“Signature? I’m a professional, not some psycho with a hard on. If the job is done, it’s done. Are you looking for excuses to screw me over?”
“Believe me, I know.” Gill captured Davi’s fingers with his own. He found himself becoming earnest, although he hadn’t been planning to. “Idiotic clients aside, I used to think that the reason we didn’t work out was just a matter of not trying hard enough. Are there really things that some people are just not capable of?”
Her palm was rough, splintered from the wood she liked to work with when she wasn’t busy taking lives. She had skinny fingers but they were so strange, strong and warm. Bursting with vibrancy. There was so much to love there.
“It’s fine to make it my fault,” she shook away from his grasp. “You see, I actually hate men. Never quite been able to perceive your sort as equal–or rather—as being of the same species. Women too. In fact, I hate all humans.”
He chuckled. “That’s not entirely true, is it?”
Davi had long, dramatic eyelashes that swooped sideways like dove’s tails. She never wore makeup, hardly gave a hoot about showing a blotch here, a patch of freckles there. She was going gray. Slivers of silver had started streaking from her widow’s peak since she turned twenty three.
“I’m an old soul and you know it,” she’d once declared with a laugh. “See here, a testament to that fact.”
“I loathe them, but I also love them.” She finished her latte, licking her chocolate stained lips as if trying to dispel the bitterness of that last drop. That one tiny gestured evoked a flash of memories. Smoky midnight affairs. Sex by candlelight. Things to which–as her lover–he’d once presumed that he was entitled.
“I hate myself for being so foolish,” she muttered.
Maybe that bitterness wasn’t ever going to fade away. What exactly could he say at this point? Silence stretched on between them for a few more minutes.
“You intentions are good. It’s just that… I’m not.” She tossed him another careless smile, twiddled with both of their phones a bit before reaching into her pocket for a few bills. She set them on the table, didn’t bother to count. “That ought to do it. My half plus the tip, at least. That doesn’t mean you don’t need to leave a tip too, stingy boy.”
Davi’s soft laughter floated around him. She ruffled his hair–probably didn’t even realize she’d done it, and departed. She glided through the crowded restaurant like a ghost. No one else seemed to notice her presence. He picked up his phone, dialed a number from memory.
“She took the photo.” His listened for a few seconds. “No, that doesn’t mean she’ll take the job. She might. If she feels like it.”
“Yeah, she did.” Gill eyed the cubes of sugar she’d lined up on her napkin in a tidy little row. “Five,” he said. “Five million.”
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Tags: 1flashficdaily, dailydrabble, drama, flash fiction, taking lives, urban
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