Downtown Devil: Book 2 in series (Sins in the City) (2 page)

Clare dug her laptop from her bag and opened it before her, waiting for the Wi-Fi to kick in.

“Isn’t it kind of insulting?” her roommate, Bree, had asked when she’d told her about the show’s premise. Bree was the whitest thing since marshmallows. “I mean, what if someone gets offended?”

“Why would they?”

“I dunno. Because,
So, What Are You?
It sounds kind of pushy. Kind of rude, like, who are you to demand they label themselves?”

“The title’s ironic. It’s not meant to be political or anything—it’s just about faces. Interesting, unusual faces that you can’t just neatly classify, or make snap judgments about their owners.” Clare had shrugged off her roommate’s worries, or perhaps pretended to. In the wake of asking a new person about modeling, those questions always nagged at her, even if she’d yet to offend anyone.

A shadow moved across her keyboard and the tabletop, another patron passing by.

Or not.
Clare sat up straighter as the hot barista skimmed between the tables and pulled out the chair opposite her. She closed her laptop, crossed her arms on the wood before her, and let her smile tell him she was curious what had brought him over. He set a mug
down, then mirrored her—only his smile wasn’t merely friendly, like hers, but something else. Something sharp. The sunlight struck one side of his fascinating face, making her ache to whip her camera out and start shooting.

“Hello again,” she offered.

“I’m on a break.” His voice was smooth, not too deep, but soft and masculine. The sort of voice you wanted right at your ear, saying all the right things to make you blush. “So, tell me about it. Your event.”

Guess we’re jumping right on in, then.
“It’s a portrait photography exhibit I’ve proposed to a local gallery. Pictures of people I meet around Pittsburgh.”

He reached into his back pocket and withdrew the postcard, folded lengthwise. He flattened it and held it up. “
So, What Are You?
” he read, expression changing, smile dropping away. “Meaning what, exactly? That people owe you an explanation for how they look?”

Ah, fuck.
This was bound to happen eventually. Too bad it had to be the superhot guy that Clare wound up offending. Dread left her stomach sour and empty, but she smiled, spoke mildly.

“Yes and no. It’s a question I’ve gotten really sick of hearing myself. Like I meet someone at a party, and two minutes into knowing me they’re like, ‘Okay, so explain to me what I’m looking at—’”

“And so you see me and you think, oh, I bet he’s heard that same stupid question all
his
life, so he’ll probably want to be a part of my little guessing-game art project. Something like that?”

Clare winced, probably visibly. “Listen,” she said, keeping her tone even and reasonable—her work voice. “I didn’t mean to offend you, I promise. I’m sorry if I have. I just . . .” She stopped, arrested when his mouth split into a broad grin. “I was . . .”

“I’m just fucking with you,” he said, eyes crinkling. His smile
was like nothing else, sly and easy, drenched in mischief. It did little to ease Clare’s nerves or still her racing heart.

She sank back in her chair. “Jesus. That was mean.”

He laughed. “Sorry. And seriously, I’m interested. Tell me more about it.”

She grabbed her mug just to have something to hold, feeling upended by this man. Not unpleasantly so. “Like I said, I’ve been getting that question my whole life.”

“So, what are you?” he prompted.

“My mom’s black and my dad’s white.” So white she’d been named for a county in Ireland. “But people have no clue at first, and it, like, stresses some of them out, I think, not being able to pin it down. Like they don’t feel as though they can get to know me until they know
that.
”

“Until they know what their shorthand is for your experience,” he supplied.

She nodded. “Exactly. I don’t even find it offensive—or not usually. Not unless you get that vibe, like they think you
owe
them an explanation. I think usually it’s innocent, like people are just nosy, or they want to understand you. Want to try to relate to you. Or maybe some of them want to know so they don’t offend you somehow. Which is a little off-putting,” she added with a frown, “to think they might treat you differently, depending on what your answer is.”

“I feel you.”

“I can show you my Web site,” she said, opening her computer. “There’s only a few shots so far, but it’ll give you a sense of the project.” She clicked on the tab and swiveled the laptop to face him.

He shielded the screen from the sun with his hands, eyes skimming. “These are amazing. Especially the yoga one. Jesus.”

“Thanks. I need another five shots to secure the show. Then ten
more by the end of the summer to put together the final collection. If I get it, it opens the last Friday in August.”

