Page 25 of Loss and Damages

“You’re threatening my family.” Pitts’s face contorts in a grimace made even more ghastly by the neon light.

“I don’t need to threaten your family. The second I walked in the door, I could have taken a picture of you with those strippers and splashed it all over the internet.

Where would that have gotten us, gentlemen?

I want you to work with me, not against me.

I’m offering to compensate you handsomely for your cooperation.

Frankly, I don’t understand the pushback. ”

“Maybe some of us want to do the right thing.” Mayor Wilkins lifts his upper lip in a disgusted snarl.

“Buying the 1100 block and turning the neighborhood into something St. Charlotte can be proud of is the right thing.” I drain my glass.

“I’m purchasing every building in Oakdale Square and I’ve decided since you’ve forced me to visit, this piece of shit as well.

I’ll clean up the streets, and I’ll see to it that you’re not credited for a single brick.

Unless, of course, the sale for the 1100 block lands on my desk no later than noon tomorrow.

” I gave him until Wednesday but I’m tired of waiting and I jab at the picture of Pitts’s family in annoyance.

“I think your wife would tell you that working with me is the right thing to do. Enjoy the rest of your time in this fine establishment, gentlemen. It won’t be here much longer. ”

I shove my glass across the scarred table and slide as smoothly as I can off the sticky bench. God knows what’s happened on that Naugahyde.

Without looking back, I walk out of the club, the kid at the door giving me a knowing smirk. I stop on a weedy patch of grass and leave a message on my PA’s voicemail. “The Scarlet Wing. I want it, and once it’s mine, I’m going to burn it down.”

The kid’s mouth drops open.

At Leo’s, I shower, standing under the spray for a long time, but all the hot water in the world can’t rinse away the shame I felt when I threatened Pitts’s family and the fear that shot through his beady eyes because he knows I can do whatever the fuck I want and get away with it.

That’s the kind of man Leo hated.

Dad would have been proud of me.

That evening, I drive to Jemma’s. I expected her to be at her cottage, maybe sitting and drinking wine on her porch, but through the glass of the gallery’s front door, I see her flip the sign from Open to Closed. She must have stayed late to help a customer.

I can’t explain why I came out here. The ride from St. Charlotte to Hollow Lake calmed my nerves, big, puffy white clouds floating through the brilliant blue sky. The farmland was a lush green, and as the city faded behind me, so did all my tension.

I’m beginning to understand why Leo drove out to Hollow Lake every day. It wasn’t only to see Jemma. She’s a big part of it, but the sight of the lake glimmering in the sun, the birds flying overhead, and the leaves blowing in the soft summer breeze, they help me breathe.

I park in her driveway and she pauses on the back porch, a set of keys in her hand.

I cut the engine and push out of the truck, my eyes never leaving hers. She’s had time to think about our kiss and I don’t know how she feels about that or about me. “Did you have a good day?”

She steps off the porch and into the grass that’s as high as her ankles. I wonder if she mows her own yard. If she does, I’d like to watch her someday. But only for a moment. Leo would never have let her push a lawnmower and neither would I.

“I sold a few pieces.”

“Enough to pay your bills?”

Her lips turn up, and humor dances in her eyes.

Leo was a lucky son of a bitch to have spent his time with her.

“Enough to pay my bills. What few there are. What are you doing here? You said you didn’t need help changing your bandage, so I’m guessing it’s not about that.”

“It’s not about anything,” I say, slamming the truck door shut.

She raises her eyebrows and jerks a shoulder in the direction of her cottage.

“It’s never about nothing. You had a bad day, or you’re avoiding something in the city.

You’re lonely, or you liked the blackberry wine.

You want to see Gloria again and pet her dog.

Something, but if you don’t want to say, it’s okay. ”

I tuck my hands into my pockets and follow her to the house.

She’s wearing another sundress and a ribbon tied behind her back bounces against her cute little ass as she steps through the grass.

Her hair is plaited into a messy French braid and the tail falls between her shoulder blades.

I don’t know how I can put into words that I like spending time with her without seeming like I’m asking for something.

I don’t want to turn into Leo, using her for companionship.

Men and women can be friends, I believe that, but if he hadn’t wanted a relationship with her, he had no business spending so much time in Hollow Lake.

He kept her from finding someone who could mean more.

