Chapter 3: It’s not a date
The call to Marco was brief, stripped of his usual bravado. “I need a window. Derek. Keep him busy. Distracted. If you have to take his phone and drop it in the river, do it. I don’t want him able to dial a number for the next few hours.”
Marco’s sigh was audible. “You realize this is the opposite of low profile, right? This is making a problem brighter.”
“Just do it.”
“Fine. But you owe me. And not in the fun, criminal way. In the ‘buy me the good Scotch for a year’ way.”
At 2:57, Craig leaned against the sooty brick wall beside the coffee shop’s entrance, the city grit sticking to his tailored jacket. He ignored it. The knife graze was a dull, persistent throb, a reminder of stupidity and consequence. He watched the door.
At three o’clock exactly, it pushed open. Mya stepped out, pulling a thin cardigan over her shoulders. She turned left, toward the direction of her apartment, without looking his way.
“Car’s this way, sweetheart.”
She stopped. Turned. Her eyes widened just a fraction, as if she’d half-convinced herself he wouldn’t show. “Oh. You’re here.”
He pushed off the wall, a smirk playing on his lips that felt more automatic than genuine. “Come on. We gotta grab your dry cleaning.”
She hesitated, her fingers worrying the strap of her bag. “One hour. Then I really need to be home.”
“Perfect.”
His car, a low-slung German sedan the color of midnight, was parked in a loading zone two blocks away. He opened the passenger door for her. She slid in, the worn fabric of her jeans whispering against the butter-soft leather. The contrast was a physical thing in the air. He closed the door gently.
As he navigated the late-afternoon crawl, he kept his voice casual. “So what’s the vital mission? A suit? Something fancy?”
“Just his work shirts. Five of them. Starched.” She stared out the window at the passing storefronts. “It’s nothing.”
He nodded, his jaw tightening. “And you pick it up.”
“And drop it off,” she confirmed, her tone flat.
He nodded again, his hands flexing on the steering wheel. The words burned in his throat. I wouldn’t treat you like an errand girl. You’d never work a day in your life if you didn’t want to. You could sit in a library full of sunlight and read philosophy until your eyes went cross and I’d just bring you coffee. He swallowed them down. They tasted too much like truth, like a future he had no right to offer.
The dry cleaner was a cramped spot with flickering fluorescent lights. She insisted on paying, pulling crumpled bills from a small zippered pouch. She collected the plastic-shrouded shirts, carrying them like an obligation. He took them from her as they walked back to the car, his fingers brushing the cheap plastic. “Allow me,” he said, when she reached for the back door. He laid them across the back seat. They looked absurd there, like intruders.
“You hungry?” he asked, starting the engine.
“I should just go home.”
“You’re hungry. I saw you eat a granola bar at ten thirty. That was hours ago. There’s a place near your block. In and out. Promise.”
She relented with a small, almost imperceptible nod.
The place was a dimly lit Italian spot, all red vinyl booths and the smell of garlic and baking bread. It wasn’t one of his usual haunts; it was quiet, unassuming. They slid into a corner booth. For a while, the mechanics of the menu, of ordering sparkling water for her and an IPA for him, of discussing the merit of meatballs versus eggplant parmesan, created a buffer. The sit-down meal lulled him. She talked more about Indiana, about the specific silence of cornfields at night, about the comforting weight of her grandmother’s quilt. He listened, adding pieces of a sanitized childhood—family dinners, a stubborn man dog, skipping school to ride the subway to Coney Island—editing out the blood, the whispered threats, the constant weight of the family name.
She had ordered the spaghetti. A tiny droplet of marinara sauce clung to the corner of her full lower lip. He was in the middle of a story about the dog, a mutt named Benny, when he saw it. The words kept coming from his mouth, an automatic stream, but his entire world narrowed to that single, vivid spot of red.
Without thought, driven by a impulse more primal than any he’d felt in years, he reached across the small table. His thumb brushed her lip, soft as a petal, but it wasn’t enough. He leaned further, closing the gap, and swiped the sauce away with a quick, firm stroke of his tongue.
Time cracked.
They both froze.
