Chapter 10
B lue knocked on Jane’s door at six the next morning, and a man answered. “Oh,” he exclaimed because he hadn’t expected to see a man. “I’m looking for Jane.”
“Yes,” the man said. He seemed to be waging war with himself until at last he stepped aside and granted Blue access. “Come in, I’m Nick. That’s Emily.”
“Hi,” Emily called. She sat at a tiny table drinking something out of a mug. There was another mug across from her and a selection of bagels. “Would you like coffee or a bagel?”
“I’m good, thanks,” Blue said, adjusting the strap of his messenger bag. The rest of his luggage was waiting downstairs in the taxi.
“Janie, your ride’s here,” Nick called.
Jane poked her head out, eyed Blue, and emerged with her suitcase. “Good morning,” she said, smiling.
“Good morning,” Blue replied.
“Did you meet Emily, my roommate, and Nick, our friend and temporary couch mate until his apartment situation gets worked out.”
“We met, thanks,” Blue said.
“Okay. Goodbye,” she said, turning to face her friends. To Blue’s further surprise, they both stepped forward and hugged her tightly. The guy also kissed her cheek.
“Be safe, we love you, text to let us know you got there,” Nick said.
“Will do,” Jane agreed.
“Have fun,” Emily added.
“But not too much,” Nick said.
Jane made no reply. She wheeled her suitcase through the door and closed it behind them.
“Here, let me,” Blue offered. He reached for her suitcase. Their hands brushed, and she did the thing where she jumped and jerked her hand away. Now that Blue knew why, he found it kind of flattering. And it was also making him hyper aware of those little touches, to the point where he was tempted to reach for her hand with his free one and hold it. Today she wore a light pink dress with some kind of print on it, horses on closer inspection, and it was the first time he’d ever seen her wearing anything other than black. The change brought more color to her cheeks, or maybe that was her embarrassment over jumping again when he touched her.
They reached the taxi downstairs. The cab driver tossed her suitcase in the trunk along with Blue’s, and they were off.
“You seem especially close to your roommates.”
“We go back a long way, since freshman year of college,” Jane explained. “They’re like family.”
“How old are you?” he blurted. He was used to finding out everything about a person online. But Jane was a black hole, a blank. She had no online presence, and the lack was still driving him crazy. How was he supposed to learn anything about her? Outside of actually asking her, of course, but no one did that anymore.
“Twenty seven, almost twenty eight.”
“How does someone so young already have her doctorate?” he asked.
“Because I was homeschooled. I graduated high school at sixteen, started college at seventeen, graduated at twenty, got my doctorate in four years, and have been at the museum for three. How did you get into computers?” she asked.
“I wasn’t good at sports, and there’s not a lot of space in the world for boys who can’t toss a ball. I turned to video games, realized I had an affinity for all things binary, and the rest is history.”
“How did you go from video games to prison?” she asked and the driver glanced at them in the rearview mirror.
“I got in with the wrong gang, an online gang of hackers who kept challenging me to do more and more things. Eventually I did the really wrong thing and got caught.” He paused. “I still feel a lot of guilt for what I put my parents through. I’m not from a broken, messed up home or anything. I have loving parents. My mom’s a teacher, my little brother is a golden child who has never done wrong. And then there’s me.”
“It would seem you’ve done a lot lately to make up for it. They must be proud of you.”
“I hope so,” he said. As much as he feared The Colonel and sometimes made fun of his over-the-top starched persona, he also owed him a debt of gratitude he could never repay. He had plucked him out of a life carrying the stigma of a convicted felon. Who besides the United States Government would have hired him with such a checkered past?
They made it through the airport check in line in a timely fashion. Blue was conscious of their surroundings, keeping an eye out in case they were being tailed. Jane seemed to have the same sort of mindfulness, and he found it odd. In his experience, not many civilians practiced situational awareness. Either Jane had been the victim of some sort of trauma that made her wary or she had been trained. But if she had been trained, by whom? And if she had been the victim of trauma, what sort? He had questions, but he didn’t yet know her well enough to ask, and the lack of answers was pinging on his radar and making him suspicious. If only he could look into her online. Usually when he met a woman, he knew everything about her before the first date, down to kindergarten teacher and the name of her first pet. People put an immense amount of information online—health history, income, family details, personal anecdotes. Now he was flying blind, and it was making him crazy.
Why, for instance, was she suddenly so tense? She had seemed calm and relaxed for most of the morning, but now her face was drawn, her hands clenched. Ask her, stupid.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine but I’m going to get pulled out of line and searched,” she said.
“Why? You’re the least suspicious looking person I’ve ever seen.” Unless the TSA knew something he didn’t.
“I’ve been to a lot of countries with high terror alerts,” she said. “Happens every time.”
Sure enough, once they made their way forward, she was pulled aside and searched while Blue, with his sleeve tattoos and shockingly cerulean hair, was waved easily through.
“I feel like I just witnessed your honeymoon with that TSA agent,” Blue said when she pulled on her sweater and rejoined him.
