Chapter 13 - Sunlight and Straight Answers
The daytime café on 4th Street smelled of roasted espresso beans and toasted rye bread. It was a modest, sunlit place with wooden tables and mismatched chairs, a far cry from the velvet-and-chandeier opulence of the restaurant downtown. I sat by the front window, nursing a mug of black coffee, watching the midday pedestrians hurry along the sidewalk against a brisk autumn wind. The bell above the door chimed softly, and the heavy draft of cold air announced Salvatore.
He had shed the formal black suit jacket, wearing only a charcoal vest over a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing the dark hair on his wrists and the heavy rings on his fingers. He spotted me immediately, threading his way between the small tables with an easy, natural grace that seemed to draw the quiet attention of everyone in the room. He pulled out the chair opposite me and sat down without a word, resting his forearms on the scarred wooden table.
"You look tired," he said, his dark eyes searching my face with a directness that made it impossible to look away.
"I had a long shift, and people like to talk," I replied, wrapping both hands around my coffee mug to absorb the warmth. "Brenda warned me about you. She said you bring heat into the dining room and that girls like me end up paying for it."
Salvatore didn't look angry; a slow, faint smile touched the corner of his mouth, though his eyes remained serious. "Brenda has a very active imagination, but she's not entirely wrong about the heat. My world isn't quiet, Tessa. People watch my movements, they look for leverage, and they make assumptions." He reached across the table, his fingers resting near mine on the wood. "I didn't come to your restaurant to start rumors. And I didn't wait outside your exit to play games."
"Then why did you?" I asked, keeping my voice soft but firm. "Why pay attention to a server when you have a hundred people bending over backward to cater to you in rooms I'll never even see?"
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"Because everyone in those rooms is acting," Salvatore said quietly, his gaze locking onto mine. "They say what I expect to hear. They smile when it's advantageous. When you stood at my table and used your hands to speak for your brother, you weren't performing for an audience. You were real. In my line of work, real is the rarest thing on earth."
I let out a slow breath, the last of my defensive walls crumbling under the absolute sincerity in his voice. I reached out, my fingers brushing the back of his hand, feeling the solid, unyielding warmth of him against the chill of the afternoon.
