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CHAPTER SEVEN: BRASS TACKS - PART THREE
Harri had been hiding in the café’s restroom stall for far too long, spending nearly fifteen minutes just watching and listening to the many varied feet shuffle across the scuffed tile. She needed to leave. It wasn’t as if she could stay here all day. As it was, Azel might have already assumed she’d just ditched him and left.
Part of her hoped he had. She didn’t know how she was going to face him.
God, she was pathetic! So paralyzed by the fear of looking weak or useless that that was precisely what she ended up being.
She practically jumped at a knock on the stall door. “Sorry, are you almost done in there?”
“Yes!” she yelped, leaping to her feet and straightening her clothes. “Sorry; I’ll be right out. Sorry.” Still feeling shaky, she straightened her clothes before walking out of the stall and toward the sink.
“Finally!” the woman sighed before rushing into the vacated stall.
“Sorry,” Harri murmured again, even as the water from the faucet drowned out her voice. She knew she ought to check the mirror. Ought to at least try to make herself more presentable. But she simply couldn’t bear to look herself in the eye. So she snatched a handful of paper towels and headed back into the café.
Only to stop short, when she saw Nate standing in the empty walkway in front of the restrooms. She stiffened, debating if she ought to just head back to her stall.
“Harri!”
Too late. She fisted the crinkled, slightly damp paper in her hands. “What are you doing here, Nate?” Was he freaking stalking her?
Nate frowned, looking hurt at her accusatory tone. “You know I like the coffee here.”
He did. As a caffeine-fiend and a coffee snob, they’d come to this café often, when they were dating. Whatever. “Well, hope you enjoy it.” She tried to move past him, but he stopped her with a hand around her elbow.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly, “I know you need your space, but I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” He let go of her arm to duck his head down and shuffle his feet awkwardly in front of her. “It looked like you two were fighting.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake! Nate would have to be here for that, would have to witness her being — rightfully — chastised like some recalcitrant grade schooler. She clenched her jaw. “I’m fine. Great! We’re great. Everything’s great.”
Nate looked up at her doubtfully, knowingly. “I’m sure.” He tilted his head, placatingly. “But, if for whatever reason, you weren’t…” He shrugged. “I know we’re not what we were before, but you still mean a lot to me. And I hope you know that I’m always here for you, if you need me.”
She sighed and pressed her thumb against her throbbing temple. “Thank you.” The perfunctory, polite words felt like ash in her mouth. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I should be getting back.”
“To him.” The quiet, harsh words sent a sharp, apprehensive shiver down her back.
“Yes.” It hadn’t been a question, but she warily answered him anyway.
Her eyes widened as she saw his fists clench, his knuckles flashing white with the force. The sight, aggressive and angry, was so different from the sweet, easygoing man she’d thought she’d known. Something hard and almost hungry flashed in his eyes. “If you ever need me to, I’ll take him on. I’m not scared of a demon like him.”
That was it! She did not need another hotheaded protector on her hands. “No, you definitely. Will. Not.” She shoved a pointed finger in his face. “Do you hear me? I neither want nor need anyone picking fights on my behalf.” What the hell was wrong with everyone?!
“I’m just trying to look out for you, Harri.” He grabbed her hand with both of his, patting her soothingly, looking and sounding more like himself. But it was as if Harri could still sense that other side lurking beneath his easy smile. “You’re too nice for your own good. You need someone to—”
Furious, she snatched back her hand. “I need everyone to stop acting like they know what’s best for me and let me decide for myself.”
Nate frowned, his eyes widening with worry as they looked over her. “Are you okay, Harri? Really?”
Jesus Christ! “I am fine!”
His frown just deepened as he continued on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Because you’ve changed. And not in a good way.” He studied her, his lips pulled into a grim line. “You’ve become… mean, cold, distant;” he said with a sad sigh, “everyone thinks so.”
Harri stopped short. Had she? She thought about her actions over the past few days. The way she’d talked to — the way she’d behaved with — Azel. Maybe something was wrong with her.
“I think it’s because of him.” Nate gritted out that last word like it was poison on his tongue. “You weren’t like this before him. You were never like this with me. He’s changed you. Made you into someone else.”
