He could’ve bought a real friend or any of the team on the business pages for that. There was activity at the door. “What does this guy we’re spying on look like?”
“Bix is in his sixties, tall, thin, bald, wears a hearing aid.”
“We have contact.” Jack smiled, and Derelie was so distracted by it she almost missed the fact that Bix was on his way over. “Close contact.”
“Jackson Haley.” Bix approached their table. “Ouch.” He touched his own brow. “Glad to see they pay the Defender of the City enough to eat at Elaine’s. I trust you didn’t get that bump in the service of the Courier.”
Jack went to stand with a hand out to shake, but Bix motioned him to stay seated. He had narrow, squinty eyes, and they drilled into Derelie. “And who is this?”
“Robert, this is Honey.” Jack cut himself off abruptly enough Bix frowned. Derelie saved him by sliding closer, mashing his suit coat between them to rest her head on his shoulder.
“It’s my birthday,” she said, prompted by the cake topped with sparklers being delivered to a table across the room.
“Well, isn’t that lovely? Happy birthday, Honey. You show your girl a good time now, Haley.”
Derelie grinned at Mr. Bob “Probably Going to be Consulting Lawyers About a Story in the Courier Soon” Bix, and inspired by a racing pulse and utter wickedness kissed Jack’s cheek.
Up close he smelled of sweet, spicy cinnamon. Under the table he made a grab for her thigh, the muscles in his side going hard. He turned his face and his eyes were open wide behind their frames, brows lifted above them. He had an unforgiving grip on her leg. She licked her lips. All her boldness deserted her.
“Better make a good show of it,” he muttered, and kissed her on the mouth.
It was so quick she might’ve dreamed it. He was already back in his own personal space, wishing Mr. Bob “Fooled by a Kiss” Bix a good evening before she could process it. The first kiss of her new city life and it’d happened with a difficult, intimidating man she wasn’t sure she liked despite his attempt to show her some tricks.
“You started it,” he said, when Bix was safely on the other side of the restaurant.
A difficult, intimidating, argumentative man. Not much she could say to that, other than, are you five years old? It seemed redundant asking him what roles love and affection played in his life, question nine. Wild guess, not much of a one.
She moved around the seat to her own place, reached for her water glass and sipped. She couldn’t tell how annoyed Jack was, his expression gave nothing away. “I’m sorry if I overstepped. He looked suspicious and I got carried away.”
“I’m not mad.” Jack smiled, all the way to his stitched brow. “That was inspired, Honeywell.”
Man had an awfully nice smile on his handsome rat-face. The kind that made you want to see it again and again and forgive his terrible choice of underwear and that he thought of you as a decoy and had no use for love and affection.
Damn.
Further lack of discussion was forestalled by the arrival of the meal. Fish for Derelie, steak for Jack. His meal looked better. But never mind post-choice dissonance, the food was a-maze-ing. For a girl used to eating at cheap diners, or alone in her shoebox, this might as well have been a special occasion.
“It’s not really my birthday.”
Jack’s attention was over her shoulder, on the other men taking seats at Bix’s table. “I didn’t think it was.”
This was almost a conversation. She could ask him question ten, which was “If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?” because she didn’t think he’d cope with question eleven, which was, “In four minutes, tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.”
She went with “What got you into investigative reporting?”
He went with “What got you into writing junk listicles?”
The movement was involuntary. She wiped her mouth with her fingertips. Now she knew exactly how she felt about that kiss. Why did she keep forgetting Jackson Haley was nothing more than the thrill of the chase and the headlines he wrote? He kept telling her, so it wasn’t as if he was dazzling the good sense out of her. She had a weird thing for him and she needed to slap her own face. She wanted to track down one of those buses with his Defender of the City face plastered on it and draw horns and a pointed goatee on it.
“Fuck. Sorry, Honeywell.” He rubbed at his neck. “I’m a sad excuse for a dinner date.”
No debate about that.
“It’s not like I was ever conned or ripped off and have a stake in avenging myself against the world. I had a privileged upbringing. This is how I choose to make use of it. And you’re doing your job, so I have no reason to be such an asshole. You’re helping me out and without what you did, I don’t know if Bix and friends would be quite so relaxed. They’re on a third bottle of wine, they really do think I’m off the clock.”
She ate a few green beans, cooked so they tasted like something bad for you—absolutely delicious.
“What do you want to write?” he said.