He put the ice pack down and explored the roughly circular bruised area on his cheek with ginger fingertips. “Thanks for that. I’m going to be on my way.”
He stood up, pushing the chair across the linoleum. Somewhere in the distance a police siren wailed. Like some predatory animal, his head whipped to face the noise. His whole body tensed up.
The sound became distant, and he relaxed.
I tried telling myself I didn’t need this sort of trouble in my life. He was a mystery I had no cause to solve.
Letting him go is the smart thing to do, I told myself.
Then I stood up as well. “Wait,” I said.
If it’s the smart thing to let him go, why am I so hell-bent on keeping him around?
He looked at me. I became aware of myself. Of the old laundry day clothes I wore. How the baggy sweater covered me up, how unflattering the whole getup was.
There was something else, too. Something akin to how I looked at him, I imagined. That expression that said I was familiar to him, too. I could also tell that ghost of recognition bothered him deeply. Bothered and intrigued him.
“Look, it really was no problem to help you out. But now I really should get going.”
“Excuse me?” I said, irritation and pride flaring, “I had myself covered. You think you saved me, but you actually just caused me a whole lot more trouble.”
His lips tightened like he didn’t know whether to be incredulous or amused. The expression set my heart pumping. “And just how do you figure that?”
“For starters,” I said, crossing my arms again, “Bobby’s not going to forget. He’s got something to prove now.”
I could feel his eyes on me. I kept thinking about how frumpy I looked. Of all the days this could have happened, it had to be laundry day…
That sparked my next point. “And for seconds, all my clothes are back at the laundry. That’s if Bobby and his boys haven’t made off with them. I can’t exactly go to work dressed like this. So really, don’t go thinking you did me any sort of favor, or that I owe you anything. If anything, you owe me.”
I wished then that we’d ducked back into the laundromat quickly, but escape had been on both our minds. When Bobby and his boys got up I imagine they would have been much warier of my mystery man.
My whole body buzzed with energy, the words pouring out faster and faster. I took a deep, shuddering breath after I finished. Oh, Ellie, this mouth of yours is no good, I admonished myself.
Dash considered me. One corner of his mouth ticked up almost imperceptibly. “You’re a very strange person. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Not if they know what’s good for them,” I said. I tried to keep a straight face but couldn’t. I cracked a smile. He smiled back.
Almost as soon as the expression appeared it went away, as though he realized what he was doing and put a stop to it. As though he couldn’t and wouldn’t allow himself even a moment of happiness.
“I’ll take you back to the laundromat if you’re worried. On my way out of this place,” he said.
“No. If Bobby didn’t take the clothes he’ll be waiting there for me to come back. And this time I don’t think it’d go as well for us,” I said.
He shook his head, his hair waving above his shoulders. “Then I’m sorry, but I have to go.”
This time he did turn and start walking out of my kitchen.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a selfish bastard before?” I said.
He stopped, going stiff again. I hadn’t just struck a nerve, I’d taken a sledgehammer to one. Part of me regretted it. The rest of me didn’t.
He forced himself to relax and turned back towards me. His shoulders filled out the door frame He looked so calm on the surface, but I could tell there was a heavy undertow of feeling beneath that stoic expression.
“What is it you want from me?” he asked.
Answers, I thought. Like your last name for starters. Your real one. And how we know each other. I couldn’t ask that of him though. Not yet, at least. It was neither the time nor the place.
I crossed my arms tighter. “You were the one with the bright idea to come and rescue me. Got any other bright ones knocking around in that head? Oh, and can you make it quick? I have a shift in twenty minutes.”
A tiny wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows for a moment and then disappeared. An equally tiny, closed-mouth smile flashed across his lips. “Actually, yes. Wait here; I’ll be right back.” He turned back again and walked towards the door.
A sudden panic gripped my heart. “If you think I’m falling for that one…!” I said, following after him.
He’s gonna get on that bike of his and peel out of here while I stand around in the kitchen.
“Suit yourself,” he said.
He opened the front door, pushing the screen out of the way. A cool breeze rushed in, tugging at my sweater.
He did go to his bike, but he didn’t mount it. Instead he knelt by the saddlebags that flanked the rear tire. He opened one up and began rummaging through the contents.
A car backfired down the road and he stopped, looking up. Then he relaxed again and resumed searching.
“This should fit,” he said. He pulled a shirt out of the saddlebag and started up my porch steps again.
We moved back to the front hall, Dash closing the door behind him. The breeze died. He held up a man’s button down shirt. A crisp white one. He shook out the folds and held it up in front of me, eyeballing the size.
“If you tuck it in it should be fine,” he said.
“Are you serious?”
“I don’t know where you work or what you do, but I’ve learned that you can wear a button down pretty much anywhere. Just go put it on, before I change my mind.” He forced the shirt into my hands.
I went upstairs to my bedroom. Although I still found it strange to think of it as my bedroom. It was the master bedroom. My dad’s old room.
My childhood room, the one I’d grown up in, was just down the hall. It still had the horse-themed wallpaper that my dad had put up when I was little.
Sometimes, when I came in all tired out, I found myself going to that old room.
The master bedroom still smelled ever so slightly of the last coat of varnish my dad had applied to the hardwood floor before he passed. He’d worked pretty much right up to the end.
I sat on the four-poster’s mattress and looked at the shirt.
Then I lifted it up, meaning to take a closer look. I smelled it. It was clean, with a hint of some cologne or aftershave. It was a pleasant scent.
Before I could stop myself, I wondered if this was what mystery man Dash might smell like. If I might catch a hint of that cologne if he hugged me close.
Then he knocked on my bedroom door. I started. I hadn’t expected him to come up here with me.
“How’s the fit?” He asked.
“Fit?” I said. The shirt, he means the shirt! “Right, it’s… okay. Just a second!”
In a flurry of movement, I whipped off my old laundry shirt, meanwhile wondering if I’d remembered to close the door all the way, or if I’d left it open a crack and if Dash was even now peering in at me. I pulled on the button-down, unable to take the time to relish the feel of its smoothness on my skin.
My fingers worked up the buttons, pushing them through their holes.