Then why, when she was around Azel, did she so often feel more honest with herself, even when she didn’t really want to be? Why did it feel like Azel was the one person she could, for better or worse, just be with? Maybe it was because of the contract, or because everything between them was fake, but she didn’t feel like she needed to try so hard to fit with him, to impress or gain approval from him. She didn’t need to be on her best behavior, be the best, most helpful, most polite and fun and sociable and compliant version of herself. She could just be herself.
It was nice. Freeing. And she didn’t think she wanted to go back. Wasn’t entirely sure she could. So she leveled Nate with a cold stare. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.” Maybe no one did. And, with that, she pushed past him and headed back to the table.
But, just as she entered the café proper again, she froze at the heavy tension gripping the space.
“Ma’am, I need you to lower your voice—”
“My voice!” a highlighted blond haired woman with a severely tight and high bun practically shrieked. “I will not lower my voice. I came here with my daughter to pick up brunch after church, only to find a devil seated not six feet away.”
The poor, frazzled server held out his hands, straining to calm and contain the situation. “Like I said, your order is almost done; how about I get you a cup of coffee while you wait—”
“I don’t want coffee;” her shrill voice rang out, “I want this hellspawn banished back where it came from.”
“Ma’am—”
She slammed her hand on the table, making Azel’s body twitch before the bound wings clenched tighter against his back. Thrusting an accusing finger in his face, she wagged it like a crucifix. “I know what you are. With that face and those…” She waved her hand at the whole of him. “…wings. Tempter demon.” She sneered and spat the words at him. “I won’t let you lead my daughter astray.”
Azel gave the woman an irritated, confused look. “Lady, I don’t even know who your daughter is.”
The woman’s face flushed a deep, furious red. “She is a pure, innocent girl and I know what filth like you—”
That was more than enough! Harri strode to the table and stepped between the woman and Azel, forcing the woman to step back. “What is going on here?”
The woman, suddenly robbed of her big, dramatic moment, looked flustered as she took in Harri. This close, with the woman’s pastel pantsuit and fashionably understated jewelry, she looked like any one of the nice, well-to-do church ladies her mother and aunt liked to brunch with. Right down to the confused, disappointed look she gave Harri, for not behaving like a carbon-copy-to-be version of herself.
By all rights, she ought to be. Harri had grown up in this woman’s world. Had been raised by people just like her, who’d been raised by people just like them. Looking down at her own white linen, impeccably pressed shirt and perfectly pleated grey woolen slacks, properly paired with a simple strand of pearls, Harri knew there was a high probability the woman owned an almost identical outfit as hers. By all outward appearances, they were the same.
“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
The phrase came back to her, straightening her spine. Shooting the woman her mother’s most censorious stare, Harri crossed her arms over her chest. “Is there a problem here?”
The woman’s lip wobbled, the movement seeking, signaling the need for, sympathy in what certainly appeared to be an ally. “This— this— creature was threatening my daughter.”
Harri raised an eyebrow. “How so?”
The woman clutched the tastefully jeweled gold cross dangling at her throat. “We were just here to pick up our brunch order on our way home from mass and that thing tried to seduce her.”
Harri fought a disbelieving scoff. She knew Azel well enough to know that accusation was bullshit. She narrowed her gaze and repeated, “How so?”
“I pointed out where the restrooms were,” Azel grumbled behind her.
How very seductive. Harri tilted her head to glare condescendingly at the woman, whose flaming cheeks looked ready to combust. “And?”
The woman all but stomped her foot as her arm flew out to gesture at a cowering preteen in a pretty, cozy sweater dress who was trying as hard as possible not to be perceived. “His very presence is a danger to someone at such an impressionable age.”
Harri rolled her eyes as the poor girl shuffled her feet anxiously. “Forgive me, but the only thing your daughter seems in danger of is dying of embarrassment at her mother’s atrocious behavior.”
A collective gasp seized the café, even as it wheezed out in a few stifled giggles. The woman’s already stony, likely botoxed face steeled. “How dare you!”
“How dare you insult my…” Harri’s mind stalled a second as it searched for the right word. Friend? No, that didn’t seem right on a multitude of levels. Fake boyfriend? Accurate, but hardly appropriate. “…date,” she settled on, strictly maintaining her tone in the hopes that it would help mask the slight pause.
“Date?” The woman’s lip curled in distaste.
Another harried server rushed up to them with a large delivery bag. “Ma’am, I have your order now.”
The woman sneered and recoiled from the bag. “I don’t want that,” she snapped. “It could be contaminated.”
