I got dressed with my back to him and my hands would not stop shaking, and the concrete was cold under my bare feet the whole time.
Aurelio: There's a back door. Use it.
That was all he gave me. Not one word about what had just happened on his worktable.
The harbor air hit my face, and I could still smell him on my skin, clean suit and something warm underneath it.
My legs felt like they belonged to someone else, and every time I thought about the things I had said out loud, my face burned.
Hugo was waiting outside my shop with his hood up and his knuckles bruised, and one look at my face told him everything.
Hugo: Where were you?
Veda: I brought a chair back. That's all.
Hugo: Bullshit. You went to Aurelio's.
He said the name like it was something he found stuck to his shoe.
Hugo: Stay away from him, Veda. I mean it.
Veda: I'm twenty-four, Hugo. You can't tell me who to talk to.
Hugo: I don't care if you're a hundred.
He stepped in close and dropped his voice, the way people on our street did when they didn't want the walls to hear them.
Hugo: He isn't a man you say hi to. He owns things. Debts. People. Me.
Hugo: If he decides he wants something from you, you don't get to say no. That's not how it works with him.
Veda: You owe him money. I don't owe him anything.
Hugo: That's the thing about a debt. It doesn't stay where you put it.
He rubbed his face with both hands, and he looked so tired that my chest hurt for him even while I wanted to hit him.
Hugo: I dragged you into this. So I'm the one telling you. Stay away from him.
Then he walked off and didn't look back, and I stood in front of my shop feeling small and stupid and hot all over.
That night I shook out my apron and something metal knocked against the wall and landed on the bed.
A lighter. Heavy and silver, still a little warm from being next to my hip all day.
It was worn smooth at the corners, like it had lived in a pocket for years, and I knew whose pocket before I even turned it over.
Veda: I'll give it back tomorrow.
I said it out loud to an empty room, which meant I already knew I was lying.
I should have dropped it in an envelope and sent it back. I should have walked it down to the harbor and thrown it in the water.
Instead I sat there and thought about his hand on it, his thumb on the wheel, and my face got hot in that ugly way that comes with wanting something you're not allowed to have.
Hugo's voice kept saying stay away, and it was not even loud enough to cover the other thing.
The other thing was the way Aurelio said my name. Like it was a fact he already owned.
I put the lighter under my pillow and lay there in the dark with my hand on it, and I told myself I would give it back.
I told myself a lot of things that night.
I woke up still holding it, and I was not sure I wanted to be protected anymore.
I was sure I wanted him to look at me like a woman instead of his friend's little sister, and that scared me more than anything Hugo said.