Page 75 of Angel's Temper

After closing the restaurant an hour before and officially sending Benny packing on a much-needed trip to the Dominican Republic with his wife for two weeks, she threw herself into her deeply favorite pastime: baking spinach knishes. She liked to think the copious amount of potatoes mixed in with the spinach was implied, but she still preferred to lean on the spinach’s more fiber-friendly reputation when thinking about the delectable treats. An eerily empty kitchen that held far too many memories for her liking was enough of a judgmental beast. No need to add carb-shaming to the list because up until that point in her life, pounding out a tray or three of pillowy golden brown pockets stuffed with salty mashed potato and garlicky spinach had reliably been the only thing that hadn’t let her down.

For obvious reasons, churros had been removed from that list.

Molly cinched her apron tighter around her waist and arranged her workspace to her liking. Except, where the sight of a dough ball the size of a corpulent baby usually sent her heart a-flutter, the only thing it produced this time was a pang of loneliness that did excellent work of poking at her ever-present wound.

Rolling out her knishes, she remembered all too late, was a two-person job.

“Shit,” she muttered, thoroughly annoyed for allowing herself to stumble, ass-first, back into the cavern of depression she’d only begun to crawl out of.

Well, thought about crawling out of. One day. Maybe.

Molly threw some plastic wrap over her dough baby and rested a hip against the counter in exhaustion. Even empty, the kitchen still held hauntings of Brass. She couldn’t walk through the door to the dining room without remembering how he’d always held it open for her just before she got there, with his bus tub filled high with dishes and perched securely on his strong shoulder. Or the heat at her back while he watched her as she punched in ticket orders and remembered the kisses he’d stolen in her office moments before.

No, he’d never watched her, she corrected. He’d studied her. She knew that now, with no little bit of shame. He’d been studying her for any signs of magic and locking his findings away for his benefit. What that benefit was, exactly, she didn’t know.

Because he’d never freaking told her.

And worst of all, that small, hurt part of her desperately wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Somewhere over the past few weeks, her well-honed self-preservation had abandoned her and was inclined, instead, to throw its lot in with the male who’d made any hope of finding happiness a fool’s errand.

Even though he’d finally begun to feel like the home she’d always been searching for.

Being a soul bond, it seemed, was worth its weight in bullshit.

Three consecutive knocks at the door drew her from her brooding. “Why does no one want to read anymore? We’re closed!” she hollered to the person crowding out the tiny window of the restaurant’s front door. Backlit by the fierce late-afternoon light, the figure was all sloping shoulders and shadows and very much not welcome.

“We’re closed,” Molly said to the glass panel. “We’ll open again tomorrow at?—”

Molly froze when the curl of a familiar forelock stood out in relief against the glass. A fine misting of fluffy snow had built up a decent skim coat on the top of his head. White puffs of breath fogged the glass in strong, quick spurts as his breathing quickly began to match her own.

Brass.

Her heart tumbled backward on itself at the sight of him. Eyes a familiar shade of misery. Mouth a grim line that looked like it had forgotten how to smile. Brows sunken into a pleading slant that begged for something her battered heart could no longer offer.

But he was outside her door. After three weeks of radio silence, which had sent her hemorrhaging heart into full-on do not resuscitate status, he was there.

Were they doing this, then? Did she even want to do this?

A part of her wanted to donkey-kick him into the street, then throw the ineffectual chain lock home for emphasis.

A part of her wanted to rip the door off just to drink him in.

In the end, curiosity won out as she undid the deadbolt, pretended to undo the chain lock she always forgot to engage, and threw the door open.

“Hi,” he said quietly.

“What do you want?” she snapped at him.

A sorry desperation sparked through his amber eyes. “You.” He’d proclaimed it like a general would shout it to his soldiers at the forefront of battle. It was a rallying cry bolstered with the force of hopeful victory among most certain defeat.

It nearly gutted her.

“You and everything else I was foolish enough not to fight for,” he added.

There was something about seeing a wounded animal that, no matter how malicious or vengeful it may be, always softened her heart. Or in her case, what little was left of it.

She didn’t invite him in but simply turned from the door and walked back into the kitchen. A moment later, the door snicked closed, and that recognizable heat at her back returned. Damn if her body didn’t react on contact, warming beneath the gaze her skin had memorized and traitorously missed. She didn’t say anything, however. Couldn’t.

Because when she turned around to face him, Brass simply held out a picture to her, and any autonomic lung function she’d previously laid claim to up and vanished.

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