✔️The Greaser and the Skirtchaser [18+]

46. The Warmth of Her Hand

TW: suicidal themes

Another three months floated past, and they landed in a mild April. The shop was starting to make a better profit now, and everyone could relax. Everything was calm. Idyllic.

Blake was helping zietta wash dishes while Jenny and aunt Mina were polishing off a bottle of that crazy wine someone kept bringing. They'd gotten along great, which was good since Jenny had been anxious to make a good impression on Bianca's mom who seemed to love that Jenny was the picture of class. Everyone else was sprawled on the couch passing around embarrassing stories about each other.

"Vance told me something quite strange the other day," she began out of the blue, cutting right through a tune she was humming. "Very strange."

"What'd he say?" Blake took a plate and wiped it dry.

"He said he wanted to buy cherries and mascarpone from the farmer's market." She handed him a bowl. "I asked him why he was buying cherries if he didn't like them. He said he was making a new dessert to have Monday night with you."

He didn't quite follow. Vance made things all the time. Especially sweets. "Is that strange?"

She smiled at him. "I asked the topolino what he was going to do with the mascarpone—it's cheese, you see—" she laughed "—and the cherries. Was he going to make a cherry cheesecake? What is it?"

Blake smiled and figured she just had too much wine. He stacked the plate away.

"He told me he was using the mascarpone to make tiramisu on Monday night, and then he was going to use the cherries for little tarts on Tuesday afternoon!" She just cracked up, she found it all so funny. "Dai! What a man! Baking every day!"

He chuckled. "He's pretty good, zietta."

"Tell me, do you like sweets? Tell me."

"I do."

"Quite a lot?"

He laughed. "Yes. I have a sweet tooth."

Even though they were in the middle of a conversation, zietta quit talking like she was suddenly thinking about something else as she washed up the last cup. He would ask what she was thinking about, but she turned quickly to pat him back toward the party. "There's no more to do. Go on!"

After getting shooed from the kitchen, Blake looked out on the bunch of them guffawing at how Vin was crying about a cockroach attacking him when he was twelve. They were all having a riot of a time. It would be easy for Blake to find room on the couch with them if he'd asked Danny to move his feet, and it would be nothing for him to ask for funny stories about Vance, and it would only be natural for them all to jump to tell him first. Blake watched that scene play out in his head, but it only felt odd.

It was much more comfortable to go to the front door to smoke by himself.

The air was still kind of sweet and damp from some rain. He leaned against the wall and pulled out his smokes. He opened them and found that they were all replaced with suckers. There was a note inside in Jenny's handwriting that said, "Stop rotting your lungs with this crap". He chuckled and popped one in his mouth.

He was standing there for a while, trying to figure out when Jenny had swiped his smokes, but he saw a little green coupe pull up to the sidewalk. Blake only squinted at the car for a second before recognizing it, and his blood turned to ice. Before he knew it, he was walking out to meet the dark figure stepping out of the car, drawn out like a moth to some awful flame.

The man stood there, leaning against the car, just watching Blake approach. His usually clean-shaven face was stubbled, and his blonde hair was unkempt instead of neatly styled. He was wearing a dress shirt and red tie with the sleeves shoved up haphazardly. Steve reached into his pockets and pulled out a smoke. "Spare a match?"