I catch his scent, sure as I can smell the bread baking in the brick ovens. The yeasty, mouth-watering perfume wafts past me, makes my stomach growl, and moves on to infect my customers who are immune to the underlying aroma sending my pheromones into high alert.
I inspect the sea of heads but can’t identify his balding pate. Would he be so cruel as to come here and flaunt his new existence? I knew the answer. He wasn’t one to excrete kindness. He toyed with me like a cat with a mouse, interested in the experiment, not caring about the outcome.
His odor lurks beneath the obvious. It is musky and reminiscent of sex. Maybe it’s my imagination, a repressed memory, surfacing to tease me and shoving loneliness in my face. I hate the hold he has over me, even after so much time. In my mind, I bury my face in the curve of his neck, sucking in his masculinity, absorbing his essence. but it’s the memory of a fool.
I weigh the facts and do a bit of math in my head. Pros and cons. A tic in this column, a group of hash marks in the other. It’s an obvious choice. Fresh bread or day-old crust?
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Angela L. Lindseth 