“You need to stop with all the cryptic shit,” she informed me. Her hands moved up to pull out the scrunchie holding up her ponytail. I tried not to get too distracted by the way her hair fell around her shoulders, but all I could think of was running my fingers through it.
“I told you; I’ve never done the boyfriend thing before. I have no idea what to do here.”
“Start by telling me what the hell is going on,” Lia said.
I sighed and rubbed my fingers into my eyes.
“I don’t know if that’s really the best way.”
“It’s a start.”
It was more likely to be an end, which was what had me on edge. The thing was, I was afraid she was going to walk out. I even recognized it as fear though I might not have admitted it to anyone else. If she left and I never saw her again, I wasn’t so sure I’d survive. I had to do something to keep her with me a little longer.
“Tell me about you,” I said. It was my last ditch effort to try to delay what was coming. “I hardly know anything about you, either. You tell me about you, and then in the morning, I’ll tell you about me.”
It gave me one last night with her and one last morning of waking up with her.
Lia looked skeptical, but I also saw a hint of resignation in her eyes, which allowed me to breathe without my lungs feeling like they were being compressed.
“I don’t think what I have to say is all that interesting,” Lia sighed as she sat down on the edge of the bed again.
I sat down next to her and reached for her hand.
“I still want to know,” I told her. “I’ll get something for us to eat, and then you can tell me, okay?”
Lia took a long breath and nodded her acquiescence.
Auburn Gresham wasn’t an area I’d spent much time exploring in the past, but when gang activity in the area began to push up into Rinaldo’s heroin trade, I’d been part of a group that came down and let them know exactly who was in control in the city. The message had been clear—go ahead and do what you want in the south, but don’t fuck with businesses in the north. We even picked a line—the 47th Parallel. It didn’t quite match Korea, but it still served as an easy reminder. It was based on 47th street, not any line of latitude, but it served its purpose.
During my tenure in the area, I’d found the best pizza place and made friends with the owners.
“Is that who I think it is?”
Jack Anderson leaned over the cash register and stuck out his hand, which I shook. He was a dark-skinned man in his mid-fifties with white hair and stubble around his chin. He’d been running the pizza place since his father passed away in the seventies.
“It’s been a while,” I said with a smile.
“You want the usual?” Jack asked.
“I haven’t been here in nearly a year,” I laughed. I couldn’t believe after all this time the dude still remembered what I wanted on my pizza. He didn’t do the traditional Chicago style, but the guy made the best thin crust and sauce around. “Can it still be referred to as a ‘usual’?”
“Well, I don’t know anyone else who ever orders it,” Jack said. “Face it, Evan, no one else thinks pineapple and mushroom go together.”
We laughed as he put in my order, caught up on some neighborhood shit, and then said our goodbyes as he handed me my pizza in a cardboard box with a stack of napkins on top. I hoofed it back to the motel and Lia. She gave me a strange look when I told her what was on the pizza but seemed to like it once she tried it.
“So, where were you born?” I asked.
“Dallas,” she said. “My father worked for AT&T when I was young. When my parents divorced, he and my mom split custody while I was growing up. When mom got an offer for a new job in Phoenix, Dad didn’t want to be that far from me, so he quit his job and moved to Arizona as well. He started working with the Navajo Nation to set up their computer networks.”
“What does your mom do?” I asked.
“She’s in the financial business.” Lia took another bite of pizza, chewed for a bit, and then put the slice back in the box. “I know she works in information security, but I honestly don’t quite understand it all. She keeps hackers out of their systems, basically.”
I snorted.
“Is that funny?”
I shook my head.