It was a selfish thing to do, and I won’t do that to her.

She holds the door open, inviting me in, and I follow her inside the cool living room. She’d straightened between this morning and now, living room clutter put in its place and the kitchen counter empty of loose items and my Hollow Lake Café coffee cup.

“What would you and Leo do on a night like this?”

Pausing, her hand on the refrigerator door, she looks over her shoulder at me.

“It varied. He liked walking around the lake or watching me paint. He sat with me in my workshop for hours and hours. Um, sometimes we would watch a movie, but Leo liked to talk. Mostly we sat on the porch, drank wine, ate something I picked up at the grocery store deli in town, and just spent time together. He never seemed to get tired of it.”

“Did you expect him to?”

“I don’t know. He said he didn’t have a girlfriend, but I assumed he’d meet someone someday and stop driving out.

Maybe not stop completely, but not so frequently.

The gallery was important to him, the art.

A girlfriend wouldn’t have changed that.

” She inhales like she wants to add more but she pauses and bites her lip.

“I let him be and do what he wanted. If he drove out, he did, and if he didn’t, I didn’t call to find out why. I think he liked that, too.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Why not? You don’t like being left alone?”

“If the woman I loved left me alone, I wouldn’t like it.”

She shakes her head and laughs. “We weren’t in love. You keep testing me, trying to catch me in a lie. My story is always going to be the same because it’s true.”

I am testing her, and I can stop. She’s been telling me the truth. It’s my problem if I can’t understand what they had.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

She steps away from the fridge without opening the door. “Do you really want to know what we would have done on a night like this?”

I don’t want to replace Leo in Jemma’s life, but I feel closer to him when I’m with her and it’s a feeling I don’t want to let go of yet.

“Yes, I really do.”

“Okay, then. Let’s go for a walk. I’ll show you Leo’s favorite spot.”

“He had a favorite spot that wasn’t on your porch or in your gallery?”

“Leo liked Hollow Lake. He liked the small-town feel of it. The laziness. Leo wasn’t lazy, but he didn’t like energy and St. Charlotte has a lot of energy. Not all of it’s positive, and the negative zapped him, you know?”

“I felt that, when I drove out here.”

She lifts a grey purse off one of the pegs near the door and brings the strap over her head wearing it across her body. “It’s what kept him coming back, maybe more so than me. Come on.”

She doesn’t lock the door behind us, and I walk with her past the gallery and across the road.

We pick up a paved trail along the lake, a tree-lined road running parallel to it.

Buildings, maybe a mile or so ahead of us, waver in the heat.

Dragonflies flit near the grass and dandelions, and I can picture Leo stopping to study their brilliant colors.

I catch her hand and instead of pulling away, she laces our fingers. It’s a knee-jerk reaction to ask if she used to walk with Leo like this. I know her answer will be yes—she’s already said as much—but she and Leo were only friends. What we have is already becoming more.

“How are you feeling?” she asks, squinting up at me.

The wound. Not what’s going on inside my heart. “It burns a bit.”

“Do you get shot at often?”

“Mmm. Not often. Less than you’d probably think doing what I do.”

“I’ve never been shot at.”

I squeeze her fingers. “I hope you never are.”

“My brother thinks you’re part of the mafia.”

A car full of teenagers drives by blasting rap music and the loud bass jerks me out of the moment. The driver turns a corner and the beat fades.

“Because we’re Italian?” I ask, amused. It’s not the first time we’ve been accused, and my actions today would give anyone pointing fingers valid evidence.

“No, because of the way you do business.”

“What does your brother know about how I run my business?”

“He knows as much as anyone else who watches the news.”

Boats bob in the distance, the lake appearing a brilliant navy blue. The sun isn’t thinking about setting yet, and I sweat in the evening heat. Jemma walks by my side holding my hand, unaffected except for the rosy sheen on her cheeks and the tendrils of hair that stick to her forehead.

“I do things some people don’t like, and I do things some people do. You run a business. I’m sure not everything you do pleases everyone all the time.”

“I suppose not, but I don’t hold people’s lives in my hands, either.”

“What if I told you I’m going to buy Oakdale Square?”

“Can you do that? Isn’t that like, a five-mile radius or something? You can just circle part of St. Charlotte on a map and say, ‘I want this, ring it up?’”

“ I can. I don’t know about anyone else.”

“And then what?”