“Seriously. I’m going to start hiding small metal objects on my body to make it worth their while,” she said, and he laughed. They boarded the plane.
“My friend is a huge fan of your work,” she said once they were seated.
“My work?” he echoed.
“Your app. His grandma’s neighbor is Martha Stewart’s cousin.”
“Ah, see that’s why I did it, because otherwise the world wouldn’t have that information.”
“It’s incredibly important,” she said.
“Your life is richer for knowing it. You’re welcome.”
“Do you still invent apps?”
“I piddle, but nothing has come of it,” he said.
“I wish there was an app for people with social anxiety. I’d be all over that,” she said.
“Like what, for instance?”
“Like when your mind goes blank it would offer up a suggestion for what to say. Sort of like Google translate for awkward people.”
“That’s actually a really good idea,” he said. “I might work on that, but rest assured I’ll be sure to give you a cut of my royalties. How does ten dollars sound?”
She whistled. “I’m not comfortable with that kind of money. I’ll waive my fee and find contentment that I’ve helped other people like me not say, ‘You, too,’ when a waitress says, ‘Enjoy your meal.’”
“I’ll put in an Easter egg of you macing someone,” he said.
She covered her mouth and laughed. “My friend really liked your Easter egg in Threeple.”
Too late she realized her mistake. “You put my name in? You were talking about me to your friend?”
“Is that the landing gear or is the plane breaking up?” she asked, turning to look out the window.
“Nice evasion,” he said.
“I may have been talking about you a bit,” she admitted.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“That you’re highly professional in your capacity as my coworker,” she said.
He leaned slightly closer. “I feel that you’re lying, Dr. Dunbar.”
She leaned closer and rested her hand on his forearm. “Prove it.”
They were professionals on a crowded early morning business flight, but the temptation to kiss her was nearly irresistible. How had he gone from loathing to attraction in such a short span of time? Maybe the two emotions were closer together than they were farther apart.
“Pretzels?” the flight attendant asked and they both turned to look at her in confusion as if it were a foreign word, causing her to repeat it with slightly more irritation. “Pretzels.”
“No, thanks,” they each said, and she moved on.
“Until this moment, I never knew ‘pretzels’ could sound like a threat,” Jane said.
“I kind of want coffee, but I’m afraid of what she’ll do to it,” Blue admitted.
“Ew, airplane coffee is atrocious. I know a good place on the way to the museum.”
“How well do you know New York?” he asked.
“Like a second home. I did my undergrad there.”
“Really?” Blue said. Everything about her was surprising because he had no foreknowledge of anything she was going to say. Usually when he was with a woman his biggest challenge was pretending he didn’t already know what she was about to tell him. But with Jane he had no idea about anything.
“Yes. I moved there three weeks after my seventeenth birthday and lived there until I graduated. I love it.”
“I’ve only been on business, and I never have time to explore,” he said.
“Tonight, after we’re finished at the museum, I could show you some places, if you want,” she offered, suddenly finding something highly interesting on her cuticle.
“Yes,” he agreed. He had to go with her regardless of what he wanted. Ridge had been clear on that. You stick to her like double sided tape, no exceptions. But he found he wanted to go, more because he was curious about where she might take him than because of any tourist spots he wanted to see. “I want. What did you have in mind?”
“What are you up for?”
“Anything,” he said.
“Anything?” she asked.
“Anything,” he said, and she smiled.
“Excellent, but now the pressure’s on to find something good that will impress you.”
“I’m actually very easily impressed. You know when you go to a place that has a clear elevator and you can see the mechanism that makes it go up and down? That keeps me enthralled for hours.”
“I don’t think I can top a clear elevator, but I’ll try to come up with something,” she said.
Their flight was only an hour. They arrived at the airport and hailed a taxi that would take them to their hotel and the museum, another hour. The cost would be exorbitant, but it was on the government’s dime.
“I love the smell of New York,” Jane whispered when they were safely tucked in the taxi.
“All I smell is man sweat,” Blue whispered in reply.
“That and old fish and garbage is New York.” She breathed deeply, smiling.
“I’m seeing a whole new side of you.”
“And the day has only begun,” she said. “See that building?” She ducked so he could see over her head, but it wasn’t necessary since he was so much taller. “That was designed by Evan Falcone. He won a contest and I had a few classes with him when I was in school.”
“What else can you show me? Give me the grand tour,” Blue said.
“Are you sure that wouldn’t be boring?”
“Again, extremely low threshold for what I consider boring, and I like knowing all the behind the scenes insider stuff.”
“Okay, here we go.” She took a breath and launched into an informative tour that lasted the entire drive. He had never heard her talk so much or so freely and he began to see what she must be like when she was in her natural element and at her best—intelligent, interesting, funny.
“Are you sure I’m not boring you?” she asked.
“Really, really not,” he said.
“To be continued after work,” she said.
“I’ll be looking forward to it,” he said, which might have been the understatement of the century.