July (Calendar Girl #7)(16)
“You’re it for me. I can’t work with anyone else.”
“And I can’t be your assistant any longer.”
He grimaced. “You’re not my f*cking assistant. True, you handle me but you handle everything! What do you want from me? Just ask H, and it’s yours. I can’t go where I want to go without you there by my side.”
Maria nudged me. “Are they f*cking?” If I didn’t know better I would have assumed the same thing. I shook my head. “Maybe they should be,” she remarked.
“Nah, its sibling rivalry. Kind of like a fight with your BFF. Do you have any friends?”
A huge grin lit her face and made her impossibly more pretty. Bitch. I wanted to hate her, but she was way too cool and had proved herself a force to be reckoned with. She was also utterly professional on top of being good at what she did. “Three soul sisters. Those bitches own me. Drive me absolutely loco. It’s like that, only these two have never told one another of their importance. We’re seeing the aftermath of that error.”
Her lips formed a silent “O” as we continued to watch the smackdown. Unfortunately, it ended all too quickly with Heather storming off and slamming the condo door. Damn, I must have missed the good part.
“Shit!” Anton yelled. “Terca puta mujer!” he added.
I looked at Maria. “I think that’s our cue.”
She nodded. “When a man is hollering about a crazy stubborn woman, it’s best that we don’t get in the way of him letting off that steam.”
We tiptoed silently out of the kitchen and left the condo. We were both staying in one of the furnished apartments for guests so we got out at the same floor.
Maria went one way and I went the other. “Hey,” I called out to her.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think I’ll be able to do the job well enough?”
“Of course you will. You’ve got me to teach you.” She winked, opened her door, and waved.
***
The engine rumbled underneath my bum as I pulled out of the garage and onto the streets of Miami. Anton rode the Icon Sheene. The bike was black with chrome accents. He wore black jeans, a white t-shirt and a black leather jacket. I rocked my own pair of Lucky Brand jeans that were well worn and soft in all the right places. Namely the ass. The junk in my trunk looked damn good in these jeans, and I knew it. My hair was braided and tucked into the leather jacket I wore over the top of a red, white, and black, White Stripes concert tank I’d gotten when Ginelle and I caught their show in Vegas back in the day. “Seven Nation Army” is still one of my favorites.
I sat on the KTM Super Duke, tricked out in orange and black. It hummed between my thighs caressing my sweet spot better than a lover could. There was just something absolutely beautiful and freeing about riding a bike.
Anton made hand gestures leading me through the city of Miami and South Beach. At red lights, he’d tell me brief tidbits about different sections.
“This is where the locals and tourists shake their culos.” He pointed to a never-ending stream of clubs down Washington Avenue. We then traversed our way down Collins Avenue where he pointed out the many restaurants and hotels.
Of course, we rode down Ocean drive. One side was all boxy art deco styled buildings that Heather had pointed out when I arrived almost two weeks ago. The other side was a vast span of grass dotted with palm trees all the way up until the grass met the sand and then nothing but ocean.
We stopped at a tourist and local haunt called Gelato-Go. I’d never had the stuff but Anton swore by it.
We entered the small café, looking a bit out of place. I think that worked best for Anton because he was usually so recognizable. He wore his sunglasses inside and didn’t take them off. I pushed mine on top of my head to survey the options.
“So, gelato is like ice-cream?”
He nodded. “It is. Italian-style ice cream, only it’s not made with traditional cream. It’s made with milk. It’s also churned far less leaving it with little air in it making it seem more dense. I prefer it because the flavors are more robust, and it’s healthier.”
I scanned each option. The chocolate seemed far too dark making me think it would end up tasting like the bitter ass cannoli’s you get in Italian joints. Blech. I hated cannoli’s.
A wiry, thin fella approached me. His hair was high and slicked back in a very stylish way. He wore a shirt that said, “Gelato-Go, Fresh every day, healthy, light, low-fat, delicious and creamy.” The name tag he wore boasted “Fresh Francesco”, and although he could very well be Italian, it was hard to tell one way or the other.
“Bella signora, how may Francesco help you today?” His accent was definitely Italian. That solved that mystery.
“I don’t know. My friend here”—I pointed to Anton who looked more like the terminator than his alter ego Latin Lov-ah—“said your gelato was to die for. Since I’ve never had gelato before, what do you recommend?”
Fresh Franny grinned manically. “Oh, signora, you are going to love everything. We make fresh every day, homemade, and with less sugar and no fattening cream. You be keeping that body for years to come eating our treat!” he promised and I laughed.
I pointed down to the green one that had flecks of things in it. “What’s that?”
“Oh, good choice. Our very famous pistachio. We ship the nuts in from Sicily to make ours extra special.”