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He took her through to the kitchen, which he didn’t use as a workspace but wasn’t exactly guest ready. There were dishes soaking in the sink and a full basket of clean washing to put away on a chair. The liniment and tape he’d used to treat his bumps and bruises from the fight were still on the counter. Did the place smell? He didn’t smoke inside, but maybe everything smelled like the cloves he was immune to. He cleared a pile of newspapers and magazines off the other chair for her to sit.
“It rarely looks much better than this.” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cleaned up. “I don’t invite people around.”
She looked at the chair and then out toward the front door. “I should go.”
She should definitely go. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” He pulled the chair out for her. “You stole my messenger bag.”
She moved around him to sit. “You want to take me out for a picnic. You want to do the love experiment.”
“I owe you the love experiment, and not to make me out a hero or anything, Madden wants it.”
“You really sing the—”
He clapped his hand over her mouth. “Don’t say it.” Her eyes went wide and under his palm, her lips and cheeks lifted into a smile. He shouldn’t have touched her. He wanted to replace his hand with his lips, wrap his arms around her and keep her hostage.
He dropped his hand and stepped away. “That damn jingle.” He looked at Martha, who’d sloped into the kitchen to supervise. Any Jackson Haley investigative reporter magic he’d ever had with Honeywell was about as useful as the cold sludge in his sink. “It’s like a groove worn in my head.”
“It’s about being loved.”
“It’s about meat.”
She sat with a laugh, her back to him. “It’s not meat where I come from.”
“Where do you come from?” He rummaged in the clothes basket, stripped the busted jacket off and put a T-shirt on.
“Orderly, Illinois. Population ten thousand. Corn country. Home of the white squirrel. That’s where my family is. I’m the youngest of four. Three brothers, all married. I have two nieces and two nephews and I Skype with my dog. Sometimes I’m so homesick I could cry.” She covered her face with her hands. “I shouldn’t have said that. You’ll think I’m a failure.”
He shouldn’t want to pull her into his arms and make a new home for her. “I sign up over and over again to let men hit me so I can hit them back because I have trouble dealing with my life.”
She looked up. “Oh.”
“Which one of us is handling things better?”
“When you put it like that, coming from a town called Orderly and Skyping Ernest doesn’t make me sound like such a loser.”
“I’ve never been homesick, but I don’t think that makes you a failure.” That was probably a lie too. He’d never had a stable home to be homesick for, and what was missing a grandfather who’d been out of his life for a decade plus, if not homesickness.
“I’m not sure about yoga. I’m no good at it. I hate the whole spirituality through contortion thing. Last night my teacher said, ‘Smile inwardly.’ What can that possibly mean?”
He knew exactly what it meant. It had nothing to do with yoga. It meant you were utterly delighted with someone and terrifically confused by the phenomenon. That your insides lit up, your blood thrummed and your heart tripped and you felt lighter and smarter and better than you had a natural right to feel, but you couldn’t afford to show any of that turmoil to the woman with incredible pale eyes who was sometimes homesick sitting opposite you in your untidy kitchen. All you could do was smile inwardly.
“I hate wieners,” he said.
She closed her eyes when she laughed. She was beautiful. She wasn’t glossy like most of the women he knew. She wasn’t suited up for success like Berkelow or styled to perfection like Potter. She wore color instead of black. She stood out as different and he loved that. Her hair didn’t want to be sleek, her freckles showed. Her ears were unadorned and there was no other jewelry. He didn’t care that she wore an aligner, but he knew she didn’t want others to be aware of it and that she didn’t wear it now for that reason.
“Why don’t you quit yoga?”
“I don’t like to quit. And it’s good for me. Why don’t you quit letting men hit you?”
“I don’t like to quit, and it’s good for me.”
Her eyebrows danced up and down. “How is it good for you? You split your...” She pointed at his head. “And you’re badly bruised. Also, you are something without a shirt on, Jack Haley. You have ripples. Why are you single?”
He pointed into the other room, hoped his stubble hid the heat in his face. “I’m busy.”
“That’s not a reason.”
“Martha gets jealous.”
