Chapter Five
Chap-ter Five
D ina stood in the door-way of The Game Set. The place was rus-tic look-ing, with a wooden floor and yel-low walls. To the left was the bar. The rest of the place was taken up by game ta-bles, shelves with board games stacked on them, and group-ings of comfy-look-ing chairs and mis-matched so-fas. To-ward the back was a room with a door-way marked Bil-liards. The place was filled with peo-ple of all ages and she walked through, look-ing for a guy on his own.
Move-ment from the bar drew her at-ten-tion and a man with wire-rimmed glasses and dark, wavy hair waved to her.
“Zach?”
“Hi, Dina. Nice to meet you. You look just like Re-becca said you would.” He shook her hand. His grasp was cool and firm and when he made eye con-tact with her, she no-ticed his warm, brown eyes. “Would you like a drink?”
He placed their or-ders and once their craft beers ar-rived, he di-rected her to a va-cant ta-ble with two high stools. She climbed up, grate-ful she had taken his ad-vice and worn jeans. He had too, with a but-ton-down blue Ox-ford. He was tall and rangy with a mel-low voice and a pierc-ing stare.
“So tell me how you know Re-becca and Aaron,” he said, when they’d set-tled, turn-ing his stare on her.
Such in-ten-sity made her self-con-scious and she could feel her cheeks heat-ing. Great, I prob-a-bly match my pink sweater. “We be-long to the same tem-ple. I’ve known her for years. And you work with Aaron?”
“Yes, I’m a re-search di-rec-tor in the lab next to his. How’s your beer?” He jig-gled his knee.
She took a sip of the dark brew. “A lit-tle bit-ter, but not bad, thanks. I’ve never heard of this place. Do you come here of-ten?”
“Some of us in the lab come here for their game tour-na-ments. It’s a fun way to let off some steam.” His face lit up. “Would you like to play one of the games?”
She would much pre-fer to talk and get to know him, but he didn’t seem like much of a con-ver-sa-tion-al-ist. “Sure, why don’t you pick one?”
He walked away for a few min-utes and Dina checked her watch. Thirty min-utes. She’d never checked her watch when she was with Adam.
When Zach re-turned, he brought Bat-tle-ship. “I love this game,” he said as he set up the board.
It had never been one of her fa-vorites. “That’s a great one. Did you know it used to be known as Salvo?”
“I had no idea. That’s fas-ci-nat-ing!”
As they played the game and talked, Dina tried hard not to com-pare him to Adam.
Zach wasn’t flashy. He wore a smart watch, but it didn’t cost more than her en-tire pay-check. His shirt was wrin-kled in the back and his jeans were func-tional, rather than de-signer.
Zach wasn’t smooth. His hair wasn’t slicked back and he didn’t seem to have a set of re-sponses he took out and used.
Zach wasn’t pop-u-lar. De-spite his claim that he and his friends came here of-ten, there was no line of groupies wait-ing to talk to him while siz-ing her up.
Zach was…nor-mal. He was smart, av-er-age-look-ing…and bor-ing.
She sighed. “You sunk my bat-tle-ship.”
He smiled at the com-mer-cial ref-er-ence as he added points to his side. He was smil-ing at the ref-er-ence, right?
“I re-mem-ber those com-mer-cials,” he said, and re-lief trick-led through her.
He pulled out the pegs in his board. “Want to play an-other one?”
Good-ness, no. “I re-ally en-joyed this one, but it’s get-ting late and I think I need to get go-ing.” Okay, it was nine o’clock, but some peo-ple might con-sider that late. If you were sev-enty.
“Ah, sure. Can I walk you to your car?”
Think of Re-becca. “Sure.”
She fol-lowed Zach out the door and walked with him down the main street of Madi-son. Lit store win-dows and bright street lamps of-fered a kalei-do-scope of black, yel-low and shades of grey for them to walk through, and at times it seemed to Dina as if they were walk-ing through an old movie. Zach pointed out restau-rants he and his col-leagues had eaten at, stores he’d stopped in and in-ter-est-ing facts about the town, such as its nick-name of The Rose City. “In the 1800s it had a flour-ish-ing rose-grow-ing in-dus-try. In fact, the Mor-ris and Es-sex rail line en-abled that in-dus-try to flour-ish and for farm-ers to sell their pro-duce in Man-hat-tan.”
“How in-ter-est-ing.” And it was. As a lover of ob-scure facts, she could ap-pre-ci-ate his knowl-edge. She looked up at him. He looked proud of know-ing that in-for-ma-tion. And he’d thought her in-for-ma-tion about Bat-tle-ship was fas-ci-nat-ing. His in-tel-li-gence sat well on him, truly be-com-ing a part of who he was, un-like Adam, who hid his in-tel-li-gence be-hind a ve-neer. Would Adam have known some-thing like this? Would he have told her? And how would he have acted if he did?
