“Put him on.”
“Yeah, fine. Okay.” She jimmied the phone out of its cradle and leaned way over to open the passenger-side door a crack. “Caleb wants to talk to you.”
Sean took the phone, and she closed the door, not wanting any more cold air to get into her toasty car than necessary. He walked ten feet away and lifted the phone to his ear.
She imagined what he’d sound like if she could hear him. He had an unusual way of shaping words. Every syllable came out perfectly enunciated, as if he had nothing better to do than tumble the sounds around his tongue.
She liked listening to him talk. Yet another reason it chapped her hide that he wouldn’t speak to her.
After a minute, he disconnected the call and folded himself into the car. He was too tall for a compact. Too broad, too. He brought the cold air in with him, and she could feel the chill coming off his black leather jacket and soaking into her right shoulder.
“You good to go?” she asked, putting the car in gear and releasing the emergency brake.
He nodded, eyes straight ahead.
“You wanna drive?” They’d already begun rolling toward the exit. “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”
If he thought she was funny, he didn’t show it. Instead, he waved her on, settled back in his seat, and closed his eyes.
Sean Owens: World’s Most Boring Copilot.
One of her favorite Judah songs came up on the stereo, so Katie cranked the volume and started to sing along, bouncing gently up and down in a low-key car dance.
Caleb couldn’t spoil this for her, and neither could Sean. Nervousness be damned—she was on a mission. She had sixty miles left to drive, a job to do, a future to claim.
Plus, if everything went according to plan, she was going to get laid this weekend.
This trip was the single most exciting thing to happen to her in a long time.
Read on for an excerpt from Ruthie Knox’s
About Last Night
Chapter One
The Pigeon Man was usually here by now. Tuning out her companion’s self-serving story for a moment, Cath double-checked the LED display suspended over the station platform. Ten minutes until the train. In this woman’s company, it would feel like a lifetime.
Resigned to her fate, Cath crossed her legs and relaxed back against the bench. At least she could enjoy the unseasonably cool morning—the first break all week from the miserable July weather that had been tormenting London.
“… and they told me it was the most brilliant way to add a tactile element to protest action they’d ever heard of. I happened to mention you wanted to put the piece in your exhibit, but they didn’t know who you are,” Amanda said, her prep-school English accent turning the statement into an accusation.
Cath perked up. “I’m with the V and A. They know the V and A, right?” She was a small cog, but she worked for a big machine. Surely even Amanda’s hard-core activist cronies had heard of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s world-renowned collection, even if they hadn’t heard of the upcoming exhibit on the history of hand knitting that Cath had been hired to assist with.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Amanda said dismissively, and Cath spotted the sun gleaming off the bald pate of the Pigeon Man as he made his way up the steps. He took his place in front of the map kiosk and fixed his eyes on the ground. Calm today, then. When he didn’t talk, the Pigeon Man could pass for normal. It was when he launched into agitated conversation with a stranger that he began thrusting his head forward in a bird-like manner and his beady eyes and beaky nose took on greater prominence.
/> He pulled a candy bar out of his pocket, and she remembered it was Friday. He was often late on Fridays, no doubt because he stopped at the newsstand to buy himself some end-of-the-week chocolate.
The thought caught her up short. Shit, did she really know the habits of the train station regulars that well? She did a quick survey of the sparsely populated platform. Emo Boy was wearing his favorite pair of skinny jeans this morning, and Princess had gotten her roots touched up.
Sadly, yes, she did.
“The next person who comes up the steps will be an older lady carrying a purse the size of a bus and a bakery bag with a croissant in it,” Cath said.
“What?”
“It’s a prediction.”
“You’re clairvoyant now?” Amanda asked, her pert nose in the air.