Page 22 of Personal Disaster

That doesn’t stop me from hugging her, though.

Then I clear my throat and she brushes past me to sit in the chair.

I move around my desk, and here we are again. Yesterday, we were adversaries. Today, we share a mutual attraction. That card has been laid on the table.

I pull out the sandwiches and lay them out justso.

Buying timenow.

Being a bit of a coward, really.

“It wouldn’t be a selfless act,” I finally say. I lean back in my chair as Poppy takes a sandwich. “Hypothetically. If I passed on technology to someone who might use it to mask their identity. I wouldn’t do that to be ahero.”

She lifts one shoulder. “I don’t think there are any true heroesnow.”

How I wish she were wrong. “There are good people putting up a solid fight. It doesn’t do anyone any favors to give them superhero capes for doing that, though.”

“You’re a hard man to figure out, you knowthat?”

“Normally I would take that as a compliment.”

That gets a smile, which I’ll take. She take a bite of her sandwich and points to mine, which remain untouched. I get the message. Eat.

Eat, and then we canplay.

Her story is done. It wasn’t about me. I’m just a guy she met while outhere.

No, you’re the guy who she’s been thinking about for weeks, if not longer.

“Poppy…”

She puts down her sandwich and gives me a half-smile. “Is this where you warn me that we can only be a one-off fling?”

My stomach drops. That wasn’t exactly where I was going, but maybe it shouldbe.

“Because I’m fine with that. Crush aside, I’m in a weird place right now. I just emailed in an op-ed proposal when I’ve never written one of those before, and in it I’m semi-sort-of-maybe saying that I’m stepping aside from journalism for a while. Which is a bold and crazy thing for someone who lives very much month-to-month in a stupidly expensive city to say. So right now is not a great time for me to entertain the notion of a long-distance flirtation, let alone any kind of serious relationship. But I also have some rules about sex and jerks—the two don’t work well together for me. So I’m okay with a fling, but it’s gotta be honest.”

Her voice is tight by the time she finishes saying all of that, and I want to vault over the desk and promise her it won’t be like that atall.

Except it probablywill.

“I can fly to you,” Isay.

“What?”

“For our next date. I’ll come toyou.”

“Aren’t you working seventy hour weeks because there aren’t enough staff hired on for the summer?”

There is that. I rock my jaw side to side. “Okay, how about this. One of my best friends just got engaged. They’re planning a wedding for Thanksgiving, in New York City. Would you like to be mydate?”

“You think our second date should be at a wedding four months fromnow?”

“I wouldn’t call it our second date. Maybe fourth or fifth, depending when you fly back, and how many meals we can share between now andthen.”

“A lot could happen in four months.”

Yeah. “Like getting to know each other. Sharing frustrations about how twisted and broken the world is rightnow.”

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