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Ava

M ist stayed in the air at Pike’s Market all the way to closing time that night. The weather of the Pacific Northwest wasn’t for everyone, but I loved it. As Hailey and I closed up the food truck for the day, I was already dreaming about getting home to shower, change into some comfy clothes, and get a little reading done with some tea by the window as the rest of the rain came in.

“You going to tell me about that weird-ass dude?” Hailey hopped out of the back of the truck, shutting the doors and taking the keys out of her pocket to lock up.

“Huh?”

Hailey paused mid-turn of the key. “You know, tall, blonde, and handsome? The weird guy who barged to the front of the line?”

I wasn’t planning on lying to Hailey, telling her that I hadn’t been thinking of the guy. Truth was that he’d been on my mind since the moment I’d laid eyes on him, to say nothing of what he’d said to me about my mom. The rest of the shift had been too busy for me to have the chance to tell Hailey what had happened.

“I don’t know where to even start with all of that.”

She cocked her head to the side as she pulled the key out of the lock. “What does that mean?”

“Something he said when I went over to talk to him.”

She smiled slightly. “Alright, it’s a fifteen-minute drive over to my place. That’s just enough time for you to fill me in on what the hell happened with that guy.”

Part of me wanted to tell her I wasn’t in the mood to talk about it. I remembered right away, however, that trying to keep gossip from my half-sister was as fruitless of a task as they came.

“Fine, fine,” I said, nodding toward the front of the truck. “Let’s get this over with.”

We climbed into the front seats of the truck, Hailey behind the wheel. She turned the key, the heavy-duty engine of the food truck grumbling to life, the vehicle vibrating from its power. Hailey drove forward, taking us out of the parking area where we’d been working for the last twelve hours. I let my eyes drift over the other stalls, the workers closing up shop and preparing to do it all again tomorrow.

“So, the guy?” Hailey’s eyes twinkled the way they always did when she had a line on some fresh gossip.

“The guy. God, where to even begin…”

I started into it as we pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road that led north to Queen Anne, the neighborhood where Hailey and I both lived. On the way there, I told her about the conversation, how the man had said he’d wanted to speak with me about… something . I told her about how I’d been ready to tell him to screw off once and for all.

That is, until he’d mentioned Mom.

“Your mom ? I mean, our mom?”

Hailey’s and my history was a little complicated. We had the same mom, but not the same dad.

“Our mom. Like I said, I’d been about to tell him to get lost, and that’s when he mentioned that he knew her.”

Hailey, with her pixie hair, big green eyes, and tiny, cute features, had always struck me as elf-like in her looks. On top of that, her face was as expressive as they came. Whether she was shocked, angry or surprised, you knew it. In that moment, there was no guessing about how blown away she was by the news so far of the meeting.

“He knew Mom? Who the hell was this guy?”

“That’s the most annoying part—he didn’t tell me. He said that if I wanted to know more, I’d have to meet with him tomorrow.”

Her big eyes flashed with excitement, not a trace of fear or doubt on her face.

“Then, what the hell are you waiting for? Did he give you his number or anything?”

“Kind of. He gave me this card.”

I began to pull the small card out of my pocket. As I did, Hailey drove the truck into the lot of her three-story condo and her usual, and illegal, spot in the alley.

“Hales, you need to find a better place than this to leave the truck. You’re going to walk out here one day and see that it’s been towed.”

She waved her hand through the air. “It’s fine . The landlord and I have an arrangement—I slip him an extra hundo with rent, and he looks the other way. Trust me, it’s the best deal we’re going to get in this freaking city.”

Hailey nodded to get out, and I did. Together, we went to the back of the truck and opened the doors to get out the vehicle cover.

“Oh! The card?”

I handed it over and she gave it a squinty-eyed look, as if there were a secret code or something written in invisible ink.

“Lucas Mortensen,” she said out loud to herself. “And his number.” She handed the card back. “That’s it? He didn’t give you a title or anything like that?”

“Nothing like that. I didn’t like it, it felt way too… mysterious .” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew they were wrong. His dark, brooding, serious nature was actually more of a turn-on than anything else.

“Well, what’s the hold up? Call him!”