The sensation exploded across his nerves: her skin was so soft, so warm, and tasted of tomatoes and salt and something uniquely, devastatingly her. His gaze, inches from hers, locked onto her eyes. The blue was staggering, a shock of aquamarine wide with pure, unvarnished surprise. The air between them vanished. He could feel the heat from her body, see the rapid flutter of her pulse in her throat. The noise of the restaurant faded to a distant hum. He wanted to kiss her. Not a swipe, but a claiming. He wanted to map the shape of her mouth with his, to chase the taste deeper, to erase every other man’s memory from her skin.
He saw the blush start at her collarbones, a warm tide creeping upward toward her cheeks.
Then a blur of motion. The waiter, a bored-looking kid with an apron stained with coffee, slid the black leather check holder onto the edge of the table between them. “No rush,” he mumbled, already turning away.
The spell shattered.
Mya jerked back as if burned, her chair legs scraping loudly on the tile floor. Her hand flew to her mouth, fingers covering the spot his tongue had touched. Her eyes darted from his face to the check to the exit, a trapped animal calculating escape.
“I…” she started, her voice a thin breath. She fumbled for her bag, her movements frantic. “I have to go. Right now.”
The word hung in the air, sharp and final. Before he could form a sound, Mya pulled out a ten and a five from her bag, slapped the bills on the table, and was out the door. He had to admit she was pretty fast, and now she was running away from him.
Craig stared at the money, the two bills lying atop the black leather. The sight was a punch to the gut. He was moving before rational thought caught up, his body a step ahead of his reeling mind. He threw a hundred down on top of her fifteen, the gesture violent and pointless.
He was out the door seconds later, the restaurant’s bell jangling wildly behind him. The late afternoon sun hit his eyes, harsh and accusing. He scanned the sidewalk, left then right, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. The flow of pedestrians was a blur of strangers.
Then he saw her, a flash of blonde curls half a block down, cutting across traffic against the light. A horn blared. She didn’t look back. Her cardigan flapped behind her like a flag of surrender. She was running full-tilt, weaving through the crowd with a terrified grace.
“Mya!” His shout was raw, swallowed by the city’s roar. He took a step to follow, but the pull in his side was a sharp, grounding reality. He couldn’t sprint after her. He’d look like a predator. He was a predator, and she knew it now. The truth of it, of what he’d just done, settled over him like a suffocating blanket.
He watched her turn a corner and vanish. Gone. The space where she’d been was suddenly, profoundly empty. He stood there on the sidewalk, people brushing past him, his breath coming in short, uneven pulls. The taste of her—tomato, salt, fear—was still on his tongue.
He walked back to his car, each step heavy. The dry-cleaned shirts lay across the back seat, a mocking testament to the normalcy he’d just incinerated. He didn’t start the engine. He just sat in the sudden, sterile silence of the vehicle, the ghost of her granola bar and sparkling water still lingering in the air.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. Marco. He ignored it. He rested his forehead against the cool steering wheel, the leather smelling of polish and his own expensive cologne. He’d scared her. He’d finally done the one thing he’d been pretending not to do: he’d shown her the monster beneath the charm. The carefully constructed facade of the harmless, wounded guy getting coffee had collapsed in a single, instinctive, stupid moment.
The phone buzzed again, insistent. He finally pulled it out. A text from Marco lit up the screen: “Derek’s phone is currently at the bottom of the Hudson. He’s having a very frustrating day at a very remote construction site. You’re welcome. How’s the date?”
Craig let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-groan. He’d bought the silence, and she’d fled right into it. He had no idea where she was going. Home, probably. To sit alone in her apartment, with Derek conveniently incommunicado, and replay what he’d done. To feel the ghost of his tongue on her lip and decide he was exactly what Derek probably said all city guys were.
He started the car, the engine purring to life with obedient power. He didn’t drive toward her apartment. He didn’t drive toward his own. He just drove, circling blocks aimlessly, a shark in a concrete ocean. He needed a plan, but his mind was a static hum. All he could see were her wide, shocked eyes, blue and deep as a fracture in ice, right before she ran.
All he could see were her wide, shocked eyes, blue and deep as a fracture in ice, right before she ran. The taste of her skin was a phantom brand on his tongue. He drove without destination until the streetlights flickered on, painting the asphalt in streaks of sickly orange.
