Page 2 of By A Thread

In the last year, I’d become immune to leggy, waif-like models in their early twenties. Which, to be honest, was about damn time considering that I was forty-four. There was something arresting about the woman eyeing me and now pointing to the No Cell Phones sign posted on the corkboard just inside the door.

Interesting face. Softer, rounder than those diamond-edge cheekbones that graced the pages of the magazine. Full lips, wide brown eyes that looked warm. Like honey. Her hair, more brown and chestnut there, was jaw-length and styled in lazy, loose waves that made me think of putting my hands in it while she breathed my name under me.

I couldn’t stop staring at her.

“I’ll have it for you first thing in the morning,” the junior editor promised.

I couldn’t remember the editor’s name—because I was an ass—but I did remember her earnest, eager-to-please face. She was the kind of employee who would stay at the office until midnight without complaining if asked.

“By noon tomorrow is fine,” I told her, enjoying the glare Sex Hair was sending me as I continued to ignore the sign.

Sex Hair cleared her throat theatrically and, reaching around me, tapped the flyer fiercely. A trio of cheap, colorful beaded bracelets wrapped around her wrist. I smelled the bright, happy tang of lemons as she leaned in.

“Take it outside, buddy,” she said in a throaty, no-nonsense voice.

Buddy?

Clearly, she wasn’t intimidated by an asshole in Hugo Boss with a haircut that cost more than her entire outfit. I basked in her disdain. It was miles more comfortable for me than the terrified glances and “Right away, Mr. Russo”s I got in the hallways at work.

I covered the mouthpiece of the phone—I hated those earbud things and staunchly refused to use them. “It’s cold. I’ll be a minute,” I told her briskly, leaving no room for debate.

“I didn’t create the weather or the phone policy. Out. Side.” She said it like I was a truculent three-year-old and hooked her thumb toward the door.

“No.” I didn’t sound like a whiny toddler. I sounded like an annoyed, inconvenienced patron who had the right to expect respect.

I uncovered the phone and continued my conversation.

I was a spiteful son of a bitch.

“Get off the damn phone, or I’ll make you wish you had,” she warned.

People were starting to look at us. Neither one of us seemed to care.

“Don’t you have tables to wait on?” I asked. “Or do you specialize in shrieking at customers?”

Her eyes were nearly gold under the fluorescent lighting, and I swear she almost smiled.

“Oh, you asked for it, buddy.” She leaned in again, too close for New Yorkers who prized our personal space. The top of her head came to my shoulder.

“Sir, are you here for STD panel results or hemorrhoids?” she shouted in the vicinity of my cell’s microphone.

You shithead.

“I’ll call you back,” I said into the phone and disconnected the call.

Sex Hair beamed up at me, all faux charm. “Welcome to George’s Village Pizza. Dining alone tonight, I presume?”

“That was a work call,” I said icily.

“Isn’t that nice that you can hold down a jobandbe that rude?”

It had been too long since I’d squashed a disrespectful underling. I itched to do it now. She looked not only like she could take it but that she might even enjoy it.

“Dominic.”

I glanced over Sex Hair’s shoulder and spotted my mother waving from a green vinyl booth in the corner. She looked amused.

Sex Hair looked back and forth between me and my mother. “Oh, she’s way too good for you,” she announced, slapping a menu to my chest and walking away.