He turned her computer back around, crossing his arms atop the table once more. Goddamn, but that boy’s stare could boil lead. His tattoos were tribal, but not the sort that meatheaded white dudes favored. Intricate and latticelike, almost floral. One arm had just a band around the biceps, but the other side was a dense half sleeve. Both were black ink only. They reminded Clare of Buddhist mandalas, old slides from her art history lectures flashing across her memory.

“So,” she said, turning her mug around between her hands, feeling hot and flustered and hopeful and awkward. “Can I ask what you are? Aside from a ballbuster who just about gave me a heart attack?”

Another of those intoxicating smiles. “My father was black and my mother was Malaysian.”

Malaysian. That probably explained the designs on his arms. And he’d mentioned both his parents in the past tense, but it was far too soon to pry. Too soon, when they didn’t even know each other’s names.

“Now that I know which stereotypes to filter you through,” she teased, “I ought to tell you, my name’s Clare.”

“I know. It was on the flier.”

“Well, yours isn’t on your lapel.”

“It’s Mica.” His shake was firm, his hand dry and slender and rough. He wore thick silver rings on two fingers, and the metal was warm. She let that hand go with some hesitation.

“I’m not from around here,” he said, “if that matters. If the show’s supposed to be about locals or anything. I’m only here until September.”

That’s a shame.
“No problem. So, what brought you here?”

Mica sipped his drink. “My best friend’s from here. His roommate bailed in the middle of their lease, and I was sort of couch surfing back home, so I figured, why not come east for the summer?”

“East from where?”

“Los Angeles.”

“Wow—about as far as you can come from. That must be a change of scenery.”

He shrugged. “It rains a lot more here.”

“I’ll bet. So, do you think you’d be willing to let me shoot you?”

“You ask that way more politely than they do back in LA.” He smiled. “You have a studio or something?”

“No, I’m hoping to show people in their natural environments, you could say. Like the sample shots you saw.”

“So people at work? Did you want to get me here?” he asked, nodding toward the counter.

“I could. Or if you have a hobby, I could photograph you doing that.”
Or just naked in my bed or whatever.
“I want to capture people doing the things that most define them. Or maybe the things that most
fulfill
them—that’s a better word.”

“Well, espresso jockey’s not exactly my life’s ambition, and my hobby takes me out of Pittsburgh.”

“Oh?”

“I do free-climbing. Usually out in the Southwest.”

“Wow.”

“It’s how I met my best friend,” Mica said. “When we were teenagers, we were both part of this program that took boys from rough backgrounds and threw them into nature and shit.”

“Really? That’s kind of awesome.”

He nodded. “Backpacking and survival skills, rafting, climbing.
Complete culture shock, if you’re from where I am. Like, the air’s too clean and the sky’s too big and the night’s way too quiet. But that was kind of the idea. It’s a great program. Got me hooked. I did it for three weeks in July, every summer break for three years. After that you’re too old, but my friend and I still meet up and do a climbing trip every year.”

“Believe me, I wish I could shoot that.” And how. She eyed his shirtsleeves, now wondering what sort of shoulders they hid. “But I am trying to keep things set in the city. So I could photograph you here, or where you’re staying. Or even around town, on the street—wherever you feel most at home in your skin, I guess. Oh, or at a climbing gym, maybe? Pittsburgh must have one.” She pictured the rock wall setting, imagined shooting him from above with a shallow depth of field, so the foreground handhold things would be blurry, his fingers and face and surely startling arms sharply focused and intense.

“I don’t do climbing gyms.”

Damn.
“Well, if you’re interested, give it some thought. It’s your face I’m after, really. The setting is flexible, so long as the light’s decent.”

He nodded in what struck her as a very West Coast way—a slow, casual bob of his head.

“I can’t pay you a ton,” she added. “I’d be asking for two or three hours of your time, and fifty dollars is about all I can offer.”

He shrugged. “Money hadn’t crossed my mind. But that sounds fine.”

“Do you have regular days off?”

“I just started, so it might change, but this week I’m off Wednesday and Thursday, and Sunday I’m off at one.”

Wednesday was out—Clare worked seven in the morning to six at night and had yoga right after. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday
made up her three-day weekend, a trade-off for working four ten-hour shifts. Thursday was her birthday, but that didn’t really matter. She wasn’t celebrating with friends until the weekend. Plus, it wouldn’t exactly be a hardship, spending her thirtieth birthday photographing Mica. She couldn’t think of any better present than an hours-long excuse to stare at this guy’s stunning face.

