Madly (New York 2)

“That does present a problem.”

“Only because she’s going to come back from the bathroom in a minute,” Allie explained. “If I go to the bar, she’ll see me, but if you go to the bar, she’ll also see me, which just leaves waving our arms in the air to get the bartender’s attention, and then the guy she’s with will turn around and look.”

Which absolutely couldn’t happen for a number of reasons, chief among them that the guy her mother was with was almost certainly the man whose genetic material made up exactly half of her DNA.

Another thought she didn’t have the luxury of dwelling on. Don’t think. Just fix it.

“You’re trapped,” he observed.

“I’ve been nursing that drink for like an hour.”

He crossed his legs and straightened the seams of his trousers. “May I make an observation?”

“Sure.”

“It seems you’re not terribly good at this spying business.”

“That?

?s fair.”

“What I’m wondering is, why not just walk over there”—he pointed past her to the passage between the bar and the back room, where a pinball machine stood—“and watch from a safer position? You’d be able to stand in the shadows just there”—he twirled his index finger in a lazy circle—“while I’d have the opportunity in a quiet moment to request the bartender’s attention and order myself a drink.”

“But—”

His finger rose to vertical, requiring her to pause.

“And then, if you like, I could watch the couple at the bar and report on their behavior, and you’d be at no risk of detection.”

Her mouth opened, but she made it close for three seconds so her brain could catch up.

It was an excellent plan. Impressively insane, but in a convincing, rational sort of way.

“You’d do that for me?”

“I’ve nothing else on the agenda at the moment. And as you said, you never know. This might be the most interesting thing that ever happens to me.”

She was really starting to like this guy. “What did you say your name was again?”

“Winston.”

“Winston. I don’t meet a lot of Winstons.”

“I don’t meet a lot of spies. Tell me something—”

But before he could finish, she heard her mother’s heels approaching, and she dove at Winston’s face.

“This again?”

She wound her arms around his neck. He moved over her, his damp knee against her stocking-clad skin, his features in crystalline focus.

He was really very handsome.

“Probably this isn’t how you normally meet girls,” she said.

“Not usually, no.”

He shifted. His weight pressed briefly into her thigh, and she broke out in goose bumps all over.