“It’s exclusive for me.”
He squinted. “And it’s not for him?”
I shrugged. “Maybe it is. I’m not sure. We’ve never discussed it. But I prefer to only…you know…with one person at a time.”
Donovan’s jaw flexed, and his tanned skin seemed to grow a shade darker. He gave a curt nod. “Understood.”
A few minutes later, the waitress came to check on us. When I said I didn’t want anything else, Donovan asked for the check. It was late, but I got the feeling his sudden desire to call it a night had nothing to do with the time.
After we argued over the bill and Donovan paid, we headed to my car. The ride back to the police station was quiet, yet the air felt filled with unspoken words. I pulled into the spot next to his car and put the car in park.
“Well, thanks again for tonight. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for Storm.”
“Not a problem.”
Donovan opened the car door and turned back to face me once he was out. The parking lot lights cast a soft, yellowish glow on his handsome face. He looked at me for a moment and then slowly—as if giving me time to stop him—reached out and cupped my cheek, stroking my skin with his thumb. My heart ricocheted in my chest.
“Why does it feel so damn wrong to get out of this car without kissing you goodnight?” His eyes once again fell to my lips, and I couldn’t control how fast my chest started to rise and fall.
“I…I don’t know.”
He leaned in slowly. At first I thought he was actually going to do it, but at the last moment he veered, and his lips went to my ear instead. “Would you stop me if I did?”
In that moment, I absolutely would not have. Worse, part of me wanted him to do it. Really badly. I’d held my breath, waiting for it even.
But when I said nothing, Donovan pulled back and searched my eyes. He caressed my cheek one last time before he moved away.
“What’s between us might not be simple, but it’s also not over. Get home safe, Red.”
CHAPTER 8
* * *
Donovan
Being in the old neighborhood over the last week reminded me it had been too long since I’d stopped by to see Bud. Bud—real name Frances Yankowski—was the closest thing to a father I’d ever known. If I’m being real, he was pretty much the closest thing to a mother, too. So the following night, rather than go home after leaving the office, I headed back to Brooklyn and stopped in at a local business to find out where Bud set up shop these days. I walked into a corner deli that had been there since I was a kid, though I’d never seen the woman behind the counter before.
“Hi. Can you tell me how to get to Bud’s Flower Shop, please?” That was code for Where is Bud squatting to feed the community tonight? All of the local businesses knew the answer and never minded helping spread the word. At least they didn’t mind sharing the information with people who seemed like they could use a free meal.
But the cashier looked me up and down and frowned.
Yeah, I know. I didn’t change out of my work clothes. Most people judge you because you wear hand-me-downs with holes in them, but not in my old stomping ground. Walk in looking like you shop at Brooks Brothers, and you’re bound to piss someone off.
“Four sixty-two Carnie Street.” She lifted her chin to the aisles behind me. “You look like maybe you can afford to bring some dessert or something.”
“Good idea.” I smiled and grabbed half a dozen packages of cookies off the shelf and brought them up to the register to pay. “You have a good night.”
When I arrived at the address the woman had given me, people were walking in and out of a dilapidated house with boarded-up windows, so I knew it was the right place. Bud served a community dinner seven days a week in whatever abandoned building or parking lot he could find. Sometimes he got to stay at one location for months, other times he’d get kicked out after just a day or two. The people who usually made a stink about him were the landlords who’d let the building get so run down it was no longer rentable, or the bank who’d repossessed the property. Cops looked the other way for Bud. Over the years, I’d even seen them drop off people they’d picked up who needed a meal.
For his day job, Bud owned a Boar’s Head provisions route. Every morning he delivered fresh meats to delis, restaurants, and supermarkets, but he also picked up their soon-to-expire food, which he turned into a daily feast to feed the hungry and homeless of the community. But no one ate for free more than once. No exceptions. You had to work for Bud in order to continue to be fed, whether you helped tend his garden, loaded and unloaded his truck full of supplies, or pitched in and did lawn work for the restaurants that helped him. Bud was the heart of this community, and he was also the only way I’d eaten a decent meal most of the time when my mom took off.
Entering the rundown house, I walked over to the row of tables where Bud was dishing food out of battery-operated hot plates. He might be close to seventy now, but he was sharp as a tack and never missed a thing. I hadn’t thought he’d noticed me come in, until he grumbled without looking up.
“Jesus Christ, you look like a narc.” Bud waved the serving spoon in his hand, motioning to my suit.
I chuckled. If I were wearing a French maid outfit, I’d get my balls busted less around here. “Nice to see you, too, Bud.”
He nodded toward the empty spot next to him behind the serving table. “Get an apron on, kid. I could use help. But I wouldn’t want you to mess up that monkey suit.”
Thirteen or thirty, it didn’t matter. I did whatever the old man said. So for the next hour, we served dinner side by side, shooting the shit as we dished out pasta primavera, broccoli, and day-or-two-old bread that he’d turned into garlic toast. I asked him about his beloved plants, and he rattled on about some new variegated tomato seeds he was growing that were developed in Mexico. The way he said it told me I was supposed to be impressed by that. At seven thirty sharp, we turned off the hot plates, which were dragged in and out every day so no one could steal them, and we took two plates of food outside to the front stoop and sat down to eat ourselves.
“So what’s new in the land of movers and shakers? You get off any of those Ponzi-scheme idiots who rob people of their retirement savings lately?”
“Luckily, no.” I shoveled a heaping forkful of pasta into my mouth. It was probably the best-tasting thing I’d had in months. Bud didn’t screw around when it came to cooking or his plants. I wiped sauce from my mouth. “How’s your knee doing?”
“It’s holding up. The humidity’s been low, so that helps. I have no idea why Florida is the land of old people. Dry heat is so much easier on old bones.”
Bud caught me up on all the latest neighborhood gossip—who was feuding with who, and who got caught doing what. I told him I’d stopped down to see Dario the other day, and before I knew it, we were the only two left at the house.
“Welp…” He stood. “Guess we better be going before the druggies get annoyed we’re hanging out in their crib.”
I smiled. “I’ll load your van.”
I packed up all of the serving supplies and locked the back of Bud’s van with the same rusted chain and padlock he’d been using since I was a kid.