His phone buzzed again. He grabbed it, his thumb smearing the screen. “What.”
“You sound like someone kicked your puppy,” Marco’s voice came through, tinny and far too perceptive. “Which, given your history, would be an improvement. What did you do?”
“I fucked up.” The admission was coarse, ripped from somewhere raw. He ran a hand over his face, the stubble scraping his palm. “I need her address. The apartment. Now.”
A beat of silence. “Craig.”
“Not to go there. Not to see her.” He took a breath, forcing the words into something resembling a plan. “The dry cleaning she paid for is in my back seat. She left it. I’m going to leave it at her door with a note. A note saying I’m sorry for… for being an idiot at the restaurant. That’s it. No visit. No talking. I just need to not give her another reason to hate me.”
Marco exhaled, a long, static sigh. “You’re sending me to watery graves for phones and now you’re playing apologetic delivery boy. The world is upside down.” Keyboard clicks echoed down the line. “Texting it to you now. It’s a walk-up on 4th. No doorman. Don’t do anything stupider than you already have.”
The address appeared. Craig stared at the numbers and street name, a tangible piece of her life he had no right to hold. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. Just don’t get shot by a paranoid boyfriend. I’m not stitching you up again.”
The call died. Craig pulled over under a broken awning, the shadows deep and concealing. He found a receipt in the glove box, the back blank. He clicked his pen, the tip hovering. His usual words were slick, empty compliments or crude demands. This required a different language, one he didn’t really know.
He wrote.
Mya –
I’m sorry about what happened. That was out of line. You ran, and you were right to. Your boyfriend’s things are here, clean and untouched. I won’t bother you again.
- Craig
It looked pathetic. It was pathetic. But it was clean. He signed his name, a messy scrawl, and folded the paper once. He drove toward her neighborhood, the buildings growing closer together, older. Her block was lined with dented garbage cans and the smell of fried food from a basement-level Chinese joint.
He found the address. The foyer door was unlocked, hanging slightly ajar. He pushed it open, the hinges whining. The hallway was narrow, lit by a single bulb with a dead fly inside. He could hear a television blaring behind one door, an argument in Spanish behind another.
Her apartment was 2B. He stood before the scuffed brown door, seeing the subtle scratches around the lock. He listened. No sound from within. Just the thump of bass from upstairs. This was it. The closest he’d let himself get.
He set the plastic-wrapped bundle of shirts down neatly against the doorframe. He placed the folded note on top, anchoring it with the loop of the hangers. He stared at it for a three-count, his own breathing loud in the silent hall. He wouldn’t touch her. He wouldn’t shit-talk the boyfriend waiting for these shirts. This was a retreat.
He turned and walked out, back into the neon smear of the city, leaving the apology and the clean laundry sitting in the dim light like an offering at a shrine he’d already defiled.
He didn’t sleep. The penthouse was a cavern of shadows that echoed with the memory of her running. He poured two fingers of whiskey, then abandoned the glass. He stood at the window for hours, watching the city’s lights wink out one by one until a grey dawn bled over the skyline. The ghost of her taste was a taunt.
He told himself the note was enough. A clean end. A strategic withdrawal. The debt paper in his safe was just paper. He could bury it, forget her face, let Derek sink or swim on his own. He almost believed it by sunrise.
At 7:15 AM, he found himself behind the wheel, driving routes he didn’t need to take. His hand ached. His side throbbed. He told himself he was just going for a drive. The car seemed to navigate itself to the familiar grimy block, its tires rolling over the same cracks in the asphalt.
He slowed as he approached the coffee shop. His eyes went immediately to the window, seeking the blur of movement inside, the flash of blonde curls behind the counter. The OPEN sign was lit. A customer walked out with a paper cup.
But the person at the register was the kid with the lip ring. The one who usually hid in the back. They were alone, moving with sluggish boredom. There was no one else there.
Craig drove past, a cold knot tightening in his stomach. He circled the block, his knuckles white on the wheel. Maybe she was in the back. Maybe she was late. He parked illegally down the street, killing the engine. He watched the door for twenty minutes. People went in and out. The kid with the lip ring served them all, their posture slumped and annoyed.
Mya never appeared.
