alone again, she muttered, “Do you always get this kind of service in restaurants?”
Syn finished his burger and wiped his mouth. “I don’t eat out usually.”
“Neither do I, but it’s because I’m cheap. I’ve got to be frugal with money. It’s just me at the end of the day.”
“How long have you been on your own?”
“Since after college.”
“What of your parents?”
“I was a social experiment that failed them.” She glanced over at a table of laughing cops. “Actually, that’s not right. I don’t think they adopted me because they wanted to do some poor unwanted kid a solid. I think my mom felt like she needed a daughter. It was an accessory to go with her estate and her husband and her lifestyle. I was an accessory.”
“They do not watch over you?”
“You have a funny way of phrasing things sometimes.” She shrugged. “And it’s fine. I can take care of myself.”
“Do you not have male relations who you can go to?”
“Like I’m living in a Dickens novel?” Jo smiled. “And I don’t want to go to anyone. I don’t need to be rescued from my own existence. I’ve handled things okay this far and I’m going to keep the trend going.”
“We all need support.”
“So who do you go to?”
Syn frowned and shifted in his seat. Shaking his head, he took out a cell phone that had a privacy guard on its screen—not that she would have peeked. As his eyes moved slowly over whatever had been texted, she had a thought that he might be dyslexic.
“I have to go,” he said.
Jo nodded. “Okay. Yeah. Of course—” When he started to get some twenties out of his pocket, she put her hand on his arm. “Nope. This is my treat. I’ll cover it.”
He froze and stayed that way. To the point where she removed her touch. Maybe she had offended him—
“I don’t want to leave you,” he blurted.
Something about the way he said the words made her feel warmth in the center of her chest. Or maybe it wasn’t the