Chapter 10
Booker: This is all your fault.
Drew: Uhm…
Booker: I’m craving mushrooms.
Drew: I accept full responsibility.
Booker: It’s up to you to fix this.
Drew: Another clandestine meeting?
Booker: It’s a date.
I returned to Rossi’s with the list of employees we still had to interview.
At the pace we were going, I expected at least another month working with Booker.
As I scanned, I noticed names and job titles, but I couldn’t see anything that set off alarms. How did Booker see this and make the intuitive judgment calls? Whatever skill he possessed, I did not.
My phone vibrated, the screen flashing with the HeroApp? signature warning.
With a couple of clicks, it revealed a robbery a few streets away.
Common crooks. With another glance at the stack of papers, I wondered if I was squandering my time.
Booker might be a fun distraction during the workday, but was I letting it get in the way of my actual job?
If Hellion were roaming the streets, there’d already be a pile of bodies waiting for the police.
I stood—
“You don’t have to get up for me.”
I glanced up to see Booker walking toward me.
Black t-shirt with a reflective silver Centurion logo on the chest. He gave a chin nod before sitting across from me.
It took a moment, then I could smell his woodsy aftershave mixing with the scent of pizza.
If he hadn’t been standing there? Would I have bailed on my partner for a chance to work up a sweat?
The guilt crept in, and I took a seat, forced to play the role of Drew a little longer.
“What’s that?” He pointed to the papers.
“I was trying to decide who was next on our list. I don’t know how you do it.”
He grew silent as he retracted his arm. “Oh.”
“Oh?” I don’t know why, but the heat rushed to my cheeks. I wanted to hide my face as if I had just made a fool of myself. The discomfort grew by the second.
“I thought—” I wasn’t the only one feeling it. “I meant it.”
“What?”
“It.”
His entire face turned red. He avoided eye contact. Had I done something wrong? Overstepped boundaries? I prepared an apology when he coughed.
“A date.”
My eyebrow shot up. Oh. OH! My eyes widened.
I slammed the folder shut, realizing I had misread the situation.
Flustered, I sat up straighter, running a hand through my beard.
If I had known, I’d have ironed my shirt.
At least I had taken a shower before leaving the house.
Did he expect flowers? A hug? A handshake? The spiral took hold.
“Aww, you’re back.” I had never been more thankful for a nosy teenager in my life. “Couldn’t get enough, could you? The pizza, I mean. Get your minds out of the gutter.”
We must have both looked as if we were caught with our hands in the cookie jar. It took a moment before I noticed that Becky awkwardly hugged herself, fidgeting as if our discomfort radiated outward. I had to stop it.
“PIZZA!” I shouted. It took a moment, but both Booker and Becky chuckled at the outburst. “The usual,” I said. “Soda for me and water for—”
“Soda for me, too.” Becky nodded and left us to our awkward first date. Even though his cheeks were still beaming, he flashed a grin. “It’s not a work session.”
I hardly knew how to navigate Booker during work. During interviews, I offered my two cents, but I felt like dead weight. I had considered asking Ricardo to fire me. At least at Secret Identities, I knew how to do my job. I was just as clueless about how to handle a date with this handsome man.
“A date?” Might as well get the awkwardness out of the way. “What prompted this?”
He squirmed. Booker, a man capable of making a scientist break down and confess to stealing reams of paper, didn’t like being in the hot seat. I enjoyed the less-than-confident version of him.
“Save my life once, you get a firm handshake. Twice? A date to Vanguard’s best pizza joint… It’s the least I could do.”
Obligation. It knocked the wind from my sails.
“No,” he blurted. “That came out wrong.” He leaned back in the chair and let out a long sigh. “I meant to say… I didn’t mind having you lying on top of me. Is that bad? Cheesy?”
“Second cheesiest thing here,” I said with a smile. Sails filled again. “I appreciate it.” I didn’t know what to do with it, but I appreciated it. Who knew if he meant it, but I wanted to see where the night took us.
“Why Vanguard?” He asked.
“Born and raised,” I confessed. “Lived in Southland all my life.”
“Rough neighborhood, isn’t it?”
If only he knew. Then I remembered he knew the exact neighborhood from taking me home. “From the outside, it looks that way. But we’re just like everybody else. Trying to survive.”
“Why Secret Identities?”
I shook my head. “This isn’t an interrogation.”
“Force of habit.” Did I tell him his awkwardness bordered on endearing?
