The Love Experiment (Stubborn Hearts 1)

Honeywell’s expression shifted from stern to charmed. “I made you blush.”

He was a thirty-six-year-old man who had his own column, regular radio and TV appearances, social media feeds that trended and his face plastered all over public transit, and he had no cool with this woman, none at all. “Why are you single?”

“I haven’t met anyone here yet. It’s not easy being new. Everyone I’ve met socially is a couple already or not my type, or a girl, and kissing girls is not my thing. I think Spinoza almost asked me out.”

“You think? It’s not like he’s a subtle guy. Don’t go out with Spinoza.”

“Why not? Is he married?”

All that light and heat inside him screamed “go out with me,” until he refocused on why that was a bad idea. They were colleagues, strangers. They’d done a portion of an intimacy experiment and mostly been at odds with each other, which was entirely his fault. He didn’t want to go out with her, he didn’t want to go out with anyone. He wanted to have sex with her. Starting tonight and not letting up till Monday morning when they both had to be at work again. It’d been a while and everything about her stirred him up.

He wanted to take her apart slowly and bring her home loud. Except that was one of the worst ideas he’d ever had. It was throwing open the door and letting complication have a party in his life and he hated parties, he always left early.

“He’s not married.” He’s not right for you. “He’d put you to sleep with sports trivia.”

“And you wouldn’t put me to sleep with insurance fraud case studies?”

He’d trade her a story for the revelation of a body part. A victim’s name for a kiss, and he wouldn’t let her sleep until they were both sated. Fuuuck. He had to shut that down. “Can I get you a drink?”

He poured juice and t

hen realized he should send her home or feed her. “Do you eat pasta?” If he was lucky she’d say she was on a diet and didn’t eat carbs.

“I love pasta.”

“I’m no gourmet, but it’ll be edible if you’d like to stay.” Ninety percent of him hoped she’d leave. The other ten was hand-feeding her ravioli and licking the taste of Prego from her lips.

She tapped her feet on the floor, a little dance. “I’d love to stay.”

He should’ve let Martha escape, snatched that bag out of Honeywell’s hands and slammed the door on her. Instead he let the stagnant water out of the sink and rewashed the dishes, opened a bottle of wine, set the table, and filled Martha’s bowl, all the while wondering who he was when he was with Derelie Honeywell and not trying to avoid the pleasure of it.

“Did you want to be a boxer when you were a kid?” she asked, as he salted the pot of water on the burner.

“Did you want to be a ballerina?”

She snorted.

Oh hell. “I’m sorry. I’ve spent my life being the one who asks the questions. It’s a reflex.” The reflex of a sexist asshole, or a guy who felt like he had something to prove. “I promise to pull my punches. No, I wanted to be a soldier who drove a tank, fought fires and wrote comic books.”

“Does that mean you can draw?”

“I thought I could. By the time I was about ten I wanted to be a reporter like Pops. My parents wanted me to go into medicine and they’ve never forgiven me for not making the most of my brain.”

“So professionally you’re living your dream?”

He nodded. “I’m not sure how long it’s going to last. True investigative reporting is expensive because it’s time consuming, and we’re in the age where crowdsourcing on Twitter and Facebook is considered an investigation, where pop culture is more important than hard news and actual facts no longer matter. We even have the issue of fake news, alternative facts. Reporters like me are fast becoming extinct.”

Replaced by reporters like Honeywell, who were content creators whose job was to reflect the post-truth world, entertain it, not examine or question it too deeply.

“How does that make you feel?”

Like he was under attack and Honeywell was making him admit it. He came around the counter to pour the wine. He had no other skills and he’d made so many enemies there was no easy way to cross over from hack to flack and take a PR job. It also made him angry. What kind of world was it going to be if there was no force powerful enough to pressure wrongdoers to account? It’d be a world where men like Bob Bix never need fear exposure.

“It makes me frustrated, despairing.”

“Which makes you want to hit things.”

That about covered it.