Breaking Through

‘Is that your way of calling me an asshole?’

‘No, not at all. I like it. I wouldn’t have asked if you wanted a ride if I didn’t think you’d be good company.’

Miranda hated to admit it, but she was enjoying his company as well. She liked that she could dish it and he’d dish it right back at her. And she liked that they’d been in the car together for almost ten minutes and he hadn’t tried anything funny.

‘I’m not a graphic designer. I work at the call centre on the fourth floor, but I am an “artistic type” – I paint in my own time. I had a stall at the farmers’ market when I was just out of high school, but now I sell my stuff on the Internet.’

‘Good money in that?’

‘Did you miss the part where I said I work in a call centre?’ she retorted with a laugh. ‘It does make a difference, though. One day, hopefully before I’m dead, but right now it’s just a way to make a few bucks on the side.’

‘Beer money?’

‘Baby money.’ He looked to her with surprise, prompting a bubble of laughter from her. ‘Not mine. My sister’s. She died last year, and so my other sister and I are raising her son.’

He shook his head. ‘Jesus, I’m sorry, about your sister, and for thinking you were –’

‘Some vapid slut who would suck a dick in a public washroom if you bought me a beer?’

‘Here we go again.’

‘Maybe I am,’ she teased, earning herself another surprised look that tickled her. ‘Even vapid sluts have bills to pay when they’re not sucking dick. What are you doing?’

‘You said go straight until I got to the bridge. Now I’m going on the bridge.’

‘The bridge that will take us into a completely different city, you mean?’

‘Oh, hell, I thought the phone was supposed to tell me where I was supposed to go.’

‘It did, but you weren’t paying attention. Just get into the next lane and go down and now we’re on the bridge.’

‘See, this is why I didn’t want to talk about my dick any more.’ He laughed as they motored onto the bridge above the shipyards. ‘Sorry, I really am. I told you I don’t know the city. I’ll turn around as soon as I can. Can you fish toll money out of the console?’

‘I’ll pay it,’ she said, kissing her coffee money for tomorrow’s break goodbye, and shrugged. ‘It was kind of my fault with the shitty navigation, and you’re nice enough to drive me home in the rain.’

‘Will this make you late?’

‘No, my sister doesn’t leave for work until nine-thirty.’

‘Then have a cup of tea with me before I take you home?’ It was Miranda’s turn to look surprised. ‘You said no handjobs. You never said anything about asking you for tea.’

‘I don’t drink tea,’ she murmured, and immediately regretted it. She actually wanted to have a cup of tea with Bathroom Blowjob Guy, Simon, and so she shrugged inside that ugly poncho. ‘I can have something else.’

‘Good. Now let’s see if I can find us a real coffeehouse without ending up in the sticks.’

* * *

‘Have you even been here before?’ he asked as he shook his umbrella out on the welcome mat.

Miranda shook her head, then peered up at him with suspicion. In the last few minutes she’d begun to doubt that he had truly gotten lost. He’d found the seaside café almost immediately, and the parking spot in an empty church parking lot just as quickly. The unsexy poncho had been left in the car.

The arm he’d wrapped around her shoulders as they walked from the church lot to the café was supposedly to keep her close under his umbrella, but it had been such an easy sweep to get her nearer that she couldn’t help but think it was all part of a scheme.

It surprised her how little she minded. When the hostess offered to take their wet jackets, Miranda passed hers over to him and got a charge out of his quick-fire look down her body. Save for the hem of her shorts, the clothes she wore underneath her jacket had been spared from the rain, so she wasn’t giving him a show, but that look seemed to go deeper than the yellow T-shirt she wore.

She liked it.

He ordered a green tea and caught her crinkling her nose. ‘What?’

‘I thought you were an espresso kind of guy.’

He raised a brow. ‘How do you know that?’

‘I’ve seen you in the café at work.’

‘And noticed me?’

She grinned, not about to admit that she had been shit-talking him in her head. ‘You don’t strike me as a green tea and espresso kind of guy. You strike me as a black coffee and powdered doughnut kind of guy.’

‘Do I also strike you as a fedora and tommy-gun kind of guy?’

Miranda laughed and placed her order for a hot chocolate and a cranberry scone, then followed him to a table away from the window.

‘First things first, how old are you?’ he asked as he shrugged out of his blazer, then laughed as Miranda shot him a surprised look. ‘I’m going for about twenty-one, but it just occurred to me that you could be sixteen and I could be in for a hell of a lot of trouble.’

‘I’m twenty-three, and I have ID to prove it.’ She plucked her wallet from her back pocket and handed it over, then giggled as he peered at the government ID.

She had to hand it to Simon Reeve: he was charming as hell. Now that the blazer was slung on the back of his chair and he had rolled up his sleeves to reveal strong forearms with faint blond hair, now that he had loosened his tie, he was transformed.

‘See? You won’t end up on the evening news, though I have to admit, I’m comforted to know that you’re not into under-age girls.’

‘They weren’t worth tangling with when I was seventeen, and they’re sure as hell not worth it now that I’m pushing forty.’

‘You’re not forty.’

‘You want to see my ID?’

‘Of course.’

He pulled out his wallet and tossed the laminated card towards her.

Simon P. Reeve.

She looked from the terrible photo to the man, and thought there was something odd in his expression, but it was gone as soon as she caught a glimpse of it.

‘So you weren’t lying when you said you were new in town. You still have your Ontario driver’s licence.’

‘Another thing on my to-do list. See? Almost forty.’