Page 5 of Eastern Lights

“I’m sorry, what?”

“The way you’re looking at me makes it clear that I look like I got my ass kicked, which is…well, accurate. Did you see that?”

“Every second.” I wrapped my arms around my body and tried to ignore the slight chill that hit me. I needed to head inside before I got too cold. “For the record, Thor was a dick, and what you did was noble.”

He held his arms out and smirked. “Comes with the suit.” His smile disappeared for a moment as he lightly touched around his eye. “Though, in my mind, that situation was going to end differently.”

“Let me guess: in your mind, the woman was thankful for you saving her from an abusive man?”

“Yeah, something along those lines.”

I arched an eyebrow. “You aren’t from around these parts, are you?”

He laughed. “Does the accent give it away?”

“No, the fact that you tried to help in that situation did. Most New Yorkers keep their heads down and stay in their own lane.”

“I never was any good at that staying in my own lane thing. Plus, my mama would kill me if she knew I saw something as shitty as that and kept walking.”

I didn’t know why, but I liked the way he said mama. He really was a Southern boy.

“Well, I’m sorry that moment didn’t turn out like the fairy tales.”

“It’s okay.” He smiled. “Maybe next time it will.” His smile somehow seemed to make his eyes brighter than before. He brushed his thumb against his nose and nodded in my direction. “Thanks, Red.”

“Red?”

He gestured toward me. I glanced down at myself and rolled my eyes at my slowness. Right—Red, as in Little Red Riding Hood.

“Oh, right. Thanks to you, Cap, doer of good.”Doer of good? Could you sound any more lame, Aaliyah?

He kept smiling as his eyes traveled up and down my body, not in an invasive way, but as if he was simply taking note of me overall. It happened quickly, and I didn’t feel an ounce of disrespect, because my eyes had done the same thing to him.

Then his blues locked with my browns. “You think I can buy you a drink?” he asked, bruised eye and all. The amount of confidence it took for him to offer me a drink after I watched him get his butt kicked was inspiring. If it were the other way around, I’d be on the subway, licking my wounds and avoiding human interaction for the remainder of my life. Perhaps that was how my villain origin story would’ve begun—beaten up by Wonder Woman and Thor outside a New York bar.

But Captain? Nope. He still seemed as confident as ever.

I hesitated on the drink invitation for a moment. On one hand, interacting with the opposite sex was at the bottom of the barrel as far as things I wanted to do. On the other hand, my other option was going home, drinking wine, and crying as I played Taylor Swift and looked at old photographs of Mario and me while reading old text messages.

“Oh, Cap.” I walked over to him and patted him on the back. “Let me buy you a drink. You need it more than I do.”

2

Aaliyah

His drinkof choice was whiskey, which made me think he was a lot older than he looked. What guy my age drank straight whiskey? Most guys I knew were drinking beer or the cheapest shots they could find. My drink was a Long Island because I was a wild child. When I reached into my purse to pay for said drink, he’d somehow already had the bartender put it on his tab.

“Hey!” I argued, shooting him a stern look.

He shrugged. “Sorry. Where I come from, the man pays for the pretty lady’s drink.”

He called me pretty, and I pretended not to notice. “You came from like 1918, sir. Times have changed.”

“So you know your Captain America trivia.”

“I’m a comic book nerd. On top of that, I went through a Chris Evans phase—which, honestly, I’m still in.”

“I can’t blame you. Have you ever seen that man’s butt?”

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