“I have to treat you like a customer, Alani, because if I don’t, I start to wonder what you taste like,” his words were so frank and so erotic that it made her quiver. He was standing so close that she could smell the scent of his sweet breath mixed with his cologne. “My mind starts wandering to other shit that men think about when they find a woman they want to conquer. I’m all man, Alani; and since you walked in here the other day, with those sad eyes and those painted-on jeans, I’ve been thinking some shit I shouldn’t be thinking about you. I have my reasons why I can’t take it there. In a perfect world, you would have never walked into this shop. The fucking odds that you came in here on the one day I been here all month…” Ethic stopped and shook his head. His forearms stretched pass her head, as his hands rested on the door, trapping her in between him and it. It was a prison Alani welcomed. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, as he stared intensely at her, through her, directly into her soul. Damn, how did he do that? He made her feel something other than devastation. He saw more than the wreckage she had transformed into. This was the feeling she had wanted him to provide when she first walked in. “You and that lip,” he said, noticing. He noticed everything about her. It was how he had known she needed rescuing from her boss the other night. He had noticed. He picked up on things that others didn’t take the time to dissect. This mysterious, midnight-colored gangster was intuitive and a beautiful distraction from her real life. He had switched her focus from her grief with ease; but as soon as he took back his presence, the gift of diversion disappeared with him. That’s why she was there, stalling, delaying the moment when she would have to walk out the door. “You want me to fuck your pain away, and under different circumstances, I would oblige you because you’re lovely as fuck, but that’s not possible. I would just pile more hurt on you. You’re not crazy. We had a smooth time the other night. Normally, that would lead to something else, but this is a dead end. That’s why I’m treating you like a customer. I’m not the man you think I am. I’m not the good guy in your story.”

He opened the door and stepped aside, as he waited for her to exit, but she just stood there looking up at him. “Good night, Alani.”