calamari.
I did. “If I didn’t, I’d be shit out of luck.”
“What would you do after you tracked down your stolen heart?” she asked over dinner—chicken parm and spaghetti for me, pasta puttanesca for her. Maybe she liked anchovies, or maybe she just liked the English translation of puttanesca. “Would you arrest me?”
“I’d bring you in for questioning. And then I’d let you walk.”
She tipped her head to the side. “Why?”
“Because I wouldn’t want my heart back.”
She had no response for that.
I finished eating my food and when she claimed she was full, I swapped my plate for hers. Keira was watching me closely as I ate the last bite and pushed the clean plate away.
“That’s one of your things from childhood, isn’t it? Making sure you don’t waste food?”
Sometimes her perception and observation skills blew me away. She was good at reading people and noticed things that most people didn’t. “Yeah, it is. Tell me one of your things from childhood.”
She took a sip of water, thinking about her answer. Keira rarely talked about her life in Miami or her childhood. She was trying to forget where she came from and I was trying to remember who I was. Her gaze wandered to a couple sitting at a booth near the kitchen. They looked to be in their eighties, their faces creased with age. Her white hair fluffy like cotton candy and his just a few strands combed over his bald spot. They were holding hands across the table and smiling like two teenagers on their first date. They looked happy, content.Peaceful. Like they’d traveled through life together for decades and had loved every minute of the journey.
Keira’s gaze returned to me. She reached for my hand across the table as the server cleared our plates. Her nails were short, painted midnight blue, her fingers laced in mine. Whenever our skin touched, I still felt that electric current running through my body. I’d never felt that with anyone before. Only her. Our eyes met across the table, her whiskey-colored eyes soft, and her smile sad. She thought that what we had was too good to last. Jaded and too used to a world where happiness was fleeting, and good things were snatched away in a heartbeat.
We skipped dessert and I paid the bill, stuffing the money she tried to force on me back into her purse. I took her hand, helping her out of the booth, and she tugged on the hem of her short dress.
“You never answered the question,” I said as I guided her out of the restaurant, my hand on her lower back, the warmth of her skin seeping through the thin silk. All I wanted to do was haul her into a taxi and get her home.
“I did answer. You just weren’t listening.”
She was right. She had answered with a gesture, not with words. Growing up, I had been hungry, and she had been lonely.
“Let’s go home and fuck like wild animals,” she said with a brilliant smile.
