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“I was bored. I wanted more.”
“How’s that working for you?”
She made a rude gesture under the table, but kept her voice level. “Fine, thanks. I’m grateful for my move to the city. What are you grateful for?”
“That I can do what I do, that I can write about injustice and inequality and if not change things for the better, at least bring what’s rotten into the light.”
It was the first honest, straightforward piece of information he’d given about himself. It said a lot about Jackson Haley the reporter and something about Jackson Haley the man, but it was hard to marry that with the Jackson Haley who’d kissed her legs into noodles last night and was sarcastic and unsympathetic now.
“Question ten. Two to go.”
“Hallelujah.”
“‘If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?’”
He frowned and looked away. “You go first.”
“I wouldn’t change anything. I had a great childhood. I love my family. I’ve been very fortunate.”
He grunted. “Two more questions, you said.” He looked at his watch. “I wouldn’t change anything either.”
“But your father is a son of a bitch.” He blinked in surprise and then rubbed his eyes under his glasses. “Phil said it.”
“My father is a brilliant and difficult bastard who does not approve of what I do.”
She heard the bold type and underlining on the word not. Truly? What kind of parent wouldn’t be proud of the work Jack did? “I can’t image that.”
“What’s the next question?”
“What did your father want you to do instead?”
“Follow him into a respectable profession, his profession. Not become a hack.”
Like pulling teeth. A cliché, but it didn’t count if she didn’t say it out loud. “Which is?”
“He’s a surgeon. He saves lives. I only scribble about vulgar things like money and power. He’d have more respect for me if I made serious money or ran for office. He once did an interview with the Courier on an unrelated story where he described me as a radical experiment in parenting gone wrong. He’d said it to get at my mother after she asked for a divorce.”
“Your own dad?” Appalling. Derelie’s father would rather cut his own arm off than say anything so hurtful.
“My mother is not much better. Also a surgeon.” Jack rubbed his eyes again. “I need a smoke.” He glared at her. “I barely saw my parents. They liked work more than they liked each other or me. I suspect they secretly hated each other from the day they married. My granddad raised me, and stop looking at me like that.”
She rearranged her features into an expression different from whatever it was that’d irritated him. “I’m not judging.”
“You’re weepy-eyed, Honeywell.”
“Am not.” It was the smog, made her eyes watery. She was allergic to urbanization.
“You’ll only go and look it up, so I might as well tell you. He was my mother’s father. He survived reporting on a bunch of wars and conflicts, but had a heart attack in Walmart when I was fourteen. My parents never divorced but keep separate lives. They live to detest each other. I have no idea why and I don’t care.”
“You don’t really have a home, do you?” His life had been a war zone. He had no perfect place to go back to.
“Cardboard box under the expressway.” He tapped the tabletop with the edge of his cell. “You think this ridiculous experiment has uncovered some fundamental clue to my character and we’re bonding over my not particular
ly unique childhood.”
She compressed her lips lest they tell him anything at all about what she thought and give him ammunition to use. That she’d like to kick his parents, congratulate his granddad, cook him a meal, and despite Jack being a prize jerk, have him back her into a wall again as soon as possible.
His phone rang. He swiped it off the table and answered it. “Haley.”
