The Love Experiment (Stubborn Hearts 1)

“We’re done.” He tossed the apple core into the file box.

“We didn’t talk about your problem.”

He crumped the page and it followed the apple core. Then he moved the box and shuffled closer to her, took her shoulders and held her while he looked into her pale eyes. “My problem is that this is a public place.”

“Have we done all the questions?”

Neither of them had taken a note, but he wouldn’t forget anything she’d said. “We can extemporize the rest.”

“Make it up as we go along.” Her smile was as wide as the sky. “You used the ten dollar word.”

“We deserve it.”

It was a million dollar kiss. Sweeter for the delay, for the relief he felt, for the knowledge that she wasn’t misty eyed about him, wasn’t on the Jackson Haley ride for any purpose other than their mutual pleasure.

Derelie wound her arm around his neck and removed his cap and glasses. “You won’t need these for a while; I plan on being all you see.”

A perfect prescription. He took them both down to the blanket and all they did for some time was explore each other’s mouths, share breath, touch with slow certainty. He kept his hips away from her, PG for the park, and in the growing glow they became together, he heard chirps, tweets and trills. He lifted his head to make sure they were real.

They had to be because she heard them too. She squeezed his arm. “All we need now is stars. There are no stars in the city. I miss them.”

The stars were all inside her, but he didn’t have the words to tell her that yet. “All we need now is food, because you’ve made me lightheaded.”

They ate, they bickered and he couldn’t get enough of that because it proved they didn’t need a questionnaire to be friends, to be more. They traded kisses, he got more handsy than he should’ve but her twitchy, excited responses were intoxicating, and then both of them dozed in the fading heat, bodies twisted into each other. Later there was only one question remaining.

“My place or yours?” he said.

“Mine is tiny and yours has Martha.”

“I want you to stay.”

“I packed my toothbrush.”

He ditched the box. He called a car to take them back to his place, stopping at his local market so he could pick up something to cook for dinner. Inside the store they separated, Jack going to the fresh food aisle and Derelie, wearing his cap, disappearing down junk food alley.

It happened while he was selecting chicken breasts.

“You’re Jackson Haley.”

The woman was someone he vaguely knew on sight. Too much sunshine and Derelie in his head to place her. He wanted to brush her off anyway. “From Monday to Friday.”

The woman laughed. “I love what you do, the whole champion of the city thing, and it looks like you cook too. That’s too good to be true. You don’t remember me? I’m Bridie. I’m on-air at WBBM after you. I’ve tried to catch your eye before. Can’t believe I’ve run into you here. What happened to your face? I hope you have someone to kiss it better.”

Ah, that was it. The radio station. Bridie was an attractive woman, a well-respected broadcaster, and once upon a lonely Saturday he’d have considered starting something with her. He focused on the chicken.

“I know this is none of my business, but if you feel like company...”

He heard the dot dot dot she didn’t say. The way she put her hand on his arm said everything else. Untimely vaguely predatory behavior. “I’m with a friend.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She let go his arm, gracious about rejection. “Maybe another time. I really dig what you do.” And there it was, the phone number and her name on the back of a store receipt. He took it from her as she moved off because it was more of a scene not to. He was shoving it into his pocket when Derelie rounded the deli counter with a basket load of snacks.

“I got—oh, sorry, did I interrupt?”

“No,” he said, not sparing Bridie a glance. “You like chicken?”

“Better than wieners.”

He dropped the packet he was holding and made a grab for Derelie, backed her into the deli counter and tried to look threatening while he kissed her. “Don’t say that word. Don’t even think it.”