I am coming out of school with Ro and Clive and now that Frankie is home recovering and Vinnie’s helping Frankie, my dad has actually agreed to let me cab it home or go with Thomas. And for once in my life I can breathe without a babysitter/spy waiting outside for me like I’m still in kindergarten.
There’s an ice cream truck that always parks by the school and I decide to get a chocolate ice cream sandwich. I get in line and then look across the street while I’m waiting and I see something I’ve never seen before.
At least not outside my school.
He’s wearing sunglasses and a worn leather bomber jacket over jeans and he’s leaning up against a car with his arms crossed over his chest. He looks so breath-stopping hot that I feel faint. Am I hallucinating? It takes a minute for reality to set in and then I start to wonder how long he’s been there watching and whether his plan was to just keep observing from a distance or to actually cross the street and come closer.
Instead of racing over, which my heart is telling me to do, I wait in line until it’s my turn. I buy two ice cream sandwiches and slowly cross the street.
“Hope you’re not allergic to chocolate.”
He half smiles as I hand him the sandwich, taking off his sunglasses and hanging them from the neck of his sweater. He looks at me hard, his eyes burning green like they’re lit from within, and he seems to forget the ice cream, but I start to rip the paper off mine with my teeth and point my chin at his to remind him. So he slowly and neatly peels away the paper and then holds my gaze.
“How are you, Gia?”
I manage to lick the ice cream first. “Hmm, better now.”
The sandwiches are already melting from body heat. I watch his mouth move and the slow, hypnotic way he slides his tongue along the long side of the dark chocolate wafers, catching every drip while he watches me mimic his moves because this is definitely a game.
Only my hyperactive brain is already firing questions: What’s next? What now? What exactly is his plan here, assuming he has one? But I’m not going to ask so I stand next to him and lean on the same black BMW and continue eating fast while he takes his time, which a shrink would definitely conclude means something major.
Ro is watching from across the street and probably going, not that cop, but I smile at her anyway. And Clive is watching too because I know he’s curious about Michael after all I’ve told him. I look back at Michael working on the sandwich, and then, because I can’t think of anything else to say and the silence is killing me and screw my resolve to not say anything, I say, “now what?”
“Work,” he says, checking his watch.
“So you just came by to see me or what?”
“Something like that.”
That sketchy bullshit answer infuriates me because if this stupid cop doesn’t make a serious move soon…
“So you saw me.” I turn to leave, but his arm reaches out and eases me back.
“Gia…”
“What, Michael?”
“Watch your back,” he whispers, his face dead serious.
I cock my head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“There are rumblings…retaliation. That’s all I know.”
I look at him curiously then cross the street. Did he come because he wanted to see me? Or just to pass on the vague warning because he felt it was his duty? Or both?
Ro and Clive both look at me like, what was that all about?
I shrug my shoulders because I have no idea.
Later at night when I’m in bed, the ambiguity eats away at me and the scene keeps replaying in my head. The warning. The truth behind it, if there is. More than that my brain fixates on the video in my head of Michael eating the ice cream sandwich. His mouth moving. His eyes. The way the air seemed charged.
I sleep fitfully, turning and twisting, obsessed with trying to get to know someone who seems intent on being unknowable.