“Google isn’t always the best avenue of research.”
“No?” she asked, feeling a little defensive at that because number ten was still ringing in her head. And also because, well, her pride was injured. Research was her thing. Living in front of her computer had been how she’d built the crazy world that existed in Storm Fever, the series penned by her alter ego, CE Crown. “I suppose you’re going to tell me what is the best avenue of research,” she said.
“You gotta stretch yourself. You could question the people who actually live here, experiencing the city through them.”
“But I don’t know people who live here,” she pointed out.
“Don’t you?” He dunked a piece of fried zucchini into ranch sauce until it was more ranch than zucchini and then popped it into his mouth. When he’d chewed and swallowed, he flashed her a smile. “You know me, right? And I’m an open book.”
That made her laugh. Spence Baldwin was good-looking, smart, and funny, and he had good taste in friends and food, but he wasn’t an open book, not by any stretch of the imagination—and her imagination was good, very good. He had secrets in his eyes, secrets that haunted him.
And so do you . . .
“I can tell you all sorts of things about this city,” he said.
“Such as?”
“Such as it’s seven by seven miles perched on a peninsula of forty-three hills.”
“Wow,” she said. “You’re right. I didn’t know that.”
“I had a crush on Mrs. Stein, my fourth-grade teacher. I used to memorize all the geography facts to please her.”
She laughed.
“All better?” he asked.
She looked down and saw the mountain of bare chicken bones on her plate and had to laugh. “I was starving.”
Spence nudged the zucchini her way and she bit her lip, torn. On the one hand, she was full. On the other, the zucchini looked amazing. She blew out a sigh and ate one. “Oh. My. God.”
“Right?”
“Shh.” She took another while he laughed. And then another. When she finally leaned back, Spence was smiling at her.
“What?” she asked.
“Cute.”
She resisted squirming in her chair because she hadn’t straightened her hair or reapplied makeup, and she knew what she looked like.
Harried.
Tired.
Overworked.
Stressed.
And definitely not cute. “Thanks for feeding me. And for the ice and rice.” She slipped off the stool. “But I’ve gotta go.”
“Where to?”
To get her life together . . . “I still need to find a place to stay.”
“How about right here?”
Chapter 5
#SonOfANutcracker
Colbie had just taken a sip of water when Spence said those words.
“How about right here . . .”
As a result, her sip of water got sucked into the wrong pipe and she choked and very nearly snorted water out her nose. This would’ve been no surprise at all to anyone who knew her, but she was really trying to be mysterious here.
And sexy, a voice inside her head said. Admit it—you want him to think you’re mysterious and sexy.
He handed her a napkin.
“I’m sorry,” she said, cleaning herself up. “But I can’t stay with you. I’m not . . .” She shook her head. “I’m not interested in any sort of relationship. I’m only going to be here until Christmas Eve, so I really have no business starting something. I mean, not that you’re not . . . well, really nice to look at, but—”
“There’s a studio apartment on the third floor,” he said, looking amused. “Furnished. Available. Elle’s getting a key to show it to you.”
“Oh.” She felt her face flame. Wow, she was such an idiot. A socially inept idiot, which was yet another reason on her long list of reasons for running away for the month. She had no skills for navigating these kinds of waters, none. She needed a GPS for her life. Was there an app for that? Someone needed to invent that and pronto.
He was smiling outright now. “You done with your panic attack?”
She blew out a breath. “Yes.” She shook her head at the both of them. “And while it’s very kind of you to ask Elle to get me a place, I don’t want to impose.”
“No imposition,” he said. “The apartment’s empty.”
She bit her lower lip and studied him.
He smiled. “It’s sad when it’s empty.”
She burst out laughing and it felt so foreign that she laughed some more. Maybe, she thought, maybe today, even with the rough beginning, was supposed to happen. Maybe being here, right here, was exactly what she needed to get back on track. “Why would you help a perfect stranger?”
“We’re not strangers,” he said. “We went swimming in the fountain together.”
“But I don’t even know what you do for a living,” she said just as Finn came back to top off their drinks again.
Finn slid a look at Spence like he was really curious about how Spence would respond to this.
Spence didn’t respond.
Colbie tried Finn. “Want to tell me why your friend is so mysterious about his job?”
“No can do,” Finn said, but he said it very nicely.
She eyed Spence again. “How about if we play Twenty Questions.”
“Sure,” he said agreeably.
“If I get close, are you going to admit it?”
He just smiled.
“Never mind,” she said. “It won’t matter, because I’m good enough to be able to tell if you’re lying.”
Finn snorted. “I like you. I like you a lot, so I feel like I’ve got to tell you this . . .” He leaned in as if imparting a state secret. “There’s a bimonthly poker game that goes on in the basement. It’s highly competitive. And Mr. Poker-Face here almost never loses. Our boy’s got some serious game.”
“Elle used to win every time,” Spence said casually. “But that was before they let me join in. Now the two of us aren’t allowed to play on the same night.”
“Because they’re both asshole losers,” Finn said.
“Hey,” Spence said. “Don’t sugarcoat it or anything.”
“I don’t sugarcoat. I’m not Willy Wonka.” And then he moved off to serve other customers.
Colbie looked at Spence, who seemed like the very picture of laid-back and easygoing and not even close to anything like fiercely intense or competitive. “So you play poker,” she said, “which means you’re a thrill chaser. What else? Do you play any dangerous sports?”
“Yeah. Sometimes I disagree with Elle.”
Colbie laughed. “You don’t like to lose?”
“I don’t know,” he said modestly. “Because I never do.”
Oh boy. “Are you a lawyer?”
It was his turn to laugh. “No.”
She looked at his hands, taking them in hers, turning them over, running a finger along his work-roughened palms. “Are you a builder?”
He stared at her for a long beat. “No. But you’re getting warmer.”
She blew out a breath and studied his clothes. Sexy-guy jeans. An expensive-looking, perfectly fitted black button-down in a material that made her fingers ache to touch. It was opened over a T-shirt that had a series of math equations on it. Or maybe physics. “College professor?”
“No.”
He had Oakley aviator sunglasses on top of his head and his regular glasses on his face, making her smile. His hair was windblown and still in need of a cut, but clearly his last one had been excellent. “You do work though,” she said. “Right?”
Again something flickered in his gaze. “One hundred percent.”
“All the time, actually,” Finn offered on another pass-by.
“Porn star?” she asked.
Spence grinned. “Ah, man. You recognized me.”
She had to laugh. “You’re a hard man to read.”
“Tell us something we don’t know,” Elle said, slipping onto the stool next to Spence. She handed him a key. “The spare to the third-floor apartment.”