She wondered how old he was. Maybe her age, maybe a couple of years younger. She wondered what his hair and skin smelled like, too, and what he tasted of.

Coffee, duh.
What the fuck had he last said to her? Oh, right, scheduling. “I have Thursday off, too,” she said. “And the sooner the better, on my end.”

“Works for me.”

“Well, think about places where you feel the most at home, any activities you enjoy. And if we’re outdoors, midafternoon or early morning is best.”

“I’m not a morning person. But I’ll keep my Thursday afternoon open. You want my number?”

“Sure.” She opened up a new contact on her phone and he told her the digits, then took hers. Though part of her wanted to jump up and dance on the table, another part warned her to cool her jets. There was something about this guy. Maybe it was just an LA thing, but she sensed a certain lazy quality in him, a hypercasualness. Somebody this hot probably strolled from bed to bed and job to job, the next opportunity rising up before him just in time for his foot to touch down on it. She bet by Thursday he’d have totally forgotten about this chance meeting and have plans, and no clue what she was talking about or who she was when she called to meet up.

But no way in hell was she
not
going to try.

Mica stood. “I have to get back to work.”

She did the same and offered her hand once more. “Thanks for your time, really. I hope I’ll see you Thursday.” Or tomorrow, if she went there for lunch again. Which she suspected she would, knowing how much more interesting the wildlife behind the counter had just become.

He offered her one last taste of that devilish smile—equal parts wide-open and charmingly unsavory—then headed back to the front. She watched him go, nerves buzzing.

If you’re there, God, hear my birthday wish: Give me just three hours alone with that man and I’ll die a grateful woman.

L
unchtime on Tuesday, Clare chickened out.

She was mere steps from the coffee shop—mere steps from where the panty-peelingly hot Mica was working—when her nerves got the better of her and commanded her legs to turn around and head to the deli down the block instead.

What the fuck am I even so afraid of?
she’d wondered. Of their eyes locking across the counter and . . . ? Of him not remembering her? Unlikely—hers wasn’t a face you saw every day. Of looking like a stalker? That felt a little closer to the truth. Whatever the case, she returned to her cube with a dry chicken sandwich and no fresh hit of infatuation.

On Wednesday she gathered her balls and returned to the coffee shop, determined to play it cool. If their eyes met, great—she’d smile with recognition and leave it at that, leave it up to him to initiate conversation, if he was so inclined. But she’d act like it was an everyday thing, her approaching heart-stopping strangers with invitations to model for her. No big deal. Not like she’d worn her cutest work-appropriate dress for bravery. Just a regular old Wednesday. Nothing to see here.

Sadly, there
had
been nothing to see. She got a coffee and a sandwich, but no glimpse of Mica, not through her entire lunch break. Had he said he worked Wednesdays? She couldn’t remember.

Shit.
And that meant by the time she summoned the backbone to call him tomorrow, they’d not have seen each other for three whole days. Would he even remember saying he’d set aside that afternoon for the shoot? They’d spoken for all of ten minutes.

And so it was a stomach full of nerves that she greeted as her first gift when her birthday dawned on Thursday, courtesy of Mica.

She looked to her roommate, who was rooting through her purse at the kitchen table that morning. “How early is socially acceptable to call a dude you barely know who’s agreed to do you a favor?”

“How old?” Bree asked, finding her phone, tapping on it.

“I’m not sure. Mid- to late twenties, probably.”

Bree looked up from her screen, grinning. “Good job, birthday girl! You’re like five seconds into your thirties and already robbing the cradle.”

“Seriously, what time?”

“Eleven,” Bree declared, reaching for her coffee, and her certainty was reassuring.

“You think?”

“Sure. Any earlier is too early. Any later and he might make other plans.”

Clare nodded. “You’re smart.”

“I attract flaky guys,” Bree said, her face obscured by a curtain of red hair. She shoved it back and zipped her bag, drained her cup. “Or I’m attracted
to
them. Either way, I’ve got it down to a science. And I’ve made it a rule that if I call at eleven and the guy sounds like he just woke up, then I don’t want to date him anyway. Because he’s either lazy or hungover. I have a master’s now,” she added, slipping
her bag over her shoulder. “I can’t be dating guys who keep undergrad hours.”

Clare laughed. “Easy to have standards when you’re not dealing with the dry spell I am.”

