Clearing my throat, I look up at my driver. “Let’s go.”
Slowly, my car pulls away from the brightest and the darkest star in my sky.
She had me for a moment. Whole and complete, she had me, and I would have explored and given anything to have her.
But it was a mirage.
And I’m not going to deal with mirages anymore in my life.
Chapter 17
Kyle
It’s been days since the dinner with Carly where I freaked out. Days since I’ve seen her at all.
I’ve forced myself away from her shows, the market where we ran into each other, and most importantly, from Strega’s.
I say forced because it has required dedicated and extreme restraint on my part. I’ve wanted to hunt her down, to apologize for freaking out.
I want to explain to Carly that the person she draws from my depths isn’t me, not anymore. It’s only a ghostly echo of someone I used to be but is easily wiped away like the mirage it is.
So the mere fact that an apology has crossed my mind makes me that much more certain that staying away is exactly what I need to do.
It’s still what I’m planning to do, even as I finally give in and go to Strega’s café.
It’s Saturday night, so I know Carly will be working to make the most money with the date-night crowds out for a romantic stroll. That I know that with certainty both relieves me and pisses me off. Why do I know her schedule? Why do I care?
I shove the questions down, focusing on the one thing I need and can have . . . coffee.
Because despite my best efforts, I can’t quite get the hang of a European coffee maker, and I need a cup of coffee.
The coffee maker thing is an excuse, and I know it. But even as a loner who hates people, I need social interaction sometimes. Just superficial ones to stave off the lonely descent into oblivion.
And Strega has become a stern but friendly face, one who won’t pry at my past and ruin the blank hollowness I’ve carefully cultivated.
Besides, she does have the best coffee in town.
“Ah, you need cappuccino and a biscotto too,” Strega says, not even letting me choose my damn order.
“I don’t want a cookie, just coffee.” I tell her like my word is law.
But she ignores it completely.
“Stronzino, I did not offer you a cookie,” she says with a smile, but her eyes are shooting daggers. “I said you would be getting a biscotto. Do not insult it by calling it a mere cookie. It is what you need and it is what you will get. And you will eat it or risk offending me as your host.”
She scoots away faster than I’d think she’d be able to with the mass of chairs blocking her way.
Faster than I can believe possible, she’s back, setting a small cup and plate down kindly, two biscotti resting on the edge. “Mandorla . . . sweet almond, because you need some sweetness in your life. Eat it.”
I virtually gulp my coffee down, pointedly not touching the cookie—sorry, biscotti—as I try to hide.
This was a bad idea. I thought I could do this, be minimally social and civil for a few minutes, satisfy that annoying itch for human contact that still yearns deep inside me beneath the layers of anger like a dandelion shoving its way to sunlight through the tiniest crack in the sidewalk.
I used to be friendly—it was in my nature—but no longer, I think, yanking the dandelion out of my soul and wadding it up before tossing it over my shoulder.
In my head, of course. I have yet to find a dandelion growing on any part of my body, and there’s no actual weed in the middle of Strega’s. She wouldn’t allow such nonsense, not even on the centers of her tables in some uselessly pretty centerpiece.
I slump down in my chair, thinking about just leaving the half cup and the biscotti to make a bolt for the door. I’ve already got my eye on it when it opens.
You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.
Carly comes in like a damn ray of sunshine, all smiles and sparkles and shit. Her hair is wild and she has on slim black pants that hug her curves and a T-shirt from a museum I haven’t bothered to visit.
Why is she here?
Irrationally, I’m angry at her for not doing as I’d expected.
It used to be my damn job to figure people out, find