St. Nacho's 4: The Book of Daniel Read online

  Jordan’s boss, Izzie, poked her head in. “You okay, Dan? I heard you got hurt.”

  “It’s fine,” I told her.

  She peered at me. “You don’t look so good.”

  “I never look good when I leave this place. I’m going to go home and rest up. I promise if it swells up more or if there are any other problems, I’ll go see the doctor, all right?”

  “Okay.”

  “What do you think?” Jordan asked Izzie. I thought that was odd at the time, because while Izzie is a lovely woman, as far as I knew she wasn’t a doctor.

  “Why are you asking her?”

  “Izzie’s a perceptive,” Jordan said before turning to her again. “What do you see?”

  “Zip.” She shrugged. “Which is really weird. I can count on one hand the times this has happened to me.”

  I looked up from where I’d been studying my hand. “I’m sorry. What are you talking about?”

  “Izzie sees auras.” Jordan announced that like he was observing the weather. Like, the sun is out.

  “Auras?” My face probably betrayed my disbelief.

  “As it turns out, I can’t read Dan at all.”

  “Really?” Jordan asked.

  She shrugged. “Dan is a blank wall.”

  Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing to be. I imagined if she actually could read my “aura” the news of what she saw there—my undeniable, foolhardy attraction to Cam—would circulate around the gym faster than athlete’s foot. I was only too happy to be her blank wall.

  “Okay.”

  Her lips quirked up in a tight smile, and I wondered if she knew what I was thinking. A second later, she left me without a doubt.

  “I wouldn’t be too happy about that, Mr. Livingston. What happens to a blank wall is anyone can write anything they want on it.”

  Chapter Four

  I woke up at just about three in the afternoon. For a minute I couldn’t remember why I’d been sleeping during the day in the first place, and then I remembered lying down to close my eyes after the collision at the gym. What a waste of the fat part of the day. It was unavoidable, especially on physical-therapy days. I would travel home half-sick and exhausted. Ready to settle onto the couch and read the paper for a few minutes, only to wake up hours later. The disorientation got to me at first, but I’d grown used to it.

  Three o’clock in the afternoon is just about the best time of day to have a word with Jake, so I headed over to his fledgling bakery, Café Bêtise. When I got there it was jumping, even though he and his business partner, Mary Catherine, had only opened the shop a couple of months before. I was gratified—but not very surprised—to see my faith in them was shared by the community. It stood to reason though; my brother’s an awesome pastry chef.

  My brother’s pal Muse waited tables—and held court—while other employees took orders at the counter. At this time of day Bêtise would be besieged by the hordes of hipster kids who liked to study there. I walked in, and there Muse stood, all five feet nothing of her, garbed as a traditional garçon de café—black trousers and vest, crisp white shirt, with a white apron wrapped twice around her tiny waist. I knew exactly why the boys and about half the girls hung out at Bêtise. I had a kind of a crush on her myself.

  “Is my brother here?” This week, her hair was black again, but I’d known her to wear it purple or blue. It fell from either side of straight severe bangs, sleek as an otter, over sharply chiseled cheekbones and curved under her jaw where it cupped her chin.

  “Who wants to know?” Muse prickled with piercings and attitude. At nineteen, she’d somehow become one of my brother’s best friends. She was competent, clever. Putting herself through school. I admired her a lot, but she scared me too. She had a frank, piercing gaze that saw uncomfortably beyond the obvious.

  “What did I do now?”

  Muse shot me a glare to let me know she might have heard about how I’d responded to Jake’s announcement the night before. “Way to support your brother, dude.”

  “Is this about them announcing their engagement? I was surprised, is all. I’m happy for them. I just… That’s something I never expected.”

  Jake spoke from behind me. “So naturally, you handled it like everything unexpected. Glue some money over it and hope it holds.”

  I hadn’t realized that he was beneath the counter, restocking the refrigerated cases. “I said I was sorry. I came to apologize some more. If you like, I’ll grovel. The sooner we get this done, the quicker you can tell me what you need from me, and I’ll get right on it.”