The absence was a physical void. It screamed at him from the empty space behind the counter where she should have been. His mind spun through possibilities, each worse than the last. She was sick. She was hiding from him. Derek had found the note and the shirts and had done something to her. The last thought sent a jolt of pure adrenaline through his system, sharp and metallic on his tongue.
He was out of the car and crossing the street before he could stop himself, the bell jangling his entrance. The kid looked up, recognition flashing in their tired eyes. “Hey. You’re the bandage guy.”
“Where’s Mya?” The question came out rougher than he intended.
The kid looked at him. “Um, she called in sick? Did you want to order anything or?”
Craig’s mind blanked for a second, the words “called in sick” echoing in the sterile hum of the espresso machine. Sick. It was a mundane, reasonable explanation that did nothing to quiet the alarm bells shrieking in his head. He forced his hands to unclench from the counter’s edge, his knuckles pale against the Formica.
“Sick,” he repeated, the word flat. His eyes scanned the empty space behind the counter where her notebook usually sat. “What kind of sick?”
The kid shrugged, popping their gum. “Dunno, man. She just called. Said she wasn’t coming in.” They gestured vaguely toward the menu boards. “So, you ordering?”
The casual dismissal coiled something hot in his gut. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a low, controlled register that had made tougher men step back. “Did she sound sick? Or did she sound scared?”
The kid’s eyes widened, the lip ring glinting as they swallowed. “Whoa, hey. She just said she wasn’t feeling good. That’s all I got. You’re kind of freaking me out.”
Craig straightened, pulling a twenty from his wallet and slapping it on the counter. “Keep it. For your discretion.” He didn’t wait for a response. The bell jangled violently as he shouldered the door open, stepping back into the damp morning air.
Called in sick. The phrase played on a loop, syncopated with the memory of her fleeing figure. He’d seen real fear on her face yesterday, a raw, animal panic that had nothing to do with a head cold. Derek’s phone was gone, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t gotten home. He could have seen the note. He could have put two and two together with the dry cleaning delivered by a stranger.
The construction site distraction had a time limit. Derek would have made his way back eventually, to an empty apartment and a bundle of clean shirts left by another man. Craig’s note was a confession of guilt, a branded piece of evidence sitting right there.
His car was still parked illegally down the block. He didn’t get in. He started walking, his strides eating up the pavement, each step a hammer strike against his own rising dread. The city around him blurred into a smear of grey and noise. He passed the Italian restaurant from yesterday, the red vinyl booths visible through the glass, and the phantom taste of marinara and her skin flooded his mouth again.
He couldn’t go to her apartment. Not after the note promised he wouldn’t bother her. Showing up now would prove her every fear correct. But the image of Derek’s pinched face, his correcting hands on her waist, his dry, possessive kiss—it superimpose itself over the idea of her alone and “sick.” Silence was a luxury he couldn’t afford.
His phone buzzed. Marco. He answered without stopping. “Talk.”
“Talk.” Craig barked into the phone, not breaking stride.
Marco sighed, the sound heavy with static and something else—frustration. “Nothing. Derek got a new phone, stopped at Mya’s apartment last night, got his dry cleaning, then went back to his own place an hour later. He’s at work now, probably bitching about his lost phone. Mya’s phone was picked up at a CVS two hours ago. Didn’t use a card, so no idea what she got.”
Craig stopped walking. The flow of pedestrians parted around him like water around a stone. A CVS. His mind supplied a rapid, terrible inventory: antiseptic, bandages, concealer for a bruise. Morning-after pills. The last one hooked into his ribs and twisted.
“Which CVS.”
“The one on Grand and 7th. Near her place. Craig, listen to me. She bought something at a drugstore. She’s a grown woman. This is not an emergency.”
“She called in sick. She never calls in sick.” His own voice sounded strange to him, stripped bare. “He was at her place. After he got a new phone. You don’t see a pattern?”
“I see a jealous guy with a controlling streak doing his normal shit. I also see you spiraling. You left a note. You retreated. Stick to the plan.”
“The plan’s changed.” He was already moving again, cutting across the street toward where his car was parked. A taxi laid on its horn; he didn’t flinch. “Grand and 7th. I’m going.”
“To do what? Ask the cashier if she bought Midol or tampons? You’ll terrify her if she’s there. You’re proving Derek right about you with every move you make.”
