Teddy Spenser Isn't Looking for Love - Kim Fielding Page 0,32
back to his laptop screen. A small assortment of paper food containers sat beside the computer.
“You’re not starving,” Teddy observed while hanging up his coat.
“Grubhub. You?”
“Pizza.”
The meaning of Romeo’s answering grunt was unclear.
Teddy spent a few minutes contemplating how to make his one remaining outfit—which he’d planned to wear on the plane ride home—suffice for a meeting with Joyce Alexander. He’d opted more for comfort than style, and that was a problem. He couldn’t see himself wearing jeans and a button-down to her house, even if the shirt was a totally amazing Eton floral-and-bird pattern he’d scored at his favorite thrift store. He draped his scarf around the shirt experimentally, but the gray-and-navy-checked cashmere didn’t work at all with the shirt’s bright colors.
Dammit. His herringbone jacket also looked shitty with the shirt. He should have gone shopping this afternoon instead of tromping around aimlessly. Seattle likely had some awesome clothing resale shops, and he could have found something more suitable. But now it was too late, and there wouldn’t be time for a retail expedition before Joyce’s driver picked them up at eight tomorrow morning. Could he get away with wearing the same trousers he’d had on today? Joyce would certainly notice, and then—
“Are you almost finished?”
Teddy looked up from the unsatisfactory arrangement of clothing on the bed to discover Romeo glaring at him. “What? I didn’t say anything,” Teddy said defensively.
“No, but you’re moving around a lot. And sighing. I told you before: I get distracted really easily.”
Distracted from what? “What are you working on anyway?”
“I’m studying for the tests.”
“Studying?” Teddy scoffed. “How can you study if you don’t know what the test is going to be on?”
“Well, I can predict it won’t be on the War of 1812 or the periodic table of elements. It’ll be about the vase, of course. So I’m boning up on the specs.”
Teddy skipped the adolescent joke about “boning up,” even though he really wanted to say it, and instead gathered his clothing from the mattress. “I think she already knows as much as she wants to about the vase. She has something else in mind.”
“Since I’m not psychic and I can’t study every conceivable subject in one night, I’ll concentrate on the specs.”
“Suit yourself.” It came out sounding snottier than Teddy had intended, and also ironic, considering that he was struggling to, well, literally suit himself for the next day. He quickly returned his clothes to the closet and scuttled into the bathroom, where he eyed the tub. His apartment had only a shower, and his legs still ached. “I’m taking a bath,” he shouted through the closed door.
The answer came back clearly enough. “Suit yourself.”
Chapter Nine
“This isn’t the route we took yesterday.” Teddy squinted suspiciously at the back of the driver’s head.
“We have a different destination today.”
“Where?”
The driver didn’t answer.
It was very much like a scene in an action-suspense film—the type where Matt Damon or Daniel Craig would show up any minute to save the kidnapping victims—except Teddy couldn’t think of a single reason why anyone would want to abduct him. His parents and grandma could barely afford the house they shared in Palm Springs, so a ransom was out of the question, and he doubted that a nefarious rival high-tech vase manufacturer wanted to torture industry secrets out of him and Romeo.
Traffic was heavy, so it took forever to crawl out of the city and into a strip-mall-infested suburb. Romeo didn’t say a word, his attention focused on his phone. He’d been asleep by the time Teddy emerged from the bath the previous night, and this morning he’d awakened before Teddy. Romeo had said very little as they got ready, and Teddy couldn’t tell whether he was angry at him, nervous about the test, or simply uninterested in conversation.
At long last, the driver turned into a vast and nearly empty parking lot and stopped at the front door of a sporting-goods store. “Please go in.”
“Joyce is meeting us here?”
“You’ll receive more information inside.”
Well, great.
According to the posted schedule, the store wouldn’t open for another hour, but a smiling young woman opened the door from inside. “Come on in. I’m Tish.” She wore track pants, a polo shirt, and a lanyard around her neck, and she had an enthusiastic bounce to her step. Teddy expected her to blow a whistle and order him to run laps. Instead she led them to the back of the store. Along the way they passed a few other employees but no other customers.