  “We have more fruit tarts in the back, Muse.” He rose, holding an empty sheet pan covered with sticky parchment paper. “What I need is for my brother to be happy for me.”

  “Okay, sure. But I’m in the middle of a divorce. Our parents are divorced. Everyone I know has been married and blown it, and frankly that’s what my first thought was. Oh, no. Here we go again.”

  He blinked at me. “That’s honest, at least.”

  “I don’t want to be honest. I want to say what you need to hear. But I don’t know what it is. You guys might make it. People do. No one I know but—”

  “Okay, now it’s time for you to stop talking,” said Muse

  “All right.” I almost raked my bad hand through my hair. More than once I’d forgotten and been sorry. “Maybe we could go for a walk and talk, all right? I know I’m not saying the right thing. I don’t know if I’m even capable of that. But I’ve got your back, you know that, right?”

  “I know.” He put the tray down and started to unbutton his chef’s coat. “I’ll go change, and then you can drive me over to the high school.”

  “What’s there?”

  “I’ve been unofficially helping out the soccer team, and they need a ref.”

  “Are you serious? Aren’t you just finishing up a full day’s work?”

  “I ref a couple times a week. I like it. It feels good to run around a little.” He took the tray and started through the door to the kitchen in back.

  “It’s your legs.” I turned to Muse. “Can I get a coffee to go?”

  “I guess.” She eyed me archly. I resisted the urge to rub my nose or check my fly.

  Jake stopped. “Want me to make you a sandwich or something to go?”

  “No thanks.” I hadn’t eaten lunch, but truth be told, I wasn’t often hungry after therapy. It’s amazing what chronic pain will do to your appetite.

  “Therapy day, huh?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ve got a little something, and I’ll throw it in a bag. If you get hungry, it will be there.”

  I nodded.

  Muse gave me a coffee; she’d drawn something on one of the little sleeves. Since she didn’t like me much I imagined it probably wasn’t the ancient sigil for Have a nice day. If I were feeling more energetic, I would have gotten out my phone and looked it up on the Internet. Someone, somewhere probably had a list of “stuff to draw on the coffee sleeves of people you don’t like.”

  Muse went off to wait on a table full of trendy boys with laptops and long eyelashes that fluttered like laundry on a line as she refilled their coffee. Was I ever that young? I couldn’t help noticing they were beautiful, the lot of them. Lean and strong, with long, elegant hands and big feet they hadn’t quite grown into yet. Their leader, made obvious by the way he slouched in his chair with his arms spread over the backs of his friends’ chairs and his legs splayed wide in a perfectly primal display of his sex, jerked a chin in Muse’s direction.

  I wondered what she wrote on his coffee sleeve. If it wasn’t at least the ancient runic symbol for fucking horndog, I’d feel singled out. It wasn’t a secret that Muse spent most of her free time with Minerva, the owner of a little bookstore called Rune Nation and Izzie, who owned my gym. Whatever Muse was getting up to in her occult studies, I figured it was mostly benign. I’d been calling the three of them the Witches of Westwick since I’d moved to town.

  Sometimes the interconnected nature
of the people who lived in St. Nacho’s made my skin actually itch, and it was usually then that I got in my car and left.

  “What are you looking at?” The curiosity of the alpha of Muse’s little pack of admirers had turned to me.

  Apparently I’d spaced out while watching Muse pour coffee, and his little tribe figured I was checking her out or something.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Jake originally described Muse to me as a “feisty marmoset” and we both felt absurdly protective of her. Maybe I was bristling because all that lean young flesh was sizing her up. One of them knocked a fork off the table, and when she bent to pick it up, they leered at her ass and nudged one another.

  I actually sputtered like some enraged father. “Knock that off, you—”

  “Back down. I can handle these monkeys.” Muse nudged me with her shoulder as she passed me. “I put something in their coffee. They won’t be able to get it up for a week.”

  This was met by a classic spit take by a boy in a white T-shirt with some bloodied video game zombie on it. While he was gathering napkins to wipe himself down, she grinned back over her shoulder at me.