“Oh wait, I see a col-league of mine up ahead,” Zach said. “Come on, I’ll in-tro-duce you.”
Tak-ing her arm, he led her half a block to a group of peo-ple stand-ing out-side a restau-rant. “Steve, Ann, how are you?”
“Zach, funny run-ning into you here.”
“Let me in-tro-duce you to Dina. She and I were just at The Game Set.” He made the in-tro-duc-tions and ev-ery-one smiled and chat-ted with one an-other. Dina made small talk for a few min-utes un-til Zach made eye con-tact with her, in-di-cat-ing it was time to leave.
Dina pulled up short. Un-like Adam, Zach had made a spe-cial ef-fort to in-tro-duce her to his friends. He hadn’t acted ashamed of her. Her in-tel-li-gence didn’t em-bar-rass him.
As they left the group and Zach walked her to her car, she won-dered what she should do. Was she be-ing too hasty in her judg-ment of Zach? She had no idea if she’d see Adam again any-way. Maybe she shouldn’t write Zach off just yet. He was kind and so-lic-i-tous. His friends were wel-com-ing. She could tell by the way he looked at her that he liked her. He was ex-actly the kind of guy she could pic-ture her-self with.
“It was great meet-ing you, Dina,” Zach said. He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “I hope you had as much fun as I did.”
“I en-joyed get-ting to know you, too, Zach.” She smiled at him, and the re-lief on his face pushed her to make her de-ci-sion. “I hope we can get to-gether again.”
Nod-ding, Zach opened her car door for her and held it while she got her-self set-tled. “I’d like that,” he said. “I’ll call you.”
As she pulled away, she won-dered if he would. Be-cause she wasn’t plan-ning to wait around on the off chance Adam de-cided to call.
Mon-day morn-ing, Adam looked at his phone, scrolled through his con-tacts, and di-aled Dina’s num-ber. The sound of her voice rolled over him, en-velop-ing him like a warm blan-ket, but when he re-al-ized it was just her voice mail, he rolled his eyes. “Hey, Dina, it’s Adam. Give me a call.” He left his num-ber and went back to the brief he was edit-ing. When it was fin-ished, he emailed it to the man-ag-ing part-ner be-fore stop-ping at the thresh-old of her of-fice.
“Hi, Flo-rence, I just emailed you the brief on the Hatchet case. Are we still set for court next week?”
“Oh, Adam, I was just go-ing to call you. James is go-ing to come with me in-stead.”
Adam frowned at the grey-suited woman. He walked into her of-fice. “What’s go-ing on? I’ve been work-ing on that case with you. I thought ev-ery-thing was all set.”
She moved be-hind her desk and peered over her read-ing glasses. “It was, but your fa-ther sug-gested it might be bet-ter to have James work on the case. We re-ally need this case to suc-ceed, and well, to be hon-est, I can’t af-ford any care-less mis-takes. I hope you can un-der-stand that.”
He masked his fa-cial fea-tures and gave her a bland smile as his pulse pounded in his head. “Sure, of course. I’ll send all my files over to James.”
“Thanks, I ap-pre-ci-ate it. I’m sorry about all of this, Adam. You’re one of the smartest lawyers I’ve worked with—and I’m not just say-ing that be-cause your fa-ther is my boss.”
He left her of-fice, hands in fists at his sides, lungs con-stricted. Yeah, right. Of course he was smart. But in-tel-li-gence hadn’t pre-vented Ash-ley from ac-cus-ing him of throw-ing her un-der the bus, or ly-ing—be-cause he was con-vinced she was ly-ing—about giv-ing her the mo-tion to file. It wasn’t con-vinc-ing his fa-ther or any-one else in this of-fice to be-lieve in him. He couldn’t even count on Kim to be-lieve in him. His mother had known he was smart. But it hadn’t kept her from leav-ing. His head hurt. “Smart” wasn’t get-ting him any-where.
Shak-ing his head to ban-ish the mem-o-ries, he re-turned to his of-fice and put to-gether the files for James. It took him twice as long as it should have, be-cause his hands shook. By the time he was fin-ished, the day was al-most over. He had a rag-ing headache. He needed to get away, to for-get about ev-ery-thing hap-pen-ing at work. Dina. Be-fore he could think about why she was the first per-son to pop into his head, he grabbed his phone. He checked his mes-sages, but she hadn’t called him back. He’d stop by the li-brary and pick her up to go some-where. Any-where. She’d take his mind off of here. Maybe they’d go into the city to a club.
Ten min-utes later, he was in his car, screech-ing into a spot in the li-brary lot. The woman who was friends with Dina—what was her name?—was walk-ing to-ward her car. Tracy. That was it.
“Hey Tracy, is Dina around?”
She shielded her eyes from the sun. “Adam? No, she’s home to-day. Ev-ery-thing okay?”
“Sure is,” he said with a grin. Pulling out of the lot, he drove to Dina’s apart-ment.
