LITMIR.BIZ

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Her hand shook as she lit a cigarette; she leaned against the building and took a deep drag, hoping the nicotine would calm her.

      When the door opened and Jordan stepped outside, Alix called to him.

      “Hi,” she said.

      He looked over his shoulder. “How’s it going?” he asked.

      “All right. I didn’t see you earlier,” she lied. “I put aside The Matrix for you if you’re still interested.”

      “Yeah, sure, thanks.”

      “I aim to please.” She reached for her cigarettes and silently offered him one.

      “No, thanks.”

      She should’ve guessed he was a nonsmoker. She stared at the tip of her lit cigarette. “I’m trying to cut back. These are the low-nicotine cigarettes, but I swear I’m going to end up with a hernia getting any taste out of this.”

      He chuckled at her stupid joke and a warm, happy feeling came over her.

      “I’ve seen you around the neighborhood,” Jordan said.

      “Alix Townsend. Alix, spelled A-L-I-X.” She thrust out her hand, which he shook. “You’re Jordan Turner,” she went on before he had a chance to introduce himself. “Your driver’s license is on file. You live off Fifth Avenue, don’t you?” She didn’t mind letting him know she was interested. She thought of the boy she’d once known with the same name, but that was years ago, back in grade school. He’d been a decent kid, and she’d had a crush on him, but it felt like something that had happened in another time and another place.

      “Yeah, that’s me.”

      Could it be the same Jordan Turner? She studied him, wondering if it was possible. She took another deep drag of the cigarette in an effort to calm her rattled nerves.

      No, this couldn’t be the same Jordan Turner, she decided. Still, her memories of him were fleeting and she wasn’t absolutely sure. She might have dredged up the courage to ask, except that he continued the conversation.

      “I don’t work far from here.”

      So he stopped in for videos on his way home from work. Lots of people did.

      “You can tell a lot about a person from the videos they rent,” she said casually. She tossed the cigarette onto the sidewalk and crushed it with the toe of her combat boot.

      “I’ll bet you can.”

      “Do you want to know what I learned about you?” This was one of her best conversational gambits—character analysis through movie selection—although she didn’t have much opportunity to use it.

      He grinned, and she was struck by how cute he was when he smiled. Laurel couldn’t understand what Alix saw in a guy as average as Jordan. She couldn’t explain it to her friend, either. Someone attracted to a guy who rented XXX videos just wouldn’t get it.

      Jordan leaned against the wall beside her. “Go ahead and tell me what you’ve figured out.”

      Flustered now, Alix suddenly found it difficult to express herself. She faltered and struggled with what she wanted to say and to her utter humiliation, she couldn’t do it. In one final attempt to redeem herself, she gestured weakly with her hands and said. “They’re cool, you know.”

      “Cool?” Jordan repeated. “You mean I pick cool movies?”

      “Yeah.” She wanted to crumple onto the sidewalk and disappear.

      “Thank you.”

      The heat was radiating from her face. “I’ve got to get back to work,” she said gruffly and without another word, she practically ran back into the store.

      To make matters worse, Laurel was waiting for her. “How’d it go?” her roommate asked eagerly the instant Alix returned.

      Alix glared at her.

      Laurel raised both hands. “That bad, huh?”

      A sick feeling attacked Alix’s stomach. It was like the nausea she’d experienced as a kid when her parents started to fight. That painful sensation used to corrode her stomach—as if she were somehow responsible for every bad thing that had befallen their lives. Jordan might be the same Jordan Turner she’d once known, but there’d been no time to ask. And she couldn’t now, not after she’d run away!

      “You okay?” Laurel asked, studying her.

      Alix brushed aside the question and marched to the back of the store, where she walked into the employee rest room. The toilet was disgusting. She didn’t want to guess how long it’d been since the last cleaning. The blue additive didn’t begin to disguise the yellow ring around the inside of the bowl. Funny she’d notice that now.

      Standing in front of the sink, Alix stared into the mirror. The voices that came to taunt her were familiar ones. They were the ugly, negative voices that shouted words she tried to ignore. Voices that laughed in her face and said she was a loser. No matter what she did or how hard she tried, she’d never amount to anything. Her life was doomed. This was her lot. She’d never earn more than minimum wage, never be loved, never have a real home with things that normal people took for granted, like a phone and a dishwasher.

      Pressing her hands to her face, Alix closed her eyes and felt the dark misery descend. She could feel its oppressive weight settle on her shoulders, shoving her down to a place deep inside. She tried unsuccessfully to shake off the depression, tried to shake off the ugly words that echoed in her mind.

      The repulsive names her mother had called her rang through her head. She could hear a teacher’s chastisement and belittling comments next, and the humiliation returned as strong now as it had been twelve years earlier. She wanted to bury all the hurtful words. Instead they reverberated through her mind with such force she nearly slumped to the rest room floor.

      A knock sounded at the door, startling her. Alix jerked her head toward the noise.

      “Alix, you in there?”

      Laurel. Damn. “What?” she snapped.

      “He’s back.”

      “Who?”

      “The guy you were just talking to. I don’t know his name.”

      Alix bit her lower lip. “You help him.”

      “He asked for you.”

      “Why?” she asked, frowning.

      “I don’t know,” Laurel said irritably. “Am I supposed to read minds, too?”

      “I’ll be out in a minute, all right?” Alix straightened, brushing her hands through her hair as she came to grips with this information. She wondered what possible reason Jordan could have for seeking her out.

      Because her face was beet-red, she ran cold water over her hands and then brought them to her cheeks, not caring what it did to her makeup.

      She didn’t know how much time had passed before she finally found the courage to come out and face Jordan.

      He was standing at the counter waiting. He smiled as she approached.

      “You wanted to see me?” she asked as if he’d interrupted her. She didn’t want to give him the impression that she was happy to see him, and in truth, she wasn’t. After humiliating herself once, she didn’t feel like doing it again. Not this soon, anyway.

      “You said you’d put aside The Matrix for me?”

      Her relief was intense. “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. I’ve got it up front.” She moved past him and behind the counter to the spot where she’d placed the video.

      “I appreciate you doing that for me.”

      “No problem,” she said, busying herself with the computer screen. She rang up the total and asked for his card. After he’d

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