  “Or I would if I only knew of such a thing.”

  Jake witnessed the last bit of that exchange and growled a warning. “Muse.”

  “All right, all right. I promise I won’t render the customers impotent.”

  “That’s all we ask.” He handed me a huge, doubled shopping bag that felt awfully heavy for a quick sandwich.

  “What have you got in here?”

  “Just some sandwiches and salads I made up earlier. Some bread and pastries. A piece of dulce de leche cheesecake and some bottles of iced tea.”

  “Enough for an army. I can’t possibly eat this much.”

  “That’s good, because it’s not just for you. You can share with me and the other refs, and we eat like the athletes we are.” He grinned. “It won’t go to waste.”

  “Thank you.” I hefted the bag and pushed through the front door. “Car’s this way.”

  Jake nodded and followed me. To get to the car, of course we had to pass by the firehouse. I noticed some of the crew out cleaning the truck, stretching and sweating in the midafternoon sun. I didn’t see Cam among them, but even as I walked by—trying not to search for him—I realized I could still hear him say Daniel in that velvety dulcet voice he’d used on me that morning and even the memory made me shiver.

  Who would have thought such an immense and vibrant boy-man could be so tender?

  A vaguely disquieting yearning was building inside me to investigate that further. Maybe I would, later—or maybe I wouldn’t.

  Things could get complicated quickly between me and a man like Cam.

  When Jake and I got to the car, he insisted that he should drive. I think he just liked to drive my car, so I flipped him the plastic electronic key.

  “Are you getting used to driving an automatic now?” he asked, once we got in.

  “I miss the IS F and its racing transmission. I miss zero to sixty in less than five seconds.”

  “That wasn’t a car. That was a gasoline-powered penis.”

  “I know. That accident emasculated me.”

  “Not from what I’ve heard.”

  “I was speaking metaphorically. Physically, not so much.” Recent memories made me own up to the truth. Not so much was an understatement. I admitted—if only to myself—I’d been enjoying a true free-for-all of casual sex.

  Jake started my new GS. It really was a gorgeous car. Deep sea mica blue with gray leather seats and bird’s-eye maple accents. It had all the bells and whistles. No one in their right mind would put on the pity-party hat while riding around in a machine like that, but I was so fucked-up I couldn’t get attached to it.

  “I think you may just be confused, Dan. You’re unhappy about your car because you think you have to be glad you kept your hand. And maybe what you really miss is—”

  “Thank you, Dr. Freud.”

  “Freud would have called your old car your compensatory penis and left it at that. You know I’m right. It’s okay to be angry, but you’ve chosen your battle unwisely here. Don’t take it out on this sweet honey of a car. It kills me. You don’t deserve her at all.”

  “And you do?”

  “I cherish her.” He teased. “She’s my preciousssss.”

  “You can wash her next time then.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ll wash her.” He leered at the steering wheel and started stroking it like a lover. “I’ll get her all soaped up and slippery and use my big, fluffy microfiber towel on her. That’s what I’ll do.”

  “You’re starting to creep me out.” I knew he was right. Well, not to anthropomorphize a car like that, but that I should be glad I had both my hand and a new car. My doctor thought someday I’d be able to drive a manual again. Maybe. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. Everything mattered. What I’d lost, how long it was taking me to recover. Everything.

  Simple, stupid skills I had never given a single thought to until it became necessary to use them, only to find that I no longer had them—like eating with chopsticks.

  “It’s taking a while to adjust, Jake. Sometimes it feels like I lose something new every day.”

  “The adjustments will bottom out. You’ll find yourself on an upswing soon. You’ll gain new skills and regain old ones. In the meantime, I’m here for you if need me to drive you anywhere. We could try looking for a doctor in New York if you aren’t entirely satisfied with the docs at Cedars in LA. I could drive you in your car.”

  I could always count on Jake to lighten a mood. “Thanks. We’re doing okay. Me and my Frankenstein hand. Still scaring the faint of heart with its patchwork appearance, but doing all right.”