“By what?” the server asked, confused.
The woman motioned wildly at Azel. “Him.” She sniffed, disgusted, at Harri. “And his harlot.”
Harri stiffened, fury now overtaking her annoyance. “Excuse me?”
The first server grabbed the delivery bag and held it out to the woman, like a peace offering. “Why not take your order and—”
The woman shook her head. “I’m not paying for that.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ve been coming here for years; I’m a very loyal customer but, if I had known that you serve their kind here…” She sniffed indignantly. “I am never coming back again. And,” she added, this time actually stomping her boutique-bought, appropriately low-heeled shoe, “I want my money back.”
The server’s face fell as he continued to hold the bag out, as if in desperate hope it could somehow end this interaction. “Ma’am, it’s already made and, I promise you, we follow every health and safety guide—”
“I am not paying for that,” the woman insisted. “And I’m not leaving without getting my money back. I want to speak to your manager.”
“Ma’am, I am the manager on duty and I—”
“Great!” she snipped, turning all her attention on him, much to his dismay. “Then I want a full refund. After,” she added, with an imperious sweep of her hand, “those two are escorted out.”
“Us?” Harri scoffed. “We haven’t done anything wrong.”
The woman looked down her disapproving nose at Harri. “You are wrong.”
Azel grabbed Harri’s arm as he stood up next to her. “We should just go; we were pretty much finished here anyway.”
That wasn’t the point. Harri gritted her teeth. She was sick and goddamned tired of being pushed around and belittled by people who thought they were better than her. “You said you’ll leave after you get your money back?” Harri scoffed. “Of course that’s all you care about.” Leave it to rich people to think they could nickel-and-dime their way to dignity. “Fine! I’ll pay for it.” She dug in her purse and slapped her credit card down on the table with a loud smack that seemed to echo inside the crowded café. “If it means I — and everyone else in this restaurant whose day you’ve ruined — never have to see you again, it’s well worth the price.” She turned back to the woman and leveled her with a ruthless glare. “Now leave.”
She and the oh-so proper church lady glared at each other, frozen for a long moment before the woman huffed and turned on her heels. She gruffly collected her daughter, who was still sputtering weakly about breakfast and bathrooms, and hurried toward the door. As the woman pushed it open, she shouted over her shoulder at Harri. “Your mother should be ashamed.”
Harri cringed, remembering that Nate was probably still spying on her somewhere in the café. Her mother very likely would be. And Harri was sure she’d hear all about it later. Joy.
With a resigned sigh, she picked up her credit card, the action feeling silly after her grand, climactic gesture, before turning to the two servers. They jumped, their saucer-like eyes looking at her panicked, as if they thought she was going to yell at them too. She winced. Maybe she and that puffed-up woman in all her Sunday worst were more alike than Harri would like to admit. Swallowing hard, she forced a polite smile and a softer tone. “Let’s head to the counter, so you can ring all this up.”
The two nodded dutifully and meekly headed to the front of the store. As she followed them, she could feel the whole restaurant staring at her in utter and unbearable silence.
“You’ve changed. And not in a good way.” Nate’s disapproving words echoed back to her. “You’ve become… mean, cold, distant; everyone thinks so.”
What if everyone was right? What if she had been better before? When she’d bitten her tongue and just gone along with what other people wanted? When she’d always done what was expected of her and no one had been mad or worried or scared of her.
“Here you are, ma’am,” the manager murmured demurely, handing her a receipt. “I apologize for all that.”
Harri quickly signed the slip of paper before handing it over. “It wasn’t your fault. Add whatever tip you think is fair on the tab.”
The manager shook his head as he took the slip. “You don’t have to do that.”
“You deserve it,” she said, knowing it was the very least they were owed. She nodded to the other server as well. “Enough for the both of you.”
“Thank you,” the other server said with a slight yet still nervous smile. “And here,” he said as handed her the delivery bag. “It’s our brunch special; we’re famous for it. And you did pay for it.”
“Thanks,” Azel said, taking the bag from him. “I’m sure we’ll enjoy it.”
Nausea swirled in her stomach at the idea of food at this moment. And though she was sure her mood soured it, she smiled at the servers again. “Thank you.”
They simply nodded. No You’re welcome or Please come again. Not that she blamed them. She let Azel take her by the elbow and lead her out of the café, feeling suddenly drained.
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