Page 120 of If Looks Could Kill
He turned to me, concerned, and I wondered immediately if I’d presumed too much.
“Or… you know what, I’ll just get my suitcase and go to a boardinghouse—”
“Why just one more night?” he asked. “What’s your hurry?”
I was speechless. “I can’t just impose.”
“Stay as long as you can,” Mike urged. “I like the couch.”
“I doubt your aunt and uncle like having you there,” I protested. “I can’t just move in.”
Mike’s mouth twisted into a puzzled scowl. “I don’t see why not.”
He couldn’t possibly mean that.
“Mike,” I said, “I thank you for your hospitality. But surely you see I can’t stay much longer? I have no job. No position with the Salvation Army anymore. No real reason to be here. By tomorrow,” I said, “if I haven’t found some sign of Pearl, I’ll need to head home.” The words put a lump in my throat. “I’ll leave her suitcase at the Salvation Army base.”
He was quiet after that. We wove through people and horses, and around icy puddles.
“Mike,” I asked, “have I said something wrong?”
He squeezed my arm tighter with his own. “I’m glad I found you at the bakery.”
“Me too.”
“I’m glad you waltzed into O’Flynn’s this fall,” he said, “selling yourWar Crys.”
He glanced around and made a decision, apparently, pulling me off the thoroughfare and under the awning arch of a marble-columned bank. The wind whistled through the tunnel made by the covered walkway, and Mike stood close in front of me to shield me from the cold.
“Why,” I asked him, feeling brazen, “are you glad of that?”
He looked over my head and out to the crowded street, then turned back to me.
“You’re easy to talk to.” He smiled.
Something in me swooped and swelled, like a bird on the wing. And something in me could not accept this thought.
“Aren’t most girls?” I asked him.
“I like how I feel,” he said, “when I talk to you.”
Oh, me too, me too, me too. Mike, here’s my heart; me too, me too.
“I feel like what matters most,” he said, “is to keep on talking with this girl. Telling her whatever keeps her interested in talking, so I can keep on hearing what she has to say.” He smiled. “And watching her face while she says it.”
I don’t think I know how to receive compliments, not, mind you, that I have had frequent opportunity to practice. Humor, in such times as these, is my trusty friend.
“Even,” I said, “if that means chasing down monsters and being chased by every gangster and outlaw in the city?”
There was that smile, like a sunrise, crinkling his eyes.
“All the better.”
I suppose I was smiling too. Smiling like a fool who can’t stop. But every bliss subsides eventually, and I found a question needing to be asked.
“Mike,” I said, “is that enough?”
He cocked his head, puzzled. “What do you mean?”