  “It’s not that bad, you know?”

  “Sure,” I said, looking out the passenger window. I found it ugly. There were times I couldn’t even look at it. I flexed my fingers where I could see them and felt a familiar, sickening lurch in my gut. “I know. I’m grateful I still have my hand.”

  As we passed the intersection behind the gym, we heard the first wails of sirens behind us and pulled over to let fire trucks and the EMTs pull past.

  “That your man?”

  “Yeah.” Jake squinted after them. “He’s on shift. Cam too. I wonder what’s up. Something on the highway probably.”

  “Probably.” As we pulled into the parking lot next to the high-school field, we could still hear the sirens. “Do you ever give any thought to what they might be going into?”

  My brother flashed me such a look of contempt, it surprised me. Of course he did. I was stupid to even ask. The man he loved was in that paramedic unit, and they could be rolling into anything. I have to admit I’m a seriously self-absorbed fuck sometimes. If I loved someone like that I’d be holding my breath every time I heard the trucks pull out.

  “Of course you do. That’s JT out there. I wasn’t thinking of it like that.”

  “It’s time you did think of it like that. That’s what I’m asking of you. Fuck the ceremony, fuck the party, fuck whatever it’s going to cost. I’m committing to the man I love, and I need you to treat my feelings like they deserve to be treated. Like they’re real. Like they’re significant. If not… Don’t bother showing up.” He got out of the car and started marching to the field, leaving me to extricate myself.

  “Aw, Jakey.” I ran after him carrying the bag of food. “Yasha. Don’t be like that. I’m always the last person to arrive at these things. You know that. But I get there eventually. I get it. I do. I’m sorry.”

  “I know,” he said before he left me to join the team holding practice. He turned back around with a wry grin on his face. “Eat your dinner. Later I’ll explain emotions to you again, you sorry bastard.”

  I sat down on the bleachers and wondered what I was doing there. I’d originally gone to mend fences. Had I done that? Or made things worse? I peered into Jake’s bag with some notion of grabbing a bottle of iced tea, but as soon as I
did, I saw he’d carefully packed everything he knew I love to eat.

  There were containers of his special chicken salad, which he made with grapes and celery and I don’t know what all—crunchy bits of candied nuts and some elusive middle-eastern spice that elevated it to gourmet fare. He had some sort of sandwiches wrapped in parchment paper that I discovered were full of grilled vegetables and herbed goat cheese. I found a container of peppers and one of pickles. Each course was beautifully prepared, each thing wrapped perfectly so that it stayed that way.

  “Jeez, Jakey.” When I got out a fork and lifted that first fresh bit of chicken to my mouth, I realized he must have forgiven me before I’d even arrived.

  I looked up and found him watching me from the sidelines while the players did a dribbling drill.

  I waved, and he waved back, smiling.

  Fuck my hand. I was lucky I got to keep my brother. I had a feeling that if I focused on the most important outcome of our accident, I’d be just fine.

  My phone rang, so I got the earpiece from my pocket and answered it that way. “Livingston.”

  “Daniel, it’s Bree.”

  I hesitated before talking, because she wasn’t supposed to call me. Ever. She was supposed to call her lawyer, Jim Anderson, who had the spectacularly bad judgment to also be her lover, and he was supposed to call mine. “Yeah?”

  “It’s probably nothing, but I found a letter in the mailbox for you today. I wondered why it didn’t get forwarded, and then I realized it doesn’t have a stamp on it. Why the hell would someone drop it off?”

  “I don’t know. Who is it from?”

  “Anybody could have dropped this off, right at my door. Does this mean that one of your—”

  “I asked, who is it from, BreeAnna?”

  “There’s no name, it just says it’s private. Personal for you only. They obviously aren’t aware you don’t live here anymore. The only reason I haven’t turned it over to Jim is because you’ve been pretty fair. But if it’s something from a woman…or a-a man…and it proves you fooled around on me, I wanted to give you a chance to come clean.”

  More like you want another shot at controlling me. “Go ahead and open it.”