Love Beyond Words (City Lights, #1)(17)
“Girl, forget that freak,” Liberty screeched. “He’s either a serious closet case or he’s stringing you along. Either way, he’s no good.”
“No good?” Natalie twisted the rag in her hand. “How could you even…? He’s more than good. He’s wonderful. You have no idea. I mean, there can be…levels between meeting a guy and…and sleeping with him.”
“Not this many levels,” Marshall muttered.
Liberty crossed her arms, the tattered black sleeves of her dress billowing and then settling around her. “You’re deluding yourself over something that’s never going to happen and I don’t think it’s healthy.”
Natalie met her friend’s eye, struggled not to look away. “Funny. I feel as if I could say the exact same thing about you.”
Liberty colored under her pale make-up.
“Now, ladies,” Marshall intervened. “Kiss and make up before the claws really come out and someone gets scratched. Namely, me.”
“Come on.” Liberty tugged Marshall’s arm. “Let’s go.”
Marshall made an imploring face at Natalie but she just shook her head. He let himself be dragged out of the café, miming “I’ll call you.”
Natalie watched them go, her hands shaking and tears stinging her eyes. She attended to her customers and waited for Julian to come. He never did.
#
Julian’s absence stretched into days. Natalie wanted to be angry but she reminded herself she had nothing to be angry about. He owed her nothing. He could come and go as he pleased, no explanation needed or required. Despite their intimate conversations, he was, for all intents and purposes, just a customer.
Natalie wondered if Liberty (with whom she made up the moment Liberty recovered from her Halloween hangover) had been right after all. Perhaps Julian was already in a relationship. Or that he was toying with her. Neither notion felt true; he never spoke of another man or woman in his life, and he seemed to enjoy her company. But even friends exchanged numbers, socialized outside of work. Maybe we’re not even that.
She cursed her own weakness. Jane Austen’s heroines were more progressive than you are, she thought. Take the initiative!
It was a slow night and Natalie was reading behind the register when Julian returned. He was dressed impeccably, as always: a wool coat over a black cashmere sweater and stylish jeans. She quailed at the idea of putting him on the spot, but there was a dearth of equilibrium between them that needed to be remedied.
But instead of sitting him down and having a serious conversation about what—if anything—was between them, the night progressed as it always had. He wrote furiously for two hours and then they shared a pastry while chatting about everything under the sun except for them.
For the first time, Natalie began to fear that them was nothing.
Chapter Eight
On the fifteenth of November, Natalie came into the café a few minutes early for her shift. Niko was at a table, laughing and talking loudly with a customer. She waited, shuffling her feet and tapping her fingernails on her teeth until he was finished.
“Natalia! Such a good girl!” Niko took her cheeks in his thin, tough hands and giving her a playful shake. “I was hoping to sneak out a bit early to get Petra a bucket of flowers? She tells me I’m no romantic. Pfft. I go, yah?”
“Yah…uh, yes. As soon as you say yes to my request.” The smile on her face was so plastic she could practically feel it try to slide off.
“Uh oh.” Niko’s exuberance dimmed. He crossed his arms over his apron. “You have that look on your face. That one you wear when you don’t want me to worry. And you know what it does? It makes me worry.”
“You don’t have to.”
Niko rubbed his chin. “Mmm. Well? What is this request? That you work sun-up to sundown? Until you drop from tiredness? Eh? Is that what you want?”
“Yes,” Natalie said. “I have four days off from school around Thanksgiving, and I have practically the entire month of December off.”
“Natalia…”
“I’ll take as many double-shifts as you’ll give me. Let Sylvie and Margo take whatever time off they want. And you can take Petra somewhere on a romantic vacation and prove her wrong.”
Niko sighed. “The holidays is hard for you, I know this. But Natalia…”
“Just say yes, Niko. Please.”
“Maybe I don’t want to say yes, eh? Maybe I want you to have Christmas with us. And Thanksgiving too. Come on! Greek-style! We’ll have homemade spanokopita, some paidakia—grilled so nice—and tzatziki instead of stuffing. All your friends be jealous...”
Natalie braced herself against his generosity, arms crossed over her chest, eyes cold and unblinking. She felt herself leaning towards him, longing to be engulfed in his fatherly embrace. Impossible. She’d start crying and wouldn’t stop and then Niko would be late for his date with his marvelous wife.
Niko wilted. “Okay, you win. I’ll have Petra write up the schedule and post it next week.”
“Thank you, Niko…” Natalie began but the kind man gently took her chin in his hand and tilted her face to his.
“I do this for you, Natalia,” he said, “for the last time. Next year, you eat with friends or you eat with us. And Christmas too.” His smile was sad. “This pain in your heart stays so long, my girl, because you are holding on to it so tightly.”