The bottle came through my shop window at two in the morning.
The flame went up the curtains like it had been waiting all night.
I got out in my apron with the smoke in my mouth.
My bench was still in there, with my tools and my glue pot.
Half the street stood out in coats to watch it burn.
Hugo: Veda. Are you hurt?
Veda: My shop.
Hugo: Fuck the shop. I'll kill whoever did this.
He said it loud, and the crowd moved like it does when Aurelio walks through it.
Aurelio: Who was inside?
Veda: Nobody. Just me.
He crouched and took my hand, and there was a red burn across my palm I never felt.
Aurelio: You told me you would keep her out of it.
Hugo: I did. I did everything I could.
Aurelio: She's out in her apron with her shop on fire.
Aurelio: That's what everything looks like.
Hugo: Don't. Not in front of her.
Aurelio: Then tell me where she sleeps tonight.
Aurelio: Say it out loud so she hears.
Hugo's face came apart in the light of my own burning bench.
Hugo: Not with me. My place is watched.
Aurelio: She comes above the chandlery.
Hugo: No.
Aurelio: Look at the fire and say that again.
Hugo put both hands over his face and said it plain.
Hugo: I can't protect her. You take her.
Hugo: But you keep your fucking hands off her. I mean it.
Aurelio: She's not a package I'm holding for you.
Aurelio: Ask her. She's standing right there.
Both of them turned to me, and for the first time all night I felt like a person.
Veda: I'll go. My shop is on the street, Hugo. Where else am I going to sleep?
The stairs above the chandlery smelled like rope and soap.
His hand stayed at my back the whole way up.
One wide room, a bed in the corner, harbor lights in the window.
It smelled like his suit and clean wood, and my smoke got into it.
Aurelio: Bathroom's through there. Shower. You smell like a chimney.
Veda: I don't have clothes.
Aurelio: There's a shirt on the hook. Put it on and come back out here.
I came out in his shirt with my hair wet down my back.
He turned around, and his eyes went down me slow.
From my wet hair to the hem of his shirt, and they did not stop where a man's eyes stop.
My face went hot.
Something lower than hot turned over in my stomach.
So I looked back, then dropped my eyes to the floor like a thief.
Aurelio: Don't do that. I saw you looking, and I'm still standing here.
He crossed the room and stopped close enough to see the harbor light on his jaw.
Aurelio: You want to be looked at, that's one thing.
Aurelio: But don't look at me and then act like I disgust you.
Veda: I'm not disgusted.
Veda: That's the problem.
My voice came out wrecked, and he did not laugh.
His thumb touched my jaw once and turned my face up so I had nowhere to put it.
Aurelio: Nothing about you disgusts me, Veda.
Aurelio: That's not the part I'm worried about.
Aurelio: That's the part.
He stepped back like it cost him something and locked the door.
Aurelio: Bed's yours. I'll take the chair.
Veda: You can't sleep in a chair.
Aurelio: I've done worse for less. Go to sleep.
My shop was ash, and in his bed, in his shirt, all I wanted was that look again.