We opened the cover and began unfurling it over the truck.

“You say that like it’s so easy.”

She flashed me an expression of confusion as we made our way to the front of the truck.

“I mean, it is.”

“No, it’s not. How do I know this guy’s on the level? I mean, this could be some trick to get me alone so he can chloroform me the first chance he gets.” Another realization suddenly hit me… Luc didn’t seem like that type at all. Sure, he’d been serious and stern, but he hadn’t struck me as threatening. All the same, he did seem to me like a man who knew how to handle himself in a fight.

She shrugged. “Babe, we’re in Seattle. Take him to a coffee shop or something like that; a place nice and public where you don’t need to worry about if he’s crazy.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah! Come on if this guy used to be friends with Mom… just imagine! It’d be this amazing link to your, our past! You can’t turn something like this down. Hell, if you don’t take this chance, maybe I’ll call him.” She grinned, a devilish look on her face. “Plus, he was pretty hot, from what I saw. I mean, for an older guy.”

“Hailey!”

“What! I mean, are you going to tell me you didn’t think he was hot?”

There was no way I could deny it. It was strange, I’d never been into older guys before, but there was something about Luc that I couldn’t deny.

“So what if he was? He has to be in his mid-forties, at the youngest.”

“Who cares?”

“Who cares? That’s nearly two decades older than me!”

We made our way around the truck and toward the parking lot.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. I mean, you’ve met guys our age. They take you out for a first date and want to spend the entire time going on and on about some stupid podcast they’re starting with their friends. I don’t know who this guy is exactly, but I can bet you anything he’s not going to talk to you about something as stupid as that.”

“Geez, I’m not meeting him for a date.” We made our way toward my car, a run-down ’99 Toyota Corolla, the body dominated by rust and one of the wheels looking especially low on air. I pushed on the wheel with the tip of my foot, noting that it gave more than I was comfortable with.

“I mean, it’s like a date. You’re meeting some handsome guy to get to know one another. Then again, he might already know everything about you. Anyway, you good to get home?”

“Fine, thanks.”

“Don’t forgot tomorrow’s Friday! No work until noon, remember?”

I blinked hard and shook my head. “Shit, I totally would’ve showed up here first-thing in the morning if you hadn’t reminded me.”

Hailey grinned, reaching forward and giving me a little shove. “Hey, all the more reason to meet with the guy, right? Not like you’re doing anything better.”

“Kind of thinking that sleeping in might be a better use of my time than meeting with some weirdo, but we’ll see.”

Hailey let out a laugh as she turned and started toward the front doors of her building. “You’d better do it! Send me the address of the place if it’ll make you feel better!”

With that, she headed inside. I sighed as I stuck the key into the driver’s side lock, turning it once to the left, then twice to the right in the special way I had to do it ever since the lock stopped cooperating a few months back.

My car was as much a mess on the inside as it was on the outside. Coffee cups and fast-food wrappers were all over the place, and there were more holes and tears in the seat than I could count. I’d been meaning to clean the thing out for the last year, but life was so damn busy these days that I barely had time to breathe, let alone detail my car.

“Come on, baby,” I said, sticking the key into the lock. “Let’s do this nice and easy, alright?”

I closed my eyes and turned the key. The engine sputtered a bit, but quickly rumbled to life.

“There we go!” I said, patting the top of the dashboard. “See how nice it is to cooperate?”

I checked the time on my phone, seeing that it was a little after nine—just enough time to get some relaxing in before a well-deserved night’s sleep.

I pulled out of the parking lot and headed down the gridded streets of Queen Anne. I loved my hood, loved the ornate, gorgeous homes built in the style that the neighborhood was named for, loved the rolling hills that took you to the top of the north side of the city, allowing for a sweeping view of Elliot Bay. Most of all I loved the fact that my apartment had been a steal.

I wasn’t far from Hailey’s place, the five-minute drive passing in no time at all. My place was nondescript, a five-story building comprised of a few dozen studio apartments, all of them housing people like me who were at work more than they were at home. I parked and headed into the lobby, taking the elevator up to the top floor.