He pulled up to the old Vic-to-rian build-ing and shook his head. It suited her per-fectly. The con-verted house was well kept, but old fash-ioned. As pretty as it was, with col-or-ful shut-ters and a shaded front porch, it wasn’t his style. He pre-ferred his mod-ern apart-ment com-plex with a gym and un-der-ground garage. He found an empty spot on the street, locked his car, and tried the front door. It was locked, so he buzzed #2.
“Hello?”
Dina’s voice made him smile, his first gen-uine smile all day. Some of the ten-sion left his neck. “Hey Dina, it’s Adam.”
“Adam. Um, come on up.”
She buzzed him in. He took the stairs two at a time. The hall-way had that musty smell of an-cient build-ings, the stair-case was pro-tected by an an-tique-look-ing rail-ing. She was wait-ing for him in the door-way of her apart-ment, her thick hair pulled back in a pony-tail, dressed in a long sleeved T-shirt and sweat-pants. Most women he dated would have been mor-ti-fied to be seen so un-der-dressed. Yet Dina looked per-fect. She smiled. His gaze fo-cused on her pink lips. What would they taste like?
“Get changed, we’re go-ing out.”
Her smile fal-tered. “Did we have plans I for-got about?”
“No, I just thought it would be fun to go some-where. We could go into the city to a club, drive along the wa-ter-front, what-ever you want.” He jin-gled his keys against his leg. He peered over her shoul-der, try-ing to get a view of the in-side of her apart-ment. He saw a glimpse of a kitchen counter, some over-stuffed fur-ni-ture, and a mix of col-ors.
“Adam, I can’t just pick up and do that. I have plans. I was just about to start get-ting ready.”
“Can-cel them. Come out with me.”
She stared at him. He fought the urge to squirm.
“Come on in.”
From her bed-room, she called Zach. “I’m sorry, I need to post-pone tonight. Can we resched-ule? I have a semi-emer-gency that I need to take care of. I’m so sorry. I don’t usu-ally do things like this.” She never can-celled plans, but some-thing about Adam, a look in his eye, made her do it.
“Oh gosh, is there any-thing I can do?”
She thought about Adam cur-rently sit-ting in her liv-ing room, jit-tery, up-set, need-ing her. “No, it’s some-thing I have to take care of on my own. I’m so sorry to do this last minute though.”
“No prob-lem. I’ll call you later in the week and we can resched-ule. I’m busy the next few days with an ex-per-i-ment I’m run-ning, so I can tell you all about it when I see you next.”
“Ter-rific. Thanks so much for un-der-stand-ing.”
She hung up, glanced in the mir-ror, and shud-dered. Well, Adam would have to deal with her look-ing like a schlump—that’s what hap-pens when you show up unan-nounced. Re-turn-ing to her liv-ing room, she watched him pace, filled with a fre-netic en-ergy she didn’t un-der-stand.
His eyes re-flected hurt and sad-ness. She wanted to fold him into a hug, but he wouldn’t stop mov-ing. He prob-a-bly wouldn’t want her hug any-way. “What’s go-ing on, Adam?”
“Noth-ing. I just was in the mood for a good time and thought of you.”
She cringed at the im-pli-ca-tion. He threw his hands up as if in sur-ren-der.
“No, wait, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“Let’s go some-where, do some-thing, drive fast.”
He raked his hands through his short blond hair. A part of her wanted to feel its tex-ture be-tween her fin-gers while an-other part of her wanted to run and hide un-der her cov-ers.
“Adam, I don’t do spon-tane-ity.”
“Why the hell not?” He spun to-ward her and took her by the shoul-ders. De-spite his quick move-ments, his hands were gen-tle. The hurt in his eyes had less-ened. But it was still there. His hands were warm, his breath minty. While part of her wanted to run away, an-other part of her wanted to melt into him. “Be-cause I’m a plan-ner.”
“And you have plans.”
His gaze raked her from top to bot-tom, leav-ing a trail of heat in their wake. Only the heat wasn’t de-sire, it was em-bar-rass-ment. Be-cause she knew very well what she looked like. She folded her arms across her chest. “I did, which I can-celled when you showed up.”
“You were go-ing to the gym?” He raised one side of his mouth into a lop-sided smile.
She would have laughed if she had found his com-ment the least bit funny. “No, I was re-lax-ing be-fore get-ting ready to go out with some-one who doesn’t care what I look like.” She in-haled as soon as the words left her mouth. “I…I didn’t mean…”
Adam gave a bit-ter laugh. He shut-tered the last of the emo-tion she’d thought she’d seen. “Of course you did. I should have con-sid-ered you might be see-ing some-one else. My bad.”
He edged to-ward the door. “Go ‘un-can-cel’ them. See you around.”
Be-fore she could say any-thing else, he strode down the stairs. The click of the door as it closed gen-tly re-ver-ber-ated through her head. He was gone.