Breaking Through

‘Thirty-eight, actually. You still have a year and seven months to go.’ She tossed the ID back to him, and once he had replaced it in his wallet she mirrored his pose by cupping both hands around her cup. ‘So, Mr Reeve, what exactly do you do for that politician upstairs?’

He hesitated, drumming his fingertips against the teacup as he pursed his lips.

Miranda leaned closer and lowered her voice. ‘Are you the guy who gets the hookers and blow for rich donors?’

Simon laughed and shook his head. ‘Do you think about your words before you let them out?’

‘You have no right whatsoever to act shocked by that question.’

‘I’m not shocked, and without giving too much away I don’t get “hookers” and “blow” for rich donors, but if they’re involved in anything like that I’m the guy who finds out about it. I’m the guy who is paid to know everything there is to know about everyone.’

‘You dig up dirt.’

He didn’t confirm this, but he didn’t deny it either. He simply raised his cup and took a sip of the yellowish-brown brew.

‘I never would have thought local politics would need a man like you,’ she said.

‘Every level of government, no matter how small, uses men like me. Roe is going for the federal party leadership at the end of the summer. He’s got such a reputation as an MLA that up until recently the seat was pretty much his, but the competition is heating up for the leadership. I need to make sure he comes out of the wash squeaky clean.’

‘And make sure his competition doesn’t come out so clean.’ Again, he didn’t answer, and Miranda laughed. ‘All right. I get it. We won’t talk about your job, which I have to admit makes you sound like a Jacobean villain.’

‘Let’s talk about you,’ he said, giving her a look that suggested he was already trying to work out who she was. ‘So far all I have is that you’re twenty-three, you sell insurance, you like to paint and you’re raising your sister’s baby.’

She swirled the frothy contents of her mug, then tore off a piece of her scone. ‘Sadly, that’s pretty much the gist of who I am.’

‘Did you grow up here?’

She gave him her life in point-form, how she and her sisters had been latchkey kids while their mother worked the jewellery counter in a department store, how her father had been a truck-driver nearly 25 years her mother’s senior and had suffered a massive heart attack in a motel room in Virginia. She told him about Juliet moving to the West Coast, about Des getting pregnant and the father up and leaving for Alberta with the promise of sending her money, only to get there and announce he was marrying someone else. She recounted Des’s shocking and sudden death by heart attack at 24, just two months after giving birth to Eddie. She told him of her mother’s return to her Cape Breton home, where she found comfort in her big family in the aftermath of Des’s death, and the last year living in the Agricola Street house with Eddie.

She told him too much, she thought, but she found herself unable to stop. Maybe it was because for all the talking she did during the day, she rarely got to talk about herself, and he didn’t seem to mind.

The whole time, Simon listened with his chin perched on the heel of his hand, saying nothing as she unfolded her life’s story. Then she prompted him for his own past.

Once more, a moment’s discomfort passed over him but he seemed to swat it away with a hand in front of his face.

‘I was born in Ottawa and moved to Montreal when I was a kid. I lived there until I went to the University of British Columbia. I was there for one semester before I transferred back to Quebec. I just screwed around and sponged after I dropped out. I got into this line of work in my late twenties after finally finishing my degree.’

‘Bored or broke?’

‘Both, and tired. I had a friend offer me a job working for his company, sort of as his personal assistant. How sad is it that I was nearly thirty before I actually worked for a living?’

‘You should talk to my sister,’ she grumbled. ‘She’s a temp – sometimes – but if you ask her she’ll tell you that she’s a musician. In all fairness she made more money with her music in the last six months, but that’s only because she hasn’t taken an office job and doesn’t have to get up in the morning. Too bad she blows about half of it on herself.’

‘So how do you support yourself and a baby?’

The place was too nice and the food too good to indulge any further talk about disappointment, so Miranda shook her head and told him she was changing the subject.

‘I want the truth: why did you pick me up? And don’t give me your bullshit about chivalry.’

‘There’s some truth to that,’ he said with a sheepish look. ‘You looked so sad and pathetic standing there, I couldn’t bear it.’

‘But?’

‘But …’

He lifted his cup and took a sip, and he didn’t need to say anything more. His hazel eyes told her the answer to her question, and the quiet hunger that radiated back at her made her feverish all of a sudden.

She pushed her damp hair off her hot neck, and her pulse fluttered in her veins as he lowered his cup. The corners of his mouth quirked, telling her that he knew exactly what he had just done to her.

‘You’re not my type,’ she told him, seeing no point in beating around the bush, ‘not even a bit, and that whole bathroom thing was a bit of a turn-off.’

‘Right.’ The laughter that shook his voice irritated her and at the same time amused her, and she couldn’t hold back a smile.

‘But you did buy me a four-dollar scone, so I suppose you’re all right.’

‘Oh, is that all it takes?’

‘To get me on my back?’ She shook her head and giggled. ‘No, but it’s a start – and you haven’t tried to bullshit me yet, so I like that.’

Simon frowned. ‘How do you know?’

‘I just asked you pretty much point-blank if you wanted to get in my panties, and you didn’t try and act like it never crossed your mind. If you were trying to bullshit me, you’d be spoon-feeding me some crap about how you’re not that kind type of guy and then try and win me over by telling me about how your job makes it so hard to meet women. If you were bullshitting me, you’d have spun that whole bathroom thing into your tale of woe somehow, expecting me to sit here and go, “Poor baby, so sensitive and sad – how can I not sleep with him?”’

‘I sincerely hope you’ve never fallen for that.’

He finished his tea, tore off a piece of her scone and popped it into his mouth as she studied him. After a moment under her scrutiny, he slung his arm over the back of the chair and sprawled out, legs bumping hers under the table.

She didn’t pull away. She let him settle with his knee resting against hers, and enjoyed how the warmth crawled along the inside of her thigh, reaching for a more intimate shelter.

‘Why did you get in my car?’ he asked.

‘I was sad and pathetic,’ she countered.

Simon cocked his head. ‘And?’

‘And, honestly? That’s it. I just wanted a ride home, but now I’m having a good time.’ She met his gaze with a nod. ‘I think I can overlook the whole bathroom thing.’

He groaned. ‘Can we please drop that once and for all?’

‘Are you embarrassed by it?’

‘I’ve gone from embarrassed to mortified.’

‘I’m thrilled that you’re mortified, and yes, I’ll drop it now, but I might need a cookie to make up for taking away the one thing I have to hold over your head.’

‘I’ll get you two cookies if I can get your phone number.’

The line of communication they had been weaving back and forth between them drew taut with his request and pulled her closer to him even though she didn’t move a muscle. Miranda found it hard to speak.