Seconds later I was throwing open the door to my pad, the smell of crab cakes hitting me square in the face the instant I stepped through. I lived the crab cake life, making them in the apartment then slinging them in the truck. The place was a mess—dishes on the small counter that separated the kitchen from the tiny living room/bedroom/TV room. I flicked on the light, put on some FKA Twigs, and went to work.

I danced and sang as I cleaned, the view of the city and the bay beyond always a pleasant sight. If I craned my neck a bit, I could see the towers of downtown Seattle and the amazing apartments that I’d dreamed of living in since I was a girl.

I had fantasies that played out every day in my imagination, of turning my single crab cake truck into a crab cake empire. I imagined a whole fleet of trucks setting out every morning, a staff of hundreds slinging uncountable amounts of cakes and soups to hungry Seattleites, each day bringing in record profits. And I didn’t want to stop there. I wanted our cakes shipped across the country to anyone who wanted them.

The fantasies were my way of picturing future success. Because at that moment, living in a tiny studio, my car on the verge of collapsing into a pile of rust, and a schedule that left zero time for dating or a social life, fantasies were what kept me going. The day-to-day bottom line of the business was looking good, but it was going to take a long period of good days to get us out of the red and into the black, and then we had to keep that going.

It was going to be a lot of hard work. Lucky for me, I’d never been afraid of that.

When I was done cleaning up, I threw a kettle on the stove and turned to watch the rain come down in soft patters on the slanted windows that overlooked the city.

That’s when Luc appeared in my mind. Who the hell was this guy, anyway? And what was the deal with Europe—did people over there have no tact when it came to talking to people they’d never met before? The way he’d just stormed up to the front of the line and demanded to talk to me was enough to make me want to sock him right in his impossibly chiseled jaw. Part of me wished that he wasn’t possibly the best-looking man I’d ever seen in my life; that little detail made it hard to think clearly about the whole thing.

The kettle whistled, and I started my tea. As I did, I thought more about Luc, about the strange things he’d said to me. Had he really known my mom? Or was he some Eurotrash sleazeball making up stories to get closer to me? Maybe he was some employee for a Swiss billionaire sent to trick women into getting sucked into some human trafficking operation.

Alright, alright , I told myself as I headed over, mug in hand, to the big, overstuffed couch near the window. Let’s not get too carried away.

Still, who was he? As I set down my mug and dimmed the lights, lighting a few candles here and there, I found myself gripped more and more by this mysterious man and what he wanted with me.

The encounter brought so much to mind. I found myself thinking about Mom, how it’d been more than ten years since I’d lost her to cancer when I was a teenager. Never once had I had any sort of suspicion that Mom led some secret life that she’d kept from Hailey and me. Now, all of a sudden, here was some weird guy from Europe demanding that he speak to me and that he knew my mom.

I sipped my tea, trying to force myself to pick up the book placed upside down on the side table next to the chair, some non-fiction about small business ownership. However, my eyes kept drifting to the phone. All I’d have to do is send one message to Luc telling him I wanted to meet. Hailey was right—I could meet him in a public place where I’d be safe if he did turn out to be some weirdo perv.

With a sigh, I set down my tea and went over to my purse, fishing out the card and taking it with me back to the chair, plopping down into it. I snatched up my phone and put in Luc’s number, typing up a quick text.

Alright, you want to meet? Let’s do it.

My thumbs hovered over the send button for a moment. Something told me that once I’d sent the message, a process would begin that I’d have little control over.

I sent it. The message turned into a green text bubble and that was that.

Figures he’d be an Android guy .

I set the phone down, hoping for at least a few minutes of peace before I had to deal with a response.

No such luck. The phone buzzed on the table with an incoming message.

Glad to see you came around. We will meet at the restaurant at my hotel at 9:00 AM.

God, even his texts were stiff and stern. I didn’t like his suggestion, not wanting to meet on his turf.

There’s a coffee shop near me called The Mellow Roast. Meet me there at 10:00.

I allowed myself a small smile for taking control of the situation.

Fine. See you then.

I thumbs-up’d the message and set the phone down, my eyes drifting to the rain pattering down on the window.

Here goes nothing , I thought as my mind began to race with all of the possibilities the meeting tomorrow morning could hold.