Page 43 of Jagged

"I dunno."

"Okay, listen, your nose is getting into giant dildo territory now. Quit it." She huffed and gave my jacket a tug. "Is she cute?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. She has nice hair and stuff…"

"What about her eyes?"

Again, I shrugged before speaking. "I guess. They're greenish hazel."

"Sounds very pretty. Do you like talking to her?"

"She gets annoyed at me constantly. I hardly understand anything she says because she's like some super genius or something."

"But you've talked enough that she likes you. Can you think of a moment when you liked talking to her, too?" Tatiana's gentle handling of the situation calmed me down like it always did, and I rolled with it.

"I guess at Jordan's. She was there when I was for a bit."

"What did you talk about?"

"Books mostly, and that she speaks a lot of languages—She speaks Portuguese she said." My stomach gave a small leap when the memory struck, and I sat up a little straighter. "Spanish, Romanian, which is weird as fuck, and she was reading a book in French. Who reads in French?"

Tati chuckled and her whole posture seemed to relax for some reason. "French, huh. How romantic. What book?"

"Voltaire. Literally, Voltaire in French. I don't even understand Voltaire in English." My energy surged suddenly, and I felt my heart kick up pace as if I chugged an energy drink. "She was born in Romania, too. No, wait. Her mother was born in Romania, but she was born here. And she traveled with her mom." Words flew out of my mouth at forty miles an hour it seemed. "She's been to Portugal. I think more than once. She had pictures there. I wonder if she's been where your family is from."

"Most people go to Lisbon if they visit Portugal." Tatiana's grin broadened while she listened to me. "What else?"

"That's it, I guess." I paused for a moment while staring at my phone. "She's a real nerd about science and genealogy. She's going to be the reason why we turn this case hot."

"She seems like an awesome connection. What's her name?"

"Clementine," I said, then looked back at her. "Interesting name."

"Just like Jagger. Maybe her parents were fans of Halsey the way yours loved The Rolling Stones." She motioned to my torn up old band shirt with the faded yet iconic red tongue.

"Halsey?"

"They have a song called Clementine from 2020."

I stared at her. "She wasn't born seven years ago. Ew. Dork."

Tatiana laughed and swatted my hand. "C'mon, I was trying to make conversation. At least I didn't go way back to the old song."

"She hates that. I heard her freak out at Ainsley about singing it." I shook my head and held up a hand to her. "Don't even."

Tatiana's smile broadened, but I didn't understand why. "I won't." A brief silence followed until she said, "So…are you going to answer the last question?"

"I already told her I wasn't going to answer it."

"How come you didn't want to?"

"Because she tricked me…"

"We changed that to surprised you, remember?" she said, her tone gentle. "We know why now. Why don't you want to answer?"

"Because movies are awkward. Sitting in silence next to someone while eating crunchy, salty popcorn and drinking bubbly drinks. Who thought that was a good idea?"

"Why not click maybe then when you talk to her, suggest something else?"

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