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“Let me try for one interview,” I told her. “I have a lead that I found earlier. If it’s a bust, then you can call in whoever you want, even if we need to bring someone in from Chicago or farther.”
Her chest expanded on a huge inhale, and when she let it out, she nodded carefully.
“Deal,” she said quietly.
“And you should’ve told me that the bed in my room was pint size.”
Charlotte grinned, that dimple I’d noticed on the first day finally showing itself. “I knew you’d figure it out eventually.”
I gave her a look, and she laughed outright.
It wasn’t much. But it was something.
Chapter Eight
BURKE
It had been more than five years since I’d shared space with a woman.
I blamed my preoccupation with all the weird shit she did on that one unavoidable fact.
For example, when she was on the phone and something happened that got her excited, she paced. Her system of organization was highly illogical, and with the exception of her phone, she always seemed to know where things were. When she poured herself a cup of coffee in the morning, it always seemed to take a solid hour before she managed two sips. She had an alarming number of hair ties in piles everywhere. There was a stack in the bathroom in the medicine cabinet. On the counter by the fridge. I’d found four of them on the coffee table in front of the couch.
I was up before Charlotte, my restlessness the byproduct of waking at six for my entire career so that I could be in the weight room before anyone else.
In the months since I’d retired, I hadn’t lost that habit. Which meant I’d had my coffee and breakfast before Charlotte showed her face around seven thirty.
The first morning after our furniture truce, she came out of her bedroom with the phone wedged between her ear and shoulder. In one hand was a canvas bag and in the other a small blue book with gilded page edges.
“No, I’m looking for a different one,” she said.
The canvas bag went on the table; so did the book. She made her way to the coffee maker, still half-full. She nodded at something the other person said on the phone, turning toward the pantry tucked against the opposite wall.
I took a slow sip of my coffee and hid my smile behind my mug.
She opened the pantry, her hand freezing in the air when she noticed that the mugs were gone. In their place were the plates that she’d had in the upper cupboards above the coffee maker. The mixing bowls—also from the pantry—were still to the left of the sink, but I’d move more stuff around after she was done with her coffee and breakfast.
Charlotte set her hand on her hip and whirled to give me a narrow-eyed look.
I lifted my mug in salute, and she huffed under her breath.
“Sorry, can you say that again?” she asked. When she opened the cupboard and found the mugs, she rolled her eyes. She poured the coffee, and I watched her bring it up to her mouth, pause, then set it back down on the counter. “Yes! The brown hardcover? That’s the one. Publishing date should be 1932, if I remember right.”
Whatever the other person said, she did a happy little hip-wiggling move, and my eyes locked on the small black shorts she preferred to sleep in. She picked up her coffee again, blowing on the surface. Her lips pursed gently, pink and soft looking.
Before her mouth touched the mug, she set it back down.
I tore my gaze away, locking it on to my laptop screen.
“Can you set it aside for me? I promise I’ll come pick it up today.” She punched her fist in the air, pacing to the other side of the house. “Yes, along with the 1928 you found last week. Perfect, thank you.”
Charlotte disconnected the call and, lips curled in a satisfied grin, walked back into the kitchen to grab her mug.
“You know,” she said, “that makes me so happy that I’m not even going to get upset at you for moving my stuff.”
“You meanmystuff?”
She exhaled slowly, eyeing me over the rim of her mug as she took a seat at the dining-room table. Instead of taking a drink, she set it down and leaned back in her chair.
