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“Why? Well, we’re going to be living in close quarters and working together. It might look good if we don’t come across as perfect strangers when we’re out in public.”
Her shoulders relaxed. “That’s true.”
“It also gives you the opportunity to know me—if you let your guard down for a couple of minutes.”
A smile quirked on her lips, and she fixed her gaze back on the table, her leg twitching enough to make her body move. I leaned forward, placing my forearms on the edge of the table. “What do you want to do now?”
She wriggled a dark eyebrow at me suggestively, and a burst of heat rushed through my groin. “Really?”
“Your choice,” I promised, pulse quickening with the hope of a teenager, but it was immediately followed by shame.
“You’re sure?” she asked, her tone teasing.
Suddenly, I realized she wasn’t on the same wavelength as me at all and sat back, smiling. “What did you have in mind?”
She shrugged mysteriously. “I guess you’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you?”
“Sounds dangerous.”
The waiter reappeared with the check in hand, and I saw Mylee’s eyes pop when she glimpsed the total as I opened the leather jacket.
“Holy sh—wow! That much for two meals?” she whispered, looking around.
I eyed the total. “It’s not so bad,” I remarked honestly.
“Maybe not for you,” she agreed, standing. “But I bet you could feed one of the tent cities for a week for that.”
Tent cities? Why was she thinking about the tent cities?
She was already halfway to the door by the time I stepped away from the table, and I caught up with her, wondering if she was upset. But when we stood on the bustling Chicago sidewalk, Mylee cast me a sly grin and bolted across the street, leaving me gawking after her.
“Hey!” I yelled, dumbfounded. “What are you doing?”
Zipping through traffic, she ended up under a green awning, and it took me several seconds to recognize it was a bookstore.
The Progressive Mistralswas scrawled in white paint over the front of the dirty bay window, the name partially chipped. I’d never noticed it before.
Once more, she was out of sight before I could catch my breath, and when I finally entered the mom-and-pop bookshop, I stood at the dusty threshold, my eyes adjusting to the shift in ambiance.
In here, the noise from downtown was obsolete, as though we’d entered an entirely new dimension, and I had to take a moment to locate Mylee with the help of the middle-aged worker who gestured vaguely toward the back of the store.
“I was right,” I commented dryly. “This was dangerous. I haven’t run across four lanes of traffic like that since I was a teenager.”
Mylee chuckled and held up the small book in her hands. “Lord Byronisterrifying,” she agreed.
“Poetry, huh?” I mused, reaching for another title off the shelf to her right. “I’m more of a Whitman fan myself.”
She flashed me a knowing grin.
“Why does that not surprise me?” Mylee teased, replacing the book back where she’d found it.
“You shouldn’t be surprised I like poetry at all!” I complained jokingly.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” she replied. “I’m sure you’ve read everything.”
Her hair fell over her cheek, hiding her expression as she read, but I could feel the emotion radiating off her as she perused the words in front of her.
This was her escape,I realized suddenly.Reading is what grounds her.
