Free No Place Like Home by Barbara Samuel

frowned over the bottles of sweet and sour.
    “What d’you mean?” I pointed to the right brand.
    He gave me an “oh, get real” look, which I ignored. “Do we need anything else?” he asked.
    “I think that’s it.” We carried it all up to the cash register. The cashier called from the back, and I shifted, examining the tiny, pretty bottles of amaretto and Frangelico behind the counter, mainly trying to keep from eyeing Malachi’s hands as he pulled bills from his front pocket. Hands are kind of a weakness. By now you’re thinking that pretty much everything about a man is a weakness for me, and you’d be halfway to right, but there are certain things that cool my attraction pretty fast, and ugly hands is one. A lot of big men have spatulate hands, with blunt fingers and those weird-looking fan shaped nails. Michael, for all that I love him, doesn’t have great hands.
    Malachi’s hands were strong. I watched him flip the side of his thumb impatiently over the edge of the bills, and the tendon below moved beneath dark skin. His nails were oval at the end of straight, long fingers.
    “All those women in your kitchen tonight are good girls,” he said, tossing a twenty and a five on the counter. He braced himself on his palms and looked down at me, one knee cocked to sling out a hip. “You aren’t.”
    Stung again, I made a noise and narrowed my eyes at his pose. “Do you practice every single gesture?”
    “Nope. Do you?”
    “What does that mean?”
    A lift of one shoulder. “What did you mean?”
    “This is a stupid conversation.” I looked over my shoulder to see what was keeping the guy, and he was finally lumbering toward us. White grizzles of whiskers clung to his jowls and he didn’t make conversation as he rang everything up.
    Malachi picked up the bags. “After you,” he said with a courtly gesture, and grinned. “That one, I’ve practiced.”
    I managed to smile only a little bit. Outside, I pulled on the helmet. “You didn’t answer my question,” he said. A streetlamp shone directly on his head, putting arcs of white light across his crown and the straight, aggressive bridge of his nose.
    “Which one?” I twisted my hair into a long rope and tucked it down my shirt, feeling at a slight disadvantage because the helmet muffled my hearing.
    “Do you practice?”
    “I don’t have to practice,” I said, and put my hand out for the liquor.
    He grinned. “Exactly.” He put on his helmet and swung easily on to the seat. I slid on behind him, glad to have something to put space between us on the way back.
    At the house, he caught my arm as we were going up the walk. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings back there.” He paused. “With the good girl thing.”
    “Oh, that.” I waved my hand. “You didn’t.”
    “Yes, I did, and I apologize. I meant it as a compliment.”
    His big dark eyes were earnest and I suddenly realized that he was a good deal younger than me. Maybe even more than five years. He was probably flirting with me not because of my black bra or anything else, but because he was being nice to his brother’s best friend. The lonely older woman.
    “I know,” I said, and carried the bags into the house. “No big deal.”
    Shane was setting the table on the porch when we came in. He gave me a lift of his chin, but his smile was for Malachi. The same smile, I realized suddenly, that Danny had given him—slightly abashed and admiring, wanting approval. “Hi,” he said. “Michael says we’re eating outside.”
    I went to the kitchen to help Michael. Behind me, I heard Malachi join Shane outside, their voices braiding into the sound of crickets starting up their night song.
    Michael had not heard me come in, and although he straightened quickly, I’d already seen him leaning hard on the counter. When he raised his head, I saw the strain that had settled beneath his eyes and around his mouth. Covering the pang it gave me, I cocked my head to the porch.