The tension between them hit me as though it were a powerful whip.
Just as soon as it had begun, it was over, and the two men strolled out of the diner, leaving their expensive scent behind, along with unresolved feelings inside of me. One of them had winked at me before he left.
Brando stood with his back to me, looking for another song. It wasn’t until then that I felt eyes on me.
Mitch. He said nothing, but being as curious as I was, his curious nature made friends with mine. He was curious as to why I had been watching Brando and the two Italians as intently as I had been.
The simple answer: I felt compelled.
In fact, the compulsion came close to making me insert my body between Brando’s and the two men, for reasons beyond me. The shock of it all was the only thing that had kept me weighted to the seat.
A new song started to play on the jukebox, a soft, delicate ballad. The tempo of it made me want to sway. It eased some of the tension that had been left in the air.
“Scarlett.” Brando stood over the table, looking down at me. “You remember this song?”
Listening harder for a moment, I shook my head.
“A girl in a music box. Remember?”
I looked to my left, then to my right. The table had gone quiet, everyone watching us. The surprised faces staring had me holding in a laugh. The guys were looking at me; the girls were looking at him.
Little wonder. He had asked two questions in a row.
“I do.” My cheeks flushed with hot blood.
“The night out in the snow. This is the song. Maggie Beautiful told me the name of it.”
My hair shielded me from prying eyes when I leaned forward. “Lionel Richie sings it,” I whispered. “That’s all I know. I’ve heard his music before. That’s how I know he sings it, I mean.”
I stared into his eyes. He didn’t seem to have an issue with all the staring, so why should I? I tucked the hair behind my ears and sat up a little taller. Then I did something I hadn’t done since Elliott died. I used sign language to communicate my feelings.
Brando grinned from ear to ear. “Our song,” he translated, no hesitation whatsoever.
“It can be,” I breathed out.
It took him a moment to answer. His eyes were solid on mine. “Yeah, you’re my ballerina girl.” It wasn’t the words that he used, precisely, it was the way he had said them—with a soft tremble. There was no denying the emphasis on “my.”
The room seemed to fall into a deeper silence until Violet snatched my wrist again—the bell over the door had gone off, announcing more late-night guests.
The two Italians had been so smooth that they hadn’t even made a noise when they had entered.
I didn’t bother to find out who had entered this time, as consumed as my heart was with the man standing before me. Nothing else mattered, not even when Ace called my name.
Brando cleared his throat, though, breaking the connection. He didn’t look, but the mood had changed around us.
It took me a moment to see Ace. I blinked, because he just didn’t belong, and he needed to disappear. After my eyes had closed and then reopened, there were more of him—meaning, he had brought friends, Todd the coward included. Most of his friends had shuffled off to their table, all except one or two, who had stood by to watch. Rubberneckers. Todd glanced at me before he scuttled off, tail tucked between his legs. Violet, suddenly a live wire, shot him the bird and mouthed “chicken.”
Ace stood next to Brando and tapped on the table to get my attention. “Hey, I didn’t get a chance to see you at the party.”
I shrugged. “Your loss.”
He gave me a slow smile. “True.”
My eyes went ping-pong between him and Brando. Words, a fight, a total mess, but nothing of the sort came. Brando reached over to take his (my) jacket from the back of the seat, then told me he would meet me at the door, and then he did exactly that—went to stand by the door.
This behavior seemed out of character, but compared to the two Italians, Ace seemed like…a kid. There was no comparison.
Ace tapped harder. “Did you give any thought to the surprise you found in your pocket?”
Brando’s face didn’t change, but the air around him did. He was becoming impatient.
“The food here is really good,” I