Like most nights, I headed to the kitchen. The recipe was my mamma’s. All of them were. Some of them I’d forgotten or hadn’t gotten a chance to ever ask about, and I often fantasized of going to Chicago in a blaze of glory just to retrieve her old cookbooks. My imagination was a sad place.
The smell of carbonara filled the apartment as I sat at the table with my plate.
The quiet ticking of the clock dulled my mind. A siren blared somewhere below on a busy street. The air conditioner kicked on.
I spun some pasta onto my fork and took a bite.
Unfortunately, loneliness still thrived in the light.
THE ELEVATOR MUSIC PLAYING SOFTLY in the background might as well have been screamo as I walked down an aisle of my local CVS. I sighed, rubbing my temple. Gunfire always gave me an awful migraine.
It was safe to say the luncheon today went over as smoothly as the Titanic. Or maybe that was being a bit dramatic—there’d only been one casualty, after all. Nonetheless, I could see a forbidden love story in the near future, between Ace and the very wrong sister. I had my money on him breaking the contract with Adriana, so he could have Elena—literally. I’d placed my bet with Luca and Lorenzo on the ride home.
I grabbed a bottle of ibuprofen off the shelf and dropped it into my basket. I was perusing the nail polishes when the havoc began.
“Everybody, down, now!” Two men wearing black ski masks stormed the store, slamming the door against the wall. “I said, down!” The taller one fired a shot into the ceiling.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” I muttered.
One of their gazes landed on me. My eyes went wide, and I dropped to the floor.
Someone cried. A baby wailed. Another prayed the Hail Mary.
The masked men—who were very inconsiderate to others, I might add—prowled toward the prescription counter. “Give us what we want, and we won’t hurt anyone.”
I struggled with opening the painkiller bottle. I tugged too hard, the lid came off, and pills scattered across the floor. A blonde woman clutching her purse from across the aisle watched me in disbelief. I fought an eyeroll. Like she’d never had a migraine at the wrong time. I popped two tablets in my mouth.
“Don’t lie to us! You have more!”
“W-we don’t have more, sir.”
I grabbed a bottle of nail polish from my basket and gave it a shake. The woman’s incredulous gaze burned into my skin as I painted the red polish onto my thumbnail. I wrinkled my nose. Too Christmassy.
The men’s voices grew frenzied as sirens blared in the distance. Some shuffling ensued, the door dinged, and then they were gone.
I got to my feet, brushed the dirt off my olive-green dress, and headed toward the checkout counter with my half-empty bottle of pills.
“Hello?” I called to the vacant cash register.
I rang the little bell sitting on the counter. Two wide eyes drifted up from behind the register. “Oh, hello.” I grinned at the young female cashier. “Can I purchase these, please? Preferably before the police show up and I’m stuck here for God only knows how long.”
Unfortunately, that was the moment the entirety of the NYPD stormed the store.
I sighed. Better get some rash cream while I was here.
I was sitting at the back of an ambulance flipping through a pamphlet they’d slapped into my hand for a trauma support group, when the feds arrived. I didn’t look up from my brochure as one approached me. If I had to go through the whole question spiel again, I was quitting life.
“Ames Clinical Center,” a deep voice read from the leaflet. “Why do I feel like you’d be right at home there?”
My heart hitched, stopping my breath. The sun was heavy and hot, but it wasn’t why my skin suddenly ignited from the inside. He had my full attention, but I didn’t look at him yet. Simply because I didn’t think I could handle the shock of hearing him and seeing him at the same time.
I flipped a page. “I’m not sure, Officer. Have you been there before?” I drew my gaze up to him, my eyes light with the knowledge of his OCD, his blood-stained hands, and trigger-happy finger.
Broad shoulders.
Straight lines.
Blue.