Page 47 of Some Like 'Em Burly
“I’ll start over here,” he says, going for the vanilla beeswax set again. “You light the ones at the back.”
My metal chair scrapes across the stone floor as I lurch to my feet, snatching the first candle away from his tiny flame. “Hey! You light them, you buy ‘em.”
The man stares at me, lighter still held over the table. A parade of emotions flickers across his weathered face: surprise, offense, mulish irritation. The determination to get his own way.
“I’m doing you a favor,” he says, all stubborn. This is a man who doesn’t like being told no, and lord, I am so tired of those. “If you want to sell these candles, you should light them up.”
“People don’t want to buy used goods,” I explain slowly, trying not to sound like I’m talking to an imbecile. My shoulders are tense with irritation, but even now, squaring off with this jerk, I can’t stop scanning the crowd over his shoulders. I’m on edge and twitchy, looking for Peter. Looking for a sign that I wasn’t dreaming last night. “They want candles where the wick has never been lit.”
The man scoffs, shaking his head. He’s spent all of five minutes at my stall, and now he’s an expert on the handmade candle business.
“This is why your stall’s quiet. Your bad attitude—”
“Oh, whoops.” Leaning down, I pull out the ‘Shop Closed’ sign with a flourish and set it in the middle of the table. “You’ve caught me right as my break starts. That’s too bad.”
He grumbles and shakes his head and still hovers by the table, muttering about silly little girls running their silly little stalls, and I level him a look as I squeeze out from behind the table.
“There’s a camera up there.” I jerk my chin up at the rafters, and thankfully the man doesn’t look. There’s no camera up there, only a whole colony of spiders. “Remember: you light them, you buy them. Have a nice day.”
The crowd brushes me on both sides as I plunge into the tangle of bodies, irritation making my teeth grind. This should be a good sales day for me, what with all these people, and now I’ve let myself get chased away from my stall by an old dude who can’t be told the word no.
Part of me wants to loop back and check he’s not literally setting fire to my stock, but the rest of me keeps pressing forward. To be honest, I was feeling kinda exposed over there, set away from the crowd like that. On display for any unfriendly prying eyes. Blending in with the customers, strolling between stalls and breathing in the delicious scents of the food section—this is better.
My stomach growls beneath my slouchy gray sweater, but I force myself to look at the rows of bagels and pastries and thick brownie squares and not touch. Not until I make a few sales of my own.
“Jemima.”
The voice in my ear makes my spine snap straight. I wheel around, ignoring the angry mutters when I tread on some student’s foot. Normally I’d never be so rude, but it’shim.He’s here.
Peter Hutchins. The man I dated for a month, then broke up with two weeks ago when he finally tried to kiss me and my all insides revolted at the thought. The man who’s been blowing up my phone ever since, and knocking on my door late at night, and ‘accidentally’ bumping into me in the grocery store. That guy.
Staring up at him now, I don’t know what I ever saw in this man. Oh, he’s handsome, in an objective sense—his features are symmetrical, and he’s got the kind of strong jaw and cheekbones that usually grace Hollywood actors. But there’s a coldness behind his blue eyes that makes me shiver, and his perfectly pressed shirt and pants couldn’t be a worse match for my own ripped jeans and scuffed boots.
“You look well,” he says now, so polite and calm. As though he’s not been stalking me day and night, taking some silent, savage pleasure the more unnerved I get. “Is that a new haircut?”
“No.” It’s called insomnia hair. Bad dreams hair. Laying awake all night, tossing and turning, unsure if you really didjust hear someone leaving your apartment or if you dreamed it… hair.
I checked out in the stairwell, obviously, wielding an old mop like a weapon. I didn’t just lie there like a helpless melon. But there was nothing obviously out of place in my studio, no signs of a break in or anybody in the stairwell—and yet the little hairs stood up on my arms.
All this to say: I didn’t sleep well last night.
“It’s my lunch hour,” Peter says, checking his expensive watch. That’s another reason we were a terrible match from the beginning: Peter is the sort of man who orders expensive side dishes in restaurants ‘for the table’, while I stick to tap water and studiously count up every cent that I owe on the bill. He could never quite get over the fact that I was poor.
Actually, that’s not true. Knowing what I know now, seeing the way he’s enjoying terrorizing me, it’s finally clicked into place: Peterlikedthat about me. He liked being the powerful, worldly one. He liked situations where I felt helpless.
Yeah, I’m never dating again. One attempt was plenty, thank you.
“What are you doing here?” I raise my chin, and fight to keep my voice strong. If there’s anything I know about bullies, it’s that showing weakness only makes them worse.
Peter smiles his charming smile. “I just told you. It’s my lunch hour, and I’m hungry.”
“Right,” I say flatly, making it clear I don’t believe it for a second. Still, this is a free country, and I can’t exactly stop this man from wandering into a public market.
I turn to go, and his hand catches my arm. It squeezes firm—just enough to assert how much bigger and stronger he is than me, but not so hard that I could claim he was aggressive. “Wait, Jem.”
I jerk my arm out of Peter’s grip and wait, jaw clenched. Whatever he needs to say, he can say, then I’m getting out of here. Screw the candle stall. Screw ordering pizza tonight. There are still some old tins of soup in the cupboard, enough that I won’t starve, and I am so done with this day already.
“I have something of yours,” Peter says, sliding something out of his pocket. “You must have left it in my car sometime.”
