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“By a snake like me.”
She blew out a breath. “Insulted and angered.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have interfered.” She turned to go, but he hooked his hand in the bend of her elbow and gently brought her back around.
“Look, taking Elaine to dinner seems like an appropriate way to thank her for her hospitality on Sunday. That’s my only agenda. Okay?”
She looked up at him with chagrin. “Now I feel small.”
He let several seconds lapse, then placed his hand flat on the top of her head before drawing it toward his chest to measure her height against his collarbone. “You are small.”
With him looking down on her, and her looking up at him, they smiled at each other. Smiles that didn’t show teeth. Small, olive branch–extending smiles that faded with continuance and, as they aged, assumed a different, uncertain, and unsettling nature, until they didn’t count as smiles at all.
He was the first to speak. Huskily. “What night?”
“What?”
He cleared his throat. “What night would be best for you and Jasper? You say, then I’ll check with Elaine. And, yes, she gave me her number. But, no, I didn’t ask for it.”
Talia figured she deserved that dig. “Thursday?”
“Perfect. What are you in the mood for?”
“Oh!” She thumped her forehead with the heel of her hand. “That’s the reason I came over. Jasper told me that you had requested a list of good restaurants. He asked me to compile one for you.”
She took a sheet of notepaper from the front pocket of her jeans and passed it to him. “These are within a reasonable driving distance. They’re all reliably good. I prefer the Italian.”
Without even glancing at the list, he said, “Italian it is.”
She began backing away from him toward the door. With a flick of her hand toward the table, she said, “Thanks for the beer. I don’t remember when I last drank one.”
“See? You’re already halfway to being corrupted. A cupcake for breakfast. Beer for lunch.”
She laughed and moved toward the door. He got there first and opened it for her. She stepped out onto the landing, where she halted and came back around, standing in the wedge between the threshold and screen door he held open. “How did you know I had a cupcake for breakfast?”
His parted his lips to speak, but nothing came out.
“Drex? How did you know that?”
Again, he hesitated before raising his free hand and whisking the pad of his thumb across her cheek near the corner of her mouth, then holding his thumb up to where she could see. “Chocolate icing.”
Following Talia’s visit, the afternoon dragged on torturously. Drex almost wished she hadn’t come. Almost. Because now he couldn’t escape seeing her in this tacky room. She’d stood there. She’d touched that. Her voice and laughter echoed off the ugly wallpaper. Her scent permeated the stuffy air.
He tried to immerse himself in the case files, but having studied them for years, he knew their contents almost by heart. By reading the first few words of a sentence, he already knew its ending. The material held his attention for only minutes at a time before his mind drifted to something Talia had said or done.
At dusk, he gave up, shut down shop at his computer, and went for a run through the neighborhood. As he was returning, the Fords were backing out of their driveway in Jasper’s car. Both waved to him.
He smiled and waved back, when what he felt like doing was to drive his fist through the windshield. Despite the difference in their ages, he had to admit they made a striking pair.
Before showering, he carted Jasper’s box fan down the staircase and to the door of their screened porch, where he left it outside. He used a corner of it to anchor a note of thanks he’d written on a sheet of typing paper. He added the name of the restaurant where he’d made a reservation. Thursday night. 7:30. Party of four.
Elaine had accepted his invitation. It would worry Talia to know how exuberant her acceptance had been.
He watched a detective show on his laptop while eating his dinner of frozen pizza. The apartment’s antique oven had given it an old grease-smoke taste. He didn’t finish it. He wasn’t hungry anyway.
He didn’t go out, fearing that Talia and Jasper would come home during his absence, and he would miss an informative conversation.
