Page 47 of Fireworks Flame
Five for me,” our neighbor Chris calls out a few days later, passing us on the sidewalk as Deiss and I head toward Sounds. We saw him earlier on our run, so he’s likely referring to the number of miles he did this morning. “Did I win?”
“Deiss insisted we run six,” I say, pretending to complain.
Truthfully, I appreciated the challenge almost as much as I do this casual conversation. Despite all the years I lived in Santa Monica, I never felt like a part of a community. There seemed to be unspoken rules for high-rise living. Neighbors could hold spare keys. They could leave politely worded notes on your door if they disapproved of your noise levels, or even issue complaints through the board. They did not, however, involve themselves in your life.
The casual way I’ve been folded into the Los Feliz landscape is a marked change. Every morning on my runs with Deiss, someone calls out a greeting or stops us with a cheerful shout. I seem to have been granted genuine neighbor status. And I love it.
“He gets ambitious like that when he feels guilty about his food choices,” I add conspiratorially. “I told him spaghetti was too many carbs.”
“If anyone should be feeling guilty, it’s you,” Deiss says, shoving me with his shoulder. “You know that last meatball was mine.”
I laugh, despite the fact that I probablyshouldfeel guilty. I had every intention of cooking for him last night after so many nights in a row of delivery, but then we’d stayed late at Sounds and ended up grabbing takeout on the way home.
“Don’t you dare apologize to him, Liv,” Chris says, turning to walk backward so he can holler after us. “I haven’t seen Deiss run this many days in a row since I moved in. You’re like his fitness muse.”
I grin at Deiss smugly, but he just shakes his head and squints against the sun like a vampire caught out after dawn. It’s a ridiculously beautiful day. Even the birds seem to be celebrating it with their eager chirps. One lands on the sidewalk and waddles for a couple of steps before lifting back into the air. The air sweeps softly against my skin.
“I’m your muse,” I say sweetly.
“Because you inspire me to run?” Deiss’s mouth twitches with a smile as he pushes open the door to Sounds. “The same could be said about fire.”
“Aww, are you trying to tell me you think I’m hot?”
Mia, who usually works the opposite shifts from Booker, groans from behind the counter. “Keep your flirting outside, please. This is a place of business.”
I flush, but Deiss just lifts an eyebrow.
“A place of business, you say?” He runs an eye from her inky-black mohawk to the piercing in her lip and down to herAlien Sex Fiend t-shirt. “Maybe I should consider uniforms then.”
She glowers and points a bitten-down fingernail at him. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Something pink, maybe,” Deiss says, pretending to think it over as he heads into his office. “With bows. Andruffles.”
Before Mia can respond, he closes his door. I stifle a laugh and slip behind her. The tips of her mohawk are purple today, and I press as closely as I can to the wall as I pass so she’s not tempted to stab me with them. Mia is not the most pleasant person I’ve ever met, but I choose not to take it personally because she doesn’t seem to like anyone. And that includes the customers.
I’d wonder why Deiss keeps her around if I hadn’t already realized she’s the one who does all the work Booker manages to avoid. She even put up my flyers on her own time, hissing at me like I was trying to steal her job when I offered to do it myself. The only time her territorial shtick seems to abate is after her shift, when Booker is inevitably late, and she allows me to take over the counter to bridge the gap so she can go home. It’s a concession she makes begrudgingly rather than gratefully, as if she’s the one doing me the favor.
Surprisingly, as fun as it is to work with Booker, I still look forward to Mia’s shifts. I get so much more work done when she’s aggressively ignoring me than when Booker is blasting music and continuing his unsuccessful quest to convince me to dance with him in front of any customers who happen to be present. Which is why, a couple of hours later, I’m the tiniest bit disappointed to be distracted from my project by the sight of Phoebe strolling through the door
“Hi!” I give a beauty queen smile.
“Are you working on something?” Phoebe directs the question to me but smiles at Mia as she saunters down the aisle between record bins. Naturally, Mia’s eyes drop to her shirt, her fingers picking at the hem of her sleeve as if she’s found a loose thread that needs urgent addressing. With the sneer on her face accompanying the slight, she might as well stick to one finger and use it to flip Phoebe off.
“A website for a pop-up boutique,” I say proudly. It’s the third job I’ve dug up, and by far the most profitable. None of them have paid much, and I’ve spent as much time searching for clients as I have creating content, but it feels like a start. Not to mention the client list on my website is beginning to look much less sparse.
“Hey, Phoebes.” Deiss appears from the back and wanders behind the counter, leaning over my shoulder and peering at the screen. The smell of his cologne hits my nose. There’s something dark and smoky about it, like fresh oak barrels swollen with aged bourbon.
“I like the colors,” he says, his breath tickling at my ear. I turn to him with a nod, catching the full force of his eyes and mouth up close before he pulls back.
“I think you were right about mixing the light and dark,” I say, managing to sound unaffected by his appearance. It means nothing, this appreciation I have for his looks. I also admired Cat Stevens’s regality every time I looked at him, but I knew better than to try and pet him. “It needed the more substantial feel to offset the impermanence of the location.”
“I want to see,” Phoebe says.
I catch Mia eyeing the screen as I flip it around. Unsurprisingly, she says nothing. I should probably be grateful that she’s managed to keep her disparagement to herself.
“It looks fantastic!” Phoebe claps her hands together withdelight. “Not that I don’t know how great you are, but I’m still always shocked when I see your work. There’s something so unique about it.”
“Thanks.” I think about all the painfully boring things I turned in at Infinity Designs and laugh. “That means more than you know.”
