Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Jay
I am not cheating. I am in zero way cheating by accepting Lyra’s invitation to brunch. There shouldn’t be any awkwardness when the hostess seats the table next to us and I look up to see Phoebe, frozen in the act of sitting, hovering halfway to her seat, her eyes switching back and forth between Lyra and me.
Phoebe chooses in favor of gravity and takes her seat. The hostess sets a menu in front of her and tells her a server will be along shortly.
“Hey, Phoebe.” I keep my voice relaxed because I am not doing anything wrong. This isn’t a date, and even if it were, Phoebe has made it clearer than one of Grandad’s polished amber bottles that she and I will not be dating. I’m treating her like I would any friend I bumped into.
“The brunch here is great if you haven’t tried it.” I want to ask if anyone is joining her, but dying of curiosity isn’t a good enough reason.
“I haven’t,” she says. “All part of the Serendipity Springs assimilation tour. ”
“You remember Lyra from the library.”
They nod at each other and trade soft hellos.
“If you’re looking for a recommendation, the waffles are good,” I say. Easy chitchat. Look at the friendliness. What a good friend I am.
“Thanks.” Phoebe opens her menu and angles herself slightly away as she reads it.
Her server walks up and introduces himself, but when he asks what she wants to drink, she sets the menu down and scoops up her phone and keys. “Actually, I forgot I meant to start intermittent fasting today. Sorry about that.”
He takes the menu back with a mild look of surprise but hurries to his next table.
“Sorry to interrupt you,” she says as she stands, “but I guess it was serendipitous after all because I meant to tell you that I need to reschedule, Jay. We can look at that document Monday.”
Is she going out of her way to make that sound businesslike for Lyra’s benefit? And why is she rescheduling our letter snooping?
“It’s fine,” I say. “I can work around your plans. I’d rather look at the new one today.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. I forgot about another obligation this afternoon. I’ll see you at work.” She gives us both a friendly smile and leaves.
That was weird.
“You were going to work later today?” Lyra asks, her eyebrow arching.
“Still going to,” I tell her. “It goes beyond the scope of the museum, so she doesn’t like me to feel obligated, but I’m not. The beauty queen mystery. You know how research can hook you.”
“I do.” Her smile is more like a lazy curl of her lips .
Why doesn’t it affect me more? Lyra is beautiful, smart, and accomplished. She’s made it clear she’s interested and available. Phoebe has made it clear she’s neither, yet I can’t help comparing them. Lyra comes out worse because Phoebe is beautiful, smart, and accomplished too, but she’s also funny. Plus, Lyra doesn’t have any cool letters for me to investigate.
“Hello?” Lyra says, her voice low and throaty. “You went away for a second.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m back. What were you going to tell me about your Samuel Brown lead?”
When we finish our meal, I walk Lyra to her car and thank her for coming to brunch and for the research contact she’s given me at her last college. She’s smiling, finding excuses to touch me and all but handing me an engraved invitation to ask her out on an actual date. But I don’t. I’m too preoccupied by Phoebe and trying to figure out why she canceled. Lyra deserves more than being a pleasant distraction.
I drive back to the cottage and try to focus on Old Sam, but he can’t keep my attention either, and after a couple hours of rearranging chapters only to put them back into their original order, I give up and reach for my phone to check the time. This is about when I was supposed to meet up with Phoebe before she canceled.
Jay
I’m still available and desperate
I give her all of thirty seconds to respond before I send a follow-up.
Jay
… to see the letters
She doesn’t answer for an hour. I spend that hour in the big house, checking the library for the twentieth time to see if I’ve missed anything in Grandad’s collection that might shed more light on Sammy’s motivations.
When my phone buzzes, I whip it from my pocket so fast, it flies out of my hand and hits Phoebe’s desk with a sound somewhere between a thump and a crack. I hurry over and discover that in a showdown between an antique walnut desk and a new iPhone, the result is a draw. No chips in the desk, no cracks in the phone.
Phoebe
Enjoy your afternoon. We can look at it Monday.
Jay
But I’m dying of curiosity NOW
I think it’s giving me a rash?
Close up picture of weird rug pattern
That’s a rash, right? Looking at the letter will cure it.
Phoebe
…
…
Have you considered some soothing Butt Balm?
I laugh out loud. She found the apothecary.
Jay
That stuff is great on squeaky hinges, btw
Phoebe
Will stock up for museum maintenance need s
I said let me come over, she said no, I claimed a rash, and it didn’t amuse her enough to say “Come over.”
It’s uncomfortable having it hanging in the air, unaddressed.
Then again, she didn’t say no the second time, which means …
Jay
Cool. Coming over.
I jog out to my car and ignore the three texts that come in on the drive to The Serendipity. I take a guest spot in the parking garage before I check them.
Phoebe
Tomorrow is fine
Jay?
Face palm emoji
I spot a young guy walking toward the building, so I hop out to follow him, thanking him when he holds the door open for me.
Jay
I’m here but I’ll go away if you want me to.
Phoebe
Just come up
A minute later, I knock on her door, slightly winded after jogging up two flights of stairs before she could change her mind.
She opens the door and walks over to her table, leaving me to show myself in. “Have a seat.” She nods at the other chair, the white envelope lying in the middle of the table .
Instead of sitting, I rest my hands on the chair back. “Are we good?”
“Sure, but this could have waited until Monday.”
Her voice is pleasant, but something is off. I frown. “Am I … not supposed to date?”
“Date all you want.”
“Your face isn’t saying the same thing as your mouth,” I inform her. “The subtitles are big.”
“My face is just my face.”
