Page 74 of Deja New
“A fair point,” he conceded, and the wine went back into the backpack, to be replaced with the sparkling water. “Perhaps next time.” Pause. “Unless you feel I overst—”
“Pass me another egg and enough of the overstepping fretting. This is wonderful. It’s all wonderful—all the macarons are different colors! Agh, so cute! This is turning into a great, great day.”
He lobbed an egg at her which she snatched out of the air and—miracle of miracles!—it didn’t squirt through her fingers and slither off the blanket to land on the grass (bad) or ricochet off her fist to smack him in the eyeball (worse). He shifted around so he was leaning with his back against the trunk, then stretched out his legs, giving what he probably thought was an unobtrusive twitch that hiked up his pants leg, displaying his socks.
Monet’sWater Lilies.
“Brilliant,” she pronounced.
“I have several,” he murmured in a voice so intimate and confiding, he might have been coaxing her to let him take her to bed and ravish her. “Monet. Van Gogh. Picasso. Munch. Klimpt. Degas. Botticelli.”
“The rampant eroticism of Jason Chambers’s barely contained sock drawer.” She couldn’t say it with a straight face, andby the time she got to “barely” he was laughing so hard he choked on a biscuit.
When neither of them could eat another crumb, he packed everything away. She stretched out on her back, staring up through the feathery willow fronds to the clear blue sky beyond. Even though they were in public, they were nearly invisible to anyone walking by. She liked that. It was like they were on their own private planet. A planet littered with buried corpses, but still.
“Angela.”
“Mmmmm?”
“What does this mean?”
“It means it’s a great, great day. Beyond that, I don’t know.”
“I don’t, either. Though I enjoy seeing you in a social context as opposed to a work context. Not that I mind the latter,” he assured her.
“So you like hanging out with me even if you don’t have any crime-scene photos to show me?”
“Miraculously...” His tone was so dry, he could have used it to make beef jerky. “Yes.”
“What if you came over for dinner again?”
He flashed the dimple. “That would be my pleasure.”
“Or you and I went out somewhere. Would you get in trouble?”
“No. Your father’s case was never mine to begin with, and it’s not open.”
“Oh. That’s good.”Argh.“You know what I mean.”
“Yes.” He was wriggling a bit, trying to get comfortable—the blanket was a good idea, but it was thin and scratchy. She finally reached out, gently grabbed his ear, and tugged until he was lying down with the back of his head on one of her thighs. “Thank you. I wasn’t sure—”
“I know. It’s fine.”
“A great, great day.”
“Yeah.”
Later, she’d be grateful. It was the last “great, great” thing to happen for alongtime.