It had been months since Clare had seen any action. Since before Christmas, for crying out loud, and that hadn’t been much to write home about—her last time with her ex, who she’d been with for nearly three years. Their sex life had fizzled in much the same fashion as the rest of their connection. Clare’s mom had been more upset about the breakup than either Clare herself or her ex. She’d liked Davis for all the qualities Clare had ultimately found suffocating. He’d been a workaholic, exceedingly serious and driven, precisely the things her mom valued most in herself and others. All the things she wanted for Clare, in fact. On paper he’d looked great, and he’d treated her well. But in the end she’d grown restless, outright bored, and he’d been getting worse and worse at hiding the fact that he thought she was lacking in motivation. Quite the turn-on, dating a guy with the same complaints about you as your mother.

“After Davis,” she told Bree, “a little taste of immaturity doesn’t sound all that unattractive. A sloppy hookup with a hot barista? Sign me up.” She was probably older than Mica, and she bet he didn’t have health insurance, nor did he strike her as a man with a college degree. He made her look like the one who had it together, in that equation.

“Wait a second—who said anything about a hookup?” Bree demanded, eyebrows rising dryly. “This is all strictly professional, right?”

“When you see the pictures, you’ll understand.” When and if, that was. And that all came down to the dreaded call.

Bree headed out to work, leaving Clare with nearly three hours
to fill before she’d bite the bullet and pick up her phone. She spent the time wisely: returning e-mails, tidying the house, drinking so much coffee she got the spins when she stood up from crouching with a dustpan.

She steadied herself on the couch arm. “Whoa. Okay, now. Critical mass.” She emptied her mug down the sink and eyed the clock, and her heart dropped into the vicinity of her espadrilles. Ten fifty-seven.

Now or never.
She grabbed her phone off the counter.

She found Mica in her contacts list, and in a state of eerie calm, she hit
CALL
.

The dial tone whirred.
Oh fuck. What am I going to sa—

“Yeah?” It was a friendly
yeah
, not a curt one. And he sounded awake.

“Hi, Mica? This is Clare. The photographer who was bugging you at the coffee shop?”

“Oh, right.”

Oh, right,
like,
Oh, right, I totally forgot you existed
?

“Are you still willing to let me shoot you?” she asked. It felt as though there was a lemon lodged in her throat. “I’ve got the afternoon free.”

“Yeah, sure. What time?”

She sank against the counter with relief. “Two thirty?” If they were outside, the lighting would peak around four.

“Okay. Where should I meet you?”

“Do you have a favorite spot in the city yet?”

“Not really. I only got here last weekend.”

“Okay, well . . .”
Fuck.
“Um, since a climbing gym is out, what else are you into? It can be anything, really—any sort of sport, like running or basketball or something.” Yes, please. A nice, sweaty
postworkout shot of that exhausted face would be pure gold. “Or if you play an instrument, or cook in your spare time . . .” Something with his hands, his glorious, strong, rough hands. “Anything you enjoy, that says something about you.”

“Can I think about it and let you know later?”

“Um, sure. Give me a call by two. That’ll give me time to grab the right equipment, depending on the setting, and meet you wherever.”

“Cool. Talk to you in a bit.”

“Bye,” she said, just as his end of the line blooped softly and went dead.

“O-kayyy,” she said, staring at her screen, lit with his name and number and the length of the call—fifty-six seconds. It wasn’t even eleven yet. “Okay, that’s fine.” Another three hours of waiting and uncertainty, and praying he’d actually call.

Fine. No problem. Best birthday ever.

—

“A party?” Clare echoed. It was five minutes past four—two hours and five minutes past when Mica had said he’d call, but who was paying attention?—and she hadn’t even left the apartment yet, she was so preoccupied with waiting for her phone to ring. She’d all but given up hope, but now that it
had
rung, she was in for a curveball. He’d suggested she come to a party with him that night, in lieu of an afternoon meet-up.

“At my roommate’s friends’ place,” he said. He sounded distracted, like he was doing something else as he spoke to her. “Kicks off at nine. I couldn’t think of a good place for the shoot—you know, anything that screams
me
or whatever, but then I remembered the party. That’s a good setting for me. I’m social.”

“Is it like a get-drunk party, or a cocktail party, or . . .”

“I’m not sure. Thought I’d show up and find out.”

Clare frowned, imagining it. The lighting could be sketchy—maybe totally useless and too dark, though possibly there might be some gem of an opportunity. But really, considering it was already after four and the day’s light was on its way out, what choice did she have? If she had to choose between a less-than-ideal opportunity to get this man on figurative film and none at all, the answer was obvious.

