Page 23 of Broomsticks and Bloodstains
“No worries. I’ve got things out here,” I assured him.
Getting to work, I lined pint glasses without looking, muscle memory doing the job for me while my brain stayed elsewhere. Not the alley. Not the knife. Not him.
An awareness suddenly tingled down my spine. I tried to keep my eyes down, but they slipped to the end of the bar anyway, drawn like metal to a magnet.
He was there. Of course he was. The corner of my mouth lifted of its own accord.
Black coat, plain shirt, that lethal stillness coiled in his shoulders like a held breath. Maksim didn’t drink. He didn’t even pretend. Like most nights when he showed up, he merely sat with a glass of vodka he never touched, gaze fixed on me as if the rest of the room were nothing but a smudge he could wipe away with his thumb.
The regulars noticed. They always did. Yankees cap Mike kept sneaking glances and tipping too much, like money could bribe safety. José counted quarters into a neat stack, never turning his back to him. The college kids went quiet, a rare miracle, as if instinct finally cut through cheap lager and told them a predator had entered the ecosystem.
“New boyfriend?” Debbie asked in her raspy, cigarette-roughened voice when I set down her whiskey. The word sent a sharp, ridiculous bloom of heat through me, followed by shame. Because it dawned on me that we weren’t defined like that. We just… were.
We fucked.
We went out for fancy dinners.
But he hadn’t mentioned actual commitment—at least not with a spoken label.
“He’s nobody,” I lied. It tasted like pennies or ash on my tongue.
“Interesting… because that nobody’s staring like you’re the last thing on a sinking ship.” She chuckled.
I pretended to laugh. I pretended a lot that night—smiles, small talk, the easy rhythm of “What can I get you?” and “Coming right up.” But my pulse never dropped below a sprint. Every time the bell on the door rang, I flinched. Every time a shadow moved in my periphery, my skin prickled. The alley lived under my ribs now, a second heartbeat.
And I hated it.
When my shift finally ended, I wiped the bar slower than necessary, stretching what normally took minutes into something longer, hoping for a miracle with each swipe of the rag—a miracle like, oh, maybe… courage?
Despite my obvious procrastination, he didn’t move. He simply waited, patient as a storm biding its time offshore. By the time I locked the register, my palms were damp, and my mouth was dry.
Normal had left the building with the last customer. I was the only one who hadn’t gotten the memo.
Like a shadow, he was with me as I turned off the lights and secured the front door. He fell into step beside me outside, silent, hand sliding into the small of my back like it belonged there.
Tonight was obviously one where he walked me home.
Some nights he insisted on driving me; other nights we walked. I never asked what made him decide which was which.
In a deceptively peaceful silence, we walked, our breath creating little puffs before us. It had slipped into November, and with it, a deep chill at night. With a shiver, I wrapped my scarf around my neck.
He took off his jacket and rested it over my shoulders.
“Maksim.” I paused, trying to shrug it off. “It’s cold. You need your coat. It’s not like I don’t have one of my own on.”
“Leave it. I’m fine,” he insisted, his tone brooking no argument.
I huffed deeply and a massive cloud briefly separated us.
Undeterred, he returned his hand to my lower back and, with light pressure, urged me to resume walking.
My block, like my porch, was lit by the kind of street lamps that couldn’t decide if they wanted to work, halos blinking in and out on wet pavement.
Better sense told me I should have told him to go. I knew I should have said goodnight at the door of the bar with the same brisk smile I used on drunks who didn’t know when to quit.
Yet I didn’t.
Finally, we reached my stoop. I turned, keys in my fist, biting into my palm like teeth. “You can’t keep showing up at my work like that.”
