Page 15 of The Whisper Place
Eventually, he dropped into one of the client chairs and buried his face in his hands. I stirred cream into my coffee and kept my head as blank as possible. It looked like he had enough on his plate already.
“We’ve decided to start dating. Officially.”
“Congrats, man. That’s great.”
“It is, but I’m freaking out, Max. When have I ever had a girlfriend?”
“Never.”
“Exactly. I have no idea how to do this. Where am I supposed to take her? What do we do on a first date? Does it matter? I told her I’d think of something, and everything I think of is the dumbest, worst—like, what, a restaurant? A hike? A picnic? No, I can’t take her on a picnic when her dead husband proposed to her on a picnic. What am I even . . . ?”
He shot out of the chair, back to pacing and running his hands through his hair. I hadn’t seen Jonah this bothered in—well, ever. Withdrawn, depressed, anxious, suicidal, sure, but never like he was about to implode with frustrated, incoherent energy. It was, frankly, adorable.
He glared, immediately picking up my mood. “Happy I can amuse you.”
“Okay, for the record,” I tried to keep the smile off my face, “Shelley thinks you’ve been sleeping together for at least a year.”
“I’ve never even kissed her.”
“Why not?” It was obvious to literally everyone who looked at them that they made sense. Opposites attract. Maybe a scientist and a psychic were more opposite than usual, but the principle held up. And Jonah had been gone on her since the day they met.
“Because I’m barely functional. I sleep in bathtubs. I need enough medicine to tranquilize a horse in order to get through a regular day. And beyond that, I can’t be in the same room as her without sensing every idea and feeling in her head. I’m a mental stalker. There’s no restraining order for that, Max. No consent on either side. If we do this, she’ll have no personal life, no boundaries.”
“Do you hear me complaining?”
“That’s different.”
“How?” I pushed back in my chair, sipping coffee. “We’ve been friends for what, twenty-some years? And we lived together for the first five. The only time it ever got weird with you in my head was when I had a girl over.”
“That’s why I left the apartment whenever you brought someone home.”
“Exactly.” I remembered the first time it happened, making out on the couch with some co-ed and startling apart when Jonah stalked out of his bedroom and straight through the front door. The girl didn’t understand why I started laughing, got mad when I wouldn’t explain it, and left a few minutes later.
“You knew when I needed space and you always gave it to me. You’ll do the same for Eve.”
He dropped into his chair again, spent. I didn’t wonder. The mental gymnastics he’d been doing looked exhausting.
“Look.” I set the coffee down and leaned forward. “I’m lucky to have a partner who already knows what I’m thinking. It’s a lot less work.” My life would be a hell of a lot easier if Shelley could read minds, too. No more communication exercises or nightly check-ins. “Eve’s already been in your life for what, two years? She’s not an idiot. She knows exactly what she’s signing up for.”
“Wait.” Something occurred to me. “Is this why you wanted to take on more work?”
He sighed and I knew I’d nailed it.
“I thought if I could handle more here . . .” He pulled out the notes I’d taken on Kate’s movements and her life in Iowa City, staring at the paper like the missing woman would appear between the scrawled details. “Tomorrow morning I’m going back to Charlie’splace. I’ll run the route she might’ve taken on her last morning, see if I can interview any neighbors.”
I picked up my coffee and refreshed my search engine. “Good. I’ll go to her work and talk to her boss. See if I can dig up anything there.”
We dove back into our own rabbit holes for a while. I tried more variations of Kate, checked more years, more states. Nothing popped. It wasn’t until we were locking up the office for the day that Jonah asked.
“You honestly think I can do this? That I can be in a relationship?”
I wanted to say yes, to clap him on the back and tell him of course he could. After all, if I’d managed to keep a marriage mostly together for fifteen-plus years, who the hell couldn’t? But Jonah had never let a single person into his life further than he’d let me. He’d have to change a lot of things to make room for Eve. And even if he could do that, I still knew better than anyone, his wasn’t the easiest life to witness.
The worst part of having a psychic best friend was being unable to bullshit him. Reading all the hesitation in my head, he nodded and went to his car. “I’ll check in tomorrow after the farm.”
“Jonah.”
He shot me a wave and disappeared into his car.