“Sure. Sounds fun.” Plus, it was her birthday, and she wasn’t going to be celebrating with the girls until Saturday night. Might as well go to a party, and ostensibly with one fuck of a fine-looking date.

“Should I meet you there?”

“I’m not sure where it is. Meet me at my place and we can get a ride with my roommate. I’ll text you the address.”

“Okay. What time?”

“Nine, I guess.”

“Sounds good. See you then.”

And with a parting “Later,” he was gone.

She stared at her phone, feeling uneasy.

Come on, now. Am I after punctuality and professionalism, or a chance to photograph the hottest man I’ve ever seen?

To her moderate shock, his text arrived only a minute later.

Not a
total
flake, then.

The address he gave wasn’t far, so at quarter to nine she set out on foot, slipping into a jacket to combat the night’s growing chill. Her nerves set the city vibrating around her, the streetlights looking extra crisp, the smell of spring strong and damp in her nose. She’d told Bree about her plans and promised to text by eleven to say how things were going, though her nerves had nothing to do with the fact that she’d soon be climbing into a car with one near stranger and one complete stranger. No, this felt way more like first-date jitters.

Cool it, now. For all I know he’ll disappear with some other girl the second we get there.

Mica’s building was an unassuming brick two-story in the Hill, with a barbershop on the ground floor. Clare found the buzzer for apartment C on the bank inside a tight foyer and pressed it. There was an intercom, and she stood with her thumb hovering over the
TALK
button, but then the door buzzed, unlocking, and she pulled it open.

The unit was on the second floor, down a short hall lined with tired but recently vacuumed carpet. She knocked on the door, just below the brass letter C, and through the wood she heard a voice call, “It’s open.”

She let herself into an empty kitchen—nothing fancy, but pretty tidy save for a cluttered dining table. She shut the door behind her, just as Mica appeared from the next room. A TV was droning, the sounds of the news.

“Hey, you,” he said, and his smile was unexpected, upending—warm and practiced, almost like they’d slept together. Clare had to work to keep her own smile from giving away her pleasure at his familiarity.

“Hey.” She accepted his greeting—a quick one-armed hug, just enough contact to tease and to tell her he smelled faintly of some pleasant, earthy scent—then turned her attention to the room, hoping he wouldn’t notice her blushing. “So, this is your place.”

He shrugged. “My friend’s place. I’m just crashing through August.”

It had that unmistakable scent that every one of her Pittsburgh rentals had had, until the current one—she and Bree lived in the second floor of an aging three-family home, and it lacked that apartment-building aroma. It wasn’t a bad odor, merely distinct, like the way all grade schools seemed to smell alike. Nostalgic.

Mica was just as hot as she’d remembered, dressed in jeans and
a pale heather gray henley with all the buttons undone. The color brought out the rich tan of his skin. His dreads were down, the longest ones brushing his shoulders. Around his neck he wore a thick cord, its three fat silver beads resting in the V of his open collar. On one wrist was a worn leather cuff, and those fat silver rings adorned his fingers. He belonged on a dusky beach someplace, barefoot and bohemian and tasting of salt spray. She half expected that if she kissed his neck, she’d taste the ocean.

“Where’s the party?” she asked, tearing her attention off his throat.

“I’m not sure.” He turned to the adjacent hall and called, “Yo.”

A distant “Yeah?” answered.

“Where’s the party at?”

No reply at first, then footsteps sounded, and a man appeared. “This side of the university.”

“This is my friend,” Mica said. “He knows the people throwing the party.”

“Vaughn,” his roommate confirmed, and stepped forward to offer a hand.

Vaughn was handsome—not freakish, traffic-stopping, model handsome like Mica, but a more ordinary persuasion of good-looking. About six feet tall, very dark skin, short hair, with a nice, solid shape to him behind his fitted tee and jeans.
And very white teeth,
she noted. Gorgeous smile, this guy had. Disarming, and not in that Mica way. Mica was disarming in a manner that was tough to trust, like a third shot of something strong when you really ought to be switching to water.

Clare shook Vaughn’s hand and it was exactly as she’d have expected—curt and warm and full of authority. She wondered what he did for work, that gave him this aura of calm confidence.

“I’m Clare. It’s nice to meet you. I hope it’s cool that I’m crashing.”

“Absolutely. It’s an apartment-warming. Real casual.”