They met at Wong Chi’s, the local bar down on 49th
street near the old, abandoned outhouse.
She was clearly distraught. Her auburn-copper hair fell in twists,
catching the light reflected off of the cherry-red floor. On her hip he noticed the bulge –
a gun.
“What
kind of woman carries a gun?”
She
smiled.
“One
on the run,” she said.
“Whiskey,”
she nodded to the bartender.
Whiskey? What a woman….*sigh,* he thought.
They sat on stools dressed in red and white checkers
and talked long into the night. He asked
her why. She broke a deal. Some men want her dead. His daughter drowned two years before Ming,
his wife, got cancer. Ming died last
year in the tulip garden. He wiped a
tear. She bled out her story of the
twisted web she was in. Without warning,
she lost her hardened exterior.
A woman crying.
With a beer. And a gun.
He wasn’t sure what to say. He fumbled for words. “I love you,” he said.
His face turned crimson. He started to leave, but her touch stopped
him cold.
She moved to face him, brought her smooth, vanilla
skin to his warm cheek and whispered against his lips, “I love you, too.”
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