I sit down and rest my arms on the table, leaning forward to study her.
She leans back. “Anyone ever tell you that you have boundary issues?”
I straighten immediately. “Am I making you feel uncomfortable?”
“No.” She waves like she’s dispersing my words. “Annoyed.”
“How about jealous? Because that was the vibe I got at the restaurant.”
She squints at me for a second like she’s trying to figure out if I’m serious. “Nope. Not jealous.”
I don’t know if I believe her. But maybe it’s because I don’t want to believe her. I’d rather believe she saw me with Lyra and wished it was her instead. If this were any other woman, I’d be confident that’s what happened. Time to dig deeper. Phoebe has run this conversation every time we’ve had it, but it’s my turn now.
“Imagine Hayes was never born,” I start, and she gives me a startled look. “Imagine you never had to school him with a lobster tail at a work event.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“If Hayes hadn’t happened, would you have considered me an option when we met?”
She sighs. “Jay … ”
“Humor me.”
“Why? No matter what the answer is, it wouldn’t change anything about us right now. I’m not going to date you.”
I like hearing her referring to “us” in any context. “You’re not saying you’re not interested.”
“That’s literally what I just said.”
“No, you said you’re not going to date me, not that you aren’t interested.”
“I don’t want to play semantic games.”
Still not saying she’s not interested, because it would be a lie. She glares at me, and I realize I’m smiling again. “Okay, no games. Tell me you feel no vibe between us, and I’ll let it go.”
“How many ways do you need me to say I’m not going to date you?” she asks.
I fight a laugh. She can’t say it. She knows there’s a vibe. “What I’m hearing is that you sense we crackle, and you were jealous when you ran into me with Lyra this morning.”
“First of all, let’s establish that Lyra is definitely not her given name. Secondly, we crackle?” She shakes her head. “I do feel like I’m about to snap, and if you don’t let this go, I’ll pop off.”
“You want to hear my confession?”
A pause. “No.” But she gnaws at her thumbnail and eyes me like she thinks I might bite … and she might be into it if I did.
“Sitting here making cereal puns with you is more fun than anything else I’ve done today.”
“You need better hobbies.” But she’s stopped chewing on her thumbnail.
“Now that I’ve made a confession, don’t you feel safe to make a confession too? Like that you were jealous at the restaurant?”
She places her palms on the table and meets my eyes, her amber ones glinting. “Was I jealous when the man I labeled as a charmer the first time I met him then charmed a librarian into brunch because he needed the attention I wasn’t giving him?” She leans forward and, without breaking eye contact, says, “No.”
There’s no room for interpretation in her denial, and it doesn’t make me feel good. “Why is it bad to be charming and enjoy the company of women?”
“It’s not.”
“Then why are you holding it against me?” I scrub my hands over my face. Why am I trying to make her jealous? Do I have that much ego? “It wasn’t even a date. With Lyra this morning. She asked to meet up because she put out some feelers in her network and came up with a connection who might have some information on Samuel Brown.”
She shifts in her chair. “You didn’t have to tell me that.”
“Yes, I did.”
“It’s none of my business.”
“I want it to be your business. I’m trying to figure out how I get a fair chance.”
“At what ?” She sounds genuinely exasperated now.
“With you .” It comes out blunt because I don’t know how much I mean it until I say it.
“Your chances aren’t any better or worse than anyone else’s, because I wouldn’t give anyone else a chance right now either. I’m here to focus on work. Period.”
“That’s not true. I have more of a knock against me. You’ve decided I’m like Hayes, and that’s it. You’re not accepting any more input. Everything I do comes to you through a Hayes filter.” I lean back and cross my arms. “Basically, you’re prejudiced against me.”
“You mean because you grew up in the same city, went to similar prep schools and the same college, and come from wealthy families? And because you’re both way too aware of your hotness, and you both need to flirt with anything in a skirt?” She gives me a look of mock surprise. “Gosh, Jameson, you caught me. I’m one hundred percent prejudiced against East Coast Ivy boys when their hair is suspiciously pretty.”
I reach up to touch my suspiciously pretty hair before I catch her smirk and drop my hand with a scowl. “You’re saying that you don’t have the ability to look past my external traits to see if I’m different?”
“Hate to break it to you, but almost everything about you is exactly what I expected it to be, including your hair.”
“Almost.”
“What?”
“You said almost everything. What’s been unexpected?” I’m pushing my luck in this conversation, but I want to understand this woman I like more each time I spend time with her.
“Your job,” she admits. “I would expect MBA, law school, even med school. But historian and author of nonfiction books with clickbait titles? Didn’t see that coming.”
“Choosing teaching as a career—something no one born with my silver spoon does—doesn’t improve my score?”
She shifts, and for the first time, she looks like she doesn’t know what to say.
“Basically, you’re not interested in challenging your opinion about me. Awesome.” My tone is drier than the plaster walls.
“You’re really bothered.” She says it quietly.
“It’s whatever,” I tell her. “I don’t even have time to date with this book deadline breathing down my neck. Must be the spoiled rich kid in me that wants to do whatever I want anyway.” Still so very dry.
She doesn’t say anything for several seconds. Then she reaches out to nudge the envelope. “Does that mean you don’t have time for this either?”
“You’re changing the subject. ”
“Yes. But if you don’t want to open it …” She draws it toward her like she’s going to put it away.
I shoot straight up in my chair. “If you try to cut me out of this, I’m going to throw a fit for real.”
A glimmer of a smile flashes at me as she slides the envelope toward her. “All right, then. Let’s find out what Dear Heart and Smitten Kitten are up to now.”