Page 26 of Come Back To Me

“Hey,” I said. “You have a stand in the Market, yeah?”

She looked up sharply and studied me like she was trying to place my face.

“Something like that.”

I figured she’d closed the conversation, shut me down, but then her face lit up in recognition.

“You’re with that musician. You come to the Market every Thursday!”

I shrank a little in my seat. What I said was even worse now that she knew who he was.

“I’m good with faces,” she shrugged. “I saw him perform once at The Crocodile.”

Ah, the good ol’ Crocodile. I smiled and changed the subject. What else was there to do once you’ve made an arse of yourself?

“You off today?”

She nodded. “A friend’s covering for me. Broke up with my boyfriend and couldn’t stand the thought of sitting there all day. So, I’m sitting here.”

“Bad guy?” I asked.

I was already thinking about calling David to tell him he was right. That would probably make him more sympathetic to her though, and I finally realized why I’d never liked the looks of her.Oh my God, you’re jealous!I told myself. That wasn’t part of what I did. It was something new for me and it made me uncomfortable.

“Yeah, you could say that. We’ve been on and off for a few years,” she said.

“What does it take to find a good guy who’s not a total pussy, you know?”

She looked at me suddenly and smiled. “But, you have one, don’t you?”

I finished off the rest of my tea and stood up. “It was nice chatting with you—”

“Petra,” she offered.

“Right. Lovely meeting you then, Petra.” I saw she was about to ask my name and I wanted to get the hell out of there before I had to tell her.

And then I slung on my coat and hurried from the shop like I had somewhere important to be other than with my insecurities. I didn’t tell David about my run-in with Petra aka Beanie Girl, and the next time we were at the Market, I insisted on walking a different way to our lunch spot. How did she know we were there every Thursday anyway? What a creep. The kind that looked blonde, and edgy, and slightly innocent, but would fuck you in every position known to man.

“How many girls flirt with you on any given day?” I asked him one day as we were walking to meet the guys for dinner.

David rumbled with laughter.

“What? That’s a legitimate question. You’re a musician. You’re supposed to philander.”

He raised an eyebrow then announced, “You’re jealous!” with extreme excitement. “That’s my new favorite thing about you, English.”

“No! David, no. I’m most certainly not jealous,” I lied. “It’s just a question.”

He rubbed a hand across his face as he thought. “I don’t know how to answer that. I’m around women all the time. They’re mostly friendly—chatty even—but what’s the line between being a friendly person and flirting?”

“Do they inspire you?”

“Pussy is very inspiring, Yara.” He laughed.

I punched him in the arm and that made him laugh harder.

He was so naive. He grabbed me by the waist before I could say anything else and spun me around to face him. We were in the middle of the sidewalk, our arms wrapped around each other—mine more hesitantly. A man in a bowler hat played a movable organ a few feet away.

“What does it matter? You’re the only one I want.”

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