“Why Vanguard?” I asked.
“They assigned me here. Before that, I did three years in Sin City. Before that, I was on the West Coast. If I close my eyes, I can still hear the ocean from my office.”
“How are you liking it?” I wanted to pat myself on the back for having a genuine conversation. No motives. No wanting to hide. He somehow disarmed my insecurities. It made me suspicious, but I locked that worry in a compartment in my head.
“I like it. I wish the subway ran on time. There are so many supervillain lairs down there. I wish I didn’t need super insurance for my car.”
“You’ll be thankful. I blame Synergy—” and my co-workers “—but there seems to be a superhero battle every few days.”
“After Sin City, I shouldn’t be surprised.” He uncrossed his arms and leaned on the table. “But I like it so far. It’s been an adventure.” The way he smirked while staring me in the eye made me wish Becky would magically appear.
“I needed a job,” I said, going back to his earlier question.
“Secret Identity, I mean.” It was hard to think it had been a year since I started.
“Arthur wrote a horrible job description. He needed warm butts in seats. He would have taken anybody.” I recalled the copious number of supers in the waiting room.
I made the cut while he had to turn them away.
“Why’d you stay?”
I could have lied and said I was good at my job.
I got it done, but until the pushback with Director LaToya, I never thought I carried my weight.
“They’re different.” Everybody tried to make me feel like I belonged, but that was baggage reserved for a second date.
“They get me in a way most folks don’t.”
“But you’re not convinced?” He said it and quickly covered his mouth.
“Sorry. Occupational hazard.” He leaned forward.
“If you haven’t noticed, it’s hard to turn off the job.
I’m not saying it’s ruined my social life, but if you shot me down for tonight, I’d be home watching Real Housewives of Vanguard. ”
“Oh. Em. Gee.” Cue Becky and her perfectly timed interruptions. “Yolanda is such a bitch. Can you believe she didn’t ask Jasmine on the girls’ trip? I didn’t feel bad when Dr. Gravity held them hostage. That’s what they get.”
I understood nothing out of her mouth other than hostage and Dr. Gravity.
“I say Jasmine paid him to do it.” Oh, he wasn’t joking about watching it. “We’ll have to wait until next week to find out.”
Becky set the glasses in front of us. She stepped back, her hands clasped together, but not actually leaving the table.
“Becky,” her father barked. “Their date is awkward enough without you.”
“This is my first date in over a year.” Being Drew by day and alternating between Tint and Hellion at night didn’t make for a vivid social life. “It is a date, right?”
Booker let out a snort that turned into laughter. It was hard to fear his answer as his belly jiggled. “We’re horrible at this. How about we start over?”
I shook my head. “Nope. We’re getting the awkwardness out of the way.
” Something about him being this bad lowered my anxiety.
I had a dozen questions I wanted to ask.
Ranging from why he worked with the government to whether the salt in his beard carried onto his chest, I debated on what to ask first.
“Ahem,” I said. Preparing for the most important question. “What’s your favorite color?”
He flashed a toothy grin. Maybe being Drew wasn’t half bad?
“Easy…”
Pizza had turned into a stroll through Southland.
I breathed a sigh of relief at the lack of muggers and crooks.
The conversation had stayed light. I learned about Booker’s sister, Mary, and her obsession with unicorns.
I told him about the office and what it was like working with Janet. Everything about it had been pleasant.
Partway through telling him about my love of adult coloring books, I realized nobody knew about my hobby.
I shoved my hands into my pockets as we crossed the road, heading toward my apartment.
Tonight I hadn’t cherry-picked my responses.
There was no curation based on what I thought he wanted to hear.
I eyed the handsome man. Tonight had been… easy.
I stopped walking, staring at a spot where the storm clouds had parted. Several steps ahead, he stopped and followed my line of sight. I scooted behind him, hand out, finger pointing at the empty spot.
“That’s my favorite color.”
“What’s it called?”
I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It exists.”
He didn’t budge, and I realized my body was pressed against his back.
I should have been polite and stepped back, but I didn’t want to.
He casually reached back, taking my other hand as if he didn’t want to make a spectacle.
His free hand moved my arm and finger, pointing to brightly lit curtains in an apartment window.
“Not mustard, but close.”
With a blink, I could have turned half the street into his favorite color. He might think it an unimportant fact, but when hanging out with a man who could manipulate color, it carried a deeper meaning. If Arthur wouldn’t kill me, I’d have shown him a world filled with his almost mustard.