Page 24 of Don't Tell Me How It Ends
“No!” I say, too forcefully. “I mean, no—you didn’t. I just wasn’t paying attention. Or I was paying toomuchattention. To all this.” I raise my hands to our surroundings. As if perhaps he’s unaware that he’s in the presence of magic. “I wasn’t expecting this place to be so…”
But finding the words to convey stepping through that vortex of a front door is futile.
He brings both of his delicately veined hands up to adjust his Kith hat, and I blame my earlier perusal of the murals for the way I also study him now. My brain, immersed in this world where everything is art. Including each graceful movement his fingers make before he tucks them into his crossed arms.
“I wanted it to be a place you could lose a little time,” he tells me. “But most people who come through hardly notice. Probably woulda been better off putting those hours toward a commissioned piece, but once I see it—” He brings a graceful finger to his temple, with a shrug. “It’s over.”
My eyes bug out of my head. “Youdid this?”
“I did,” he says, assessing the walls with me, like he’s seeing them for the first time again.
“It’s—” I start, but words fail me again. “I feel like I should’ve paid an entry fee to get in.”
I hadn’t committed his laughter to memory, but the husky sound brings a familiar warmth to my belly. Andthat,I do remember. Luckily, staring at his work affords me a necessary distraction from whatever’s happening to my insides.
He stands beside me, turned toward a muraled wall in quiet contemplation. My eyes dart between the art and the artist in front of it.
His profile is all hard lines and chiseled edges—torched steel, right at home in this auto shop—but there’s a softness to his nose that I hadn’t noticed yesterday. Rounded curves that offset theotherwise statuesque features I’d initially found intimidating. Though his demeanor is proving to be anything but.
When his dimple pops in quiet pride, I’m incapable of keeping my own face passive. He’s the one controlling my smile now—like some sort of master puppeteer.
I’d planned to put the “one green eye, one blue eye,” thing I saw in a movie on Zola’s questionnaire to piss her off, but now when she asks my ideal physical type, I fear I must paste a picture of this man.
His expression shifts to thinly veiled amusement when he notices me watching him. Again. “Don’t let this fool you,” he says, keeping the air between us light. “Pops wouldn’t let me touch his garage. It’s still foul as ever back there.”
“Well, I appreciate the warning,” I tell him. “I’ll try not to be too disappointed.”
He holds a hand out to direct me toward the register, and we make our way across the lobby. “So, how’d your night turn out? Worth the trouble?”
The look on my face gives me away.
He smiles. “That bad?”
But before either of us can say more, Zola bursts through the front door waving my forgotten tow paperwork in the air like she’s trying to land a 747. I rush to intercept her, but her sight line is already locked on something more interesting behind me. Orsomeone.
“Hey,” she says, marching past me with a fake-ass smile plastered on her face. “I’m Kaia’s sister, Zola.”
“Nice to meet you,” he says, glancing toward me in a way that says,Watch how easy this is.And enunciates, “I’m Ro,” likeRandOare the Sesame Street letters of the day.
“No way.” Zola giggles. Yes,giggles.“Everyone calls meZo.How funny: Zo and Ro.”
I know my pregnant sister is not flirting with this man in broad daylight.
“The only people who call youZoare me and Mom,” I say, openly hating.
She’s undeterred. “I just wanted to pop in to give this to my forgetful baby sis. But it looks like you two are doing just fine without me.”
She finally directs her attention back to me, with her eyebrows raised and nostrils flared in that way that silently screams:Girl!
“Okay, Zola,” I say, hitting the last syllable of her name extra-hard. “You’ve been a huge help. I’ll see you back at home.”
“So, you work here, Ro?” Zola asks, as if I haven’t spoken a word.
“Right now, yeah,” he tells her. “It’s my dad’s shop. I’ve been in town a couple months helping out.”
Zola pretends to survey the space before setting her sights right back on Ro. “It’s so nice. Does your girlfriend help out too?”
I’m dead.