Craig yanked the car door open, sliding inside. The phone slipped, juggled between his injured hand and the steering wheel. “I’m just going to see if she’s there. To see if she’s okay.”
“You’re going to stalk her in a fluorescent-lit chain store. Christ.” Marco went quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his tone was flat, final. “This is the line. I’ll handle the business, I’ll even handle the boyfriend. But I’m not handling you if you cross this line. You see her, you turn around. You do not approach.”
The call ended. Craig threw the phone onto the passenger seat. It clattered against the leather. He ignored it, pulling into traffic with a sharp jerk of the wheel. The drive was a blur of aggressive lane changes and red lights that felt personal. Grand and 7th. The CVS was a glaring box of white light squeezed between a bodega and a laundromat.
He parked half a block down, killed the engine. His heart was doing something hard and irregular against his sternum. He watched the automatic doors slide open, close. An old man with a cane. A woman with a stroller. No Mya.
He couldn’t sit here. The not-knowing was a physical burn. He got out, the door closing with a solid thunk that echoed in the dense air. He crossed the sidewalk, his boots scuffing against concrete littered with cigarette butts and faded lottery tickets. The automatic doors whooshed open, blasting him with air-conditioned chill and the artificial-clean scent of commercial floor cleaner and perfume testers.
He stood just inside, letting his eyes adjust to the relentless brightness. The aisles were narrow canyons of brightly packaged goods. He started moving, his gaze sweeping over the few shoppers: a teen looking at energy drinks, a man comparing foot powders. No blonde curls. No familiar cardigan.
He moved toward the pharmacy counter at the back, his pulse a dull drum in his ears. Maybe she was waiting for a prescription. The area was empty except for a pharmacist counting pills behind thick glass. He turned, scanning the feminine hygiene aisle, the pain relief section. Nothing.
Then he saw her.
She was in the last aisle, near the exit doors marked for the photo department. She stood perfectly still, staring at a shelf of vitamins. She wore a grey sweatshirt that was too big, the sleeves pulled down over her hands. Her hair was tucked under a dark beanie, but a few escaped curls gave her away. She looked smaller than she had yesterday, folded in on herself.
The relief that hit him was so profound it weakened his knees for a second. She was upright. She was whole. Then the details registered. The defensive hunch of her shoulders. The way her right hand, hidden in the sleeve of the sweatshirt, came up to press against her own lips, a subconscious echo of his trespass. She was staring at the bottles but not seeing them. She was just standing there, hiding.
He knew then. Derek had seen the note. He had gotten to her. The “sickness” was a cover for something else. The CVS purchase could have been anything, but her posture told its own story. It was the same closed-off, braced-for-impact stillness she’d had when Derek touched her in the coffee shop.
Marco’s warning was a distant echo. The line was already behind him, smudged into nothing. He took a step into the aisle. The flooring changed from tile to cheap industrial carpet, muffling his steps. She didn’t hear him. He was ten feet away, then five.
He could see the faint, yellowish bloom of a bruise peeking out from the edge of her beanie, high on her left temple, almost hidden by her hairline. Rage, cold and precise, solidified in his veins.
“Mya.”
She flinched so violently she knocked a bottle of B-12 gummies from the shelf. It clattered to the floor, spinning. She whirled, her eyes flying to his face. The fear in them was instant, a startled-animal reflex that quickly hardened into something worse: resignation. As if she’d expected him to find her here, as if her day couldn’t get any worse.
She took a step back, her spine hitting the shelf. “Go away.”
“What did he do to you.” It wasn’t a question. His eyes were fixed on that faint bruise.
Her hand flew to her temple, pulling the beanie lower. “Nothing. I’m fine. I’m just shopping. Please leave me alone.”
He took another step, closing the distance. He could smell the faint, clean scent of her soap over the store’s chemical smells. He could see the delicate tracery of blood vessels in the scared blue of her eyes. “The bruise. Tell me.”
“I walked into a cabinet door.” The lie was rote, thin as rice paper. “It was my fault. I was clumsy.”
“You’re not clumsy.” His voice dropped, a low thrum meant only for her. “He saw my note. He saw the shirts. What did he do?”