Page 1 of Forget Me Twice

He’s back.

Again.

Even in my early-morning, pre-breakfast delirium, I could never mistake that finely-tailored suit.

That slick, two hundred-dollar haircut.

Or that air ofbarely-restrained violence.

Three days in a row he’s been here, staking out our neighborhood. No obvious agenda. Just hours spent haunting the street corner like a well-groomed statue.

Unmoving. Observing. Repelling anyone who passes him without the need for so much as a word.

It’s confusing as fuck to say the least.

What thehellis he waiting for?

Hoping wildly that I haven’t already given away my position, I straighten and press my back against the cold bricks of the alleyway. My ratty backpack scrapes softly along the wall behind me and I wince. It’s a rough, narrow passage that smells heavily of overripe fruit and rotting meat cuts, but it’s well covered and dry most nights.

The chill now leaching the last of my warmth through the shoulders of my ratty sweater reminds me that we’re on the business end of fall. Winter is firmly creeping in. I’m going to have to magic up some much warmer clothes. Like,soon.

My traitorous stomach decides to gurgle in protest of our pointless loitering. I huff and shift gently against the wall, weighing my options. I decide that for right now, my very real hunger pains trump the overly dramatic hypotheticals of freezing to death.

Unfortunately, taming the hunger beast meansmoney, and money means slipping out past our Mystery Man and finding a decent mark.

I blow out an uneasy breath. Hopefully there’ll still be a few commuters lingering near the café strip.

Tugging my hood forward, I cautiously peer back out to check the street. When I see he hasn’t moved an inch, I laugh quietly under my breath. He really is a statue. Reflexively, my eyes zero in and sweep him from head to toe, cataloging what I can from this distance.

Dark hair, coiffed.

Straight, freshly-shaven jawline.

Navy suit with crisp, white button down.

Blood-red tie.

Matching pocket square.

Golden tie pin in the shape of something distinct. Too far away to tell.

Gold ring right ring finger. No ring on left hand.

Shoes, expensive, polished.

The handsome stranger is in his usual spot, leaning against the wall of the rundown bodega on the corner with his arms crossed and shoulders loose. He may be trying to sell us aloof with that posture, but beneath all that cashed-up arrogance there’s a dark undercurrent. Call it street kid intuition. He’s oozing ten kinds ofdangerous, his power uncoiling slowly around him like a python ready to strike.

I can’t make out the color of his eyes from here, but if I had to guess, they’re probably dark. Black like two lumps of coal. Coals from the pits of hell. Burning and soulless.

Gangster? Gotta be.

This city is certainlynostranger to criminal outfits.

No matter who he works for though, it’s painfully obvious as he takes in the rush hour tableau unfolding before him, that thisreallyisn’t his scene. This is a poorer, frost-pinched stretch of South Lexington. It’s more of an industrial factory workers with Dad bods, less stockbroker financial bros chasing the latest model of secretary kind of area.

It’s like he doesn’t even register that his expensive outfit andfuck offvibes are attracting him the same sort of unbroken attention that he’s giving the street around him. He ignores the young, brunette mother wearing an orange sundress—the one who almost steers her kid’s stroller into a nearby hydrant while throwing him moon eyes. He barely spares a glance for Mr Giorgio, the mustachioed and balding local grocer so caught up rubbernecking at our phantom, he knocks his entire display of clementines flying. Just a slow, lazy blink for the bright fruits that roll along the sidewalk and spill into the gutter at his feet.

More than likely, he’s just too rich to care.

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