Page 8 of Can't Help Falling

CHAPTER TWO

Three months later

“SO, UH, WHERE’S the crystal ball then, huh?”

Fin restrained her eye roll and merely gave the man a polite smile. These were the sorts of questions that all nervous, quasi-skeptical first-time clients asked her. It was people’s natural reaction to try to figure out exactly how real her abilities really were. Fin had found it was best to just let people tire out their nervous energy and take the opportunity to observe them.

The man in front of her, Enzo, was an odd duck. Handsome in a rough way, a bit of a beer gut, a tough-guy swagger but nervous as a cat. She knew, at a glance, that he was the kind of person who made fun of other people’s superstitions but had spent more than a night or two listening for ghosts in his own house.

“And I thought there’d be more tarot cards and stuff. Or, like, black candles. Skulls. Velvet tablecloths.”

They were in a small office that Fin rented for first-time clients, until she got to know them well enough to decide whether or not she was willing to do house calls for them. The office was unadorned; nothing about the decor suggesting anything out of the ordinary.

She cleared her throat and Enzo stopped pacing and turned to give her a glancing perusal, as if looking directly at her could be dangerous.

“I’m wearing velvet pants,” Fin said in her Louisiana accent, intentionally making her voice drawlier and deeper and calmer than normal. “If that helps ease your mind at all.”

Enzo’s eyes dropped to her legs, and Fin detected a flash of suspicion that gave way to humor. His first reaction to her upon entry to the office had been intense attraction. But it had faded almost as quickly as it had bloomed. He was more nervous than he was turned on, completely unsure what to make of this supposed psychic.

“Wanna talk about why you’re here?” she prompted.

“You can’t guess? Thought you were a psychic.”

It infinitely irritated her when skeptics tested her as if they and they alone were the end-all judgment of what she was or wasn’t capable of. Especially when those skeptics, like the man in front of her, weren’t actually skeptical at all. But rather they were scared about what they might actually end up believing.

“Enzo, you’re not paying me so that I can convince you I am what I say I am. I’m here to help you. If you don’t want help, this is a waste of your money and my time.”

Enzo stood stiffly for another few seconds before he sagged backward against the wall. He let out a deep breath, and Fin saw that his beer gut was actually a bit bigger than she’d originally assessed. Apparently he’d been sucking in.

“I’m here ’cuz of Rachel. She thought it would be a good idea.”

Rachel Giulietta was one of her best and favorite clients. Fin, who rarely, if ever, took on male clients, was seeing Enzo as a personal favor to Rachel.

“She, uh, thought it would be a good idea if I talked to you.”

Enzo shrugged and started pacing again, but it wasn’t the agitated pacing of before. Fin recognized it as a thoughtful pacing, still a bit nervous, but also the tick of a man searching for the right way to explain something.

For the first time since he’d walked in the door, Fin relaxed a bit.

An hour later, Enzo left the office, and Fin stared thoughtfully at nothing. They hadn’t made much progress, except for the fact that Enzo had ceased his skeptical posturing. She’d only promised Rachel that she’d see Enzo the once. It was up to her to decide if it would be worth anyone’s time or money for her to see him again.

Already leaning toward a no, Fin paused. She had few male clients. Generally, it was her inclination to boot them out the door. As fast and as far as her boots could boot.

For just a second, Tyler’s face flashed across her mind’s eye. His flayed expression at the ball game. It bothered her that it was still sticking.

“Damn”was all Tyler had said as he’d stepped back from her. Emotionally, she’d stripped him down like corn off a cob and his navy blue eyes had asked her why even as he’d taken two more steps away, disappearing into the crowd. Damn was the last word he’d spoken to her, and she’d had to convince herself that it didn’t sit heavy on her shoulders like a curse.

Sure, he’d been pushy. Unappealing in his quest to get what he wanted. But she’d been cruel. It bothered her.

She heard a conversation start up on the other side of the wall and it jolted her out of her reverie. She packed up her things and decided to walk home, the air finally crisply chilly in a very satisfying early-autumn sort of way.

As she turned the corner onto Ocean Avenue a man called out to her from the corner, jogging to catch up.

“Where you headed, beautiful?” he asked, as if it were any of his business.

Mars. A funeral home. To my freaking living room where I can get some peace.

Fin wondered, for the countless time, if her answer, were she to give him one, would even matter. All he wanted was a way to ask if he could come with her. Didn’t strange men on the street have anything more pressing to tend to than chasing pretty women down the block? Who had the time for that?

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