The Love Experiment (Stubborn Hearts 1)

She sat back down again. She’d reply to Jack’s email. After five minutes with the wiener jingle in her head, staring at the space she was supposed to type in, she gave up and went to the breakroom to get coffee. It helped. Back in front of her screen she typed: “Jack”; she no longer wrote Dear in her email correspondence after she’d noticed no one else did.

I read your email and it’s too good to be true. I smell a—cliché.

Backspace, backspace, backspace.

I read your email and I have questions.

That worked better, but it was cold. Back, back, back, back.

I read your email. Thank you. I appreciate the effort you went to.

That had the benefit of being true, even if she was still suspicious.

Now I have the wiener song stuck in my head, so maybe this was an elaborate plot to drive me crazy.

That also had the benefit of being true. Shit, the dumb jingle, over and over.

I’m wondering if you meant me to sub your story. It would work for the lifestyle section, but I’m unsure if that was your intention. It would be great if you could let me know what you were thinking.

She took her hands off the keyboard. That would do it. Professional, not too cold, not too warm. Just the right heat in the porridge for Goldilocks facing the big bear.

And then like Goldilocks she waited. She filed two stories, attended an editorial meeting, went out to grab a sandwich with Eunice and waited for Jack to respond. She deliberately avoided his side of the office because she didn’t want to face him. Maybe they could simply do everything by correspondence, intimacy at email distance. It would be improvising like Spinoza had suggested. She liked that idea, but by the late afternoon when Shona had asked for an update and Jack hadn’t responded, she called him, couldn’t leave a message because his inbox was full and went in search of him, tight jaw, fidgety hands, pulse skipping. He wasn’t at his desk and his PC was dark.

Just because he wasn’t there didn’t mean he wasn’t watching his messages. She went back to her desk and pinged him on Courier Messenger.

I thought you didn’t do clichés.

That was designed to get his attention, especially because he really hadn’t.

Nothing.

She gave it an hour and sauntered casually to the business writer’s bullpen. His cubicle w

as still unoccupied. While she was not so casually staring at his pristine desk, not a single photograph, a female voice said, “He’s not in.”

She looked around for the owner of the voice. “Do you expect him?”

The top of Annie’s head appeared above her cube wall and then she stood. “Working from home. What do you want? You know he’s on this major story, right?”

“Er. Ah.” She wanted to make a rude gesture in Annie’s face. She wanted Jack’s home address, because what if he didn’t respond? Worse, what if this was a test and she was supposed to sub his piece to Shona or not sub his piece to Shona? She couldn’t wait around for days for find out. It was Friday and she’d be twisted into pretzel pose if she had to wait all weekend.

Annie’s eyes flashed white and she continued stuffing folders in a messenger bag, which she balanced on top of the cube wall while she answered her phone. The bag was addressed to Jackson Haley.

Derelie almost snatched it and ran. But she was a responsible adult, and that was master-class level stalking and Annie would probably crash tackle her if she tried it. The proper thing to do would be to liberate the parcel from the front desk before the messenger service took it—just because she grew up in crime-free Hicksville didn’t mean she lacked a conniving instinct—which is exactly what she did.

An hour later, she buzzed Jack’s apartment, lowered her voice and mumbled the word “messenger” into his intercom, let herself into his building, up three flights of stairs and knocked on his front door.

He answered it barefoot, without his glasses, wearing a pair of almost threadbare blue jeans, a jaw full of stubble, and skin. A lot of skin. This was the man she’d once imagined in neck-to-knee underwear made out of a burlap sugar sack.

“Jesus jeans.” He didn’t have a shirt on, and the word “ripped” applied to both his pants and his chest.

“Honeywell.” He frowned at her. “Did you think I always wore a suit?”

“I mean they’re holy.” She pointed at his legs. “Your jeans have holes.” Slashed and torn across his thighs, both knees blown out. “Jesus jeans.” Jesus, she’d looked at his wiener. She’d looked at all of him and she didn’t want to stop.

“What’s the matter with you? What are you doing here?” Abruptly he abandoned his hold on the door to scoop a fast-moving mass off the floor.

She jumped back. “That.” A cat, Jackson Haley was virtually naked and had a huge scruffy cat wriggling under his arm.