Page 32 of Can't Stop Watching
This time, the smile actually breaks through—subtle but transformative. My stomach does that weird flippy thing again.
"Woman hired me to follow her husband. Turned out he wasn't cheating—he was taking secret ballet lessons to surprise her on their anniversary."
I laugh, the tension between us easing slightly. "Seriously?"
"Pirouettes and everything."
"And here I thought PIs only dealt with seedy motel stakeouts."
"Those too." He tilts his head. "Your turn. Weirdest bar story?"
"Weirdest bar story..." I tap my chin, considering. "This wasn't at The Old Haunt, but back when I worked at this dive barin the East Village. We had this regular—like, every Thursday at 8 PM on the dot. Always ordered a gin and tonic, always left a five-dollar tip. Super quiet, kept to himself."
Dane leans forward slightly, his eyes focused entirely on me. It's intense having all that attention directed my way.
"One night, he comes in with this bulging backpack. I'm thinking, great, either he's about to rob us or he's living out of that thing. But he just sits down, orders his usual, and starts pulling out... socks."
"Socks?" One eyebrow lifts slightly.
"Not just any socks. Handknitted, rainbow-striped knee-high socks. Dozens of pairs. Turns out, our mysterious regular was this famous underground sock designer with a cult following. He'd been working on his fall collection at our bar for months because—and I quote—'the sticky floors inspire me.'" I roll my eyes. "By closing time, he'd sold $3,000 worth of socks to other customers. Handed me a pair and a hundred-dollar tip."
His mouth quirks. "Did you wear them?"
"Are you kidding? Of course, I did. They're hideous. But they're the warmest socks I own, so..."
"You still have them." It's not a question.
I shrug, feeling heat rise to my cheeks. "What can I say? Bartenders are sentimental."
The waiter arrives with our wine, momentarily saving me from Dane's too-perceptive gaze. After he pours and leaves, Dane swirls his glass but doesn't drink.
"What about journalism? Any stories there?"
"Oh God," I laugh, relaxing a little. "Senior year, I was researching this piece on urban legends around campus. You know, haunted dorms, creepy professors, that kind of thing."
"Standard college fare."
"Exactly. But then I heard about this anonymous Twitter account that was supposedly run by a campus squirrel."
His brow furrows. "A what?"
"A squirrel. Like, an actual squirrel supposedly tweeting about campus life. Everyone thought it was just some student being clever, but the tweets were... weirdly specific. Details about closed-door administrative meetings, faculty gossip, stuff no student would know."
I take a sip of wine, feeling myself relax into the story. "So I spent weeks trying to figure out who was behind it. Set up stakeouts, tracked IP addresses, the works. I was convinced it was this computer science professor who always gave weirdly defensive looks whenever squirrels came up in conversation."
"Suspicious," Dane says, deadpan.
"Right? So I follow him for two weeks, digging through his trash?—"
"Stakeouts and trash hunting. Impressive."
"Investigative journalism," I say with a grin. "Anyway, I started having doubts when my garbage-diving yielded nothing but coffee grounds and graded papers. So I dug deeper and discovered the account was actually run by… get this… the dean's ninety-year-old mother. Talk about a plot twist."
Dane's eyebrows shoot up. "You're shitting me."
"Nope. She had dementia, lived in faculty housing, and the assistant would wheel her around campus daily. Old lady would eavesdrop on everything, and the assistant set up the account as therapy—thought it'd be therapeutic to let her share her 'observations' as a squirrel."
"So instead of a conspiracy, you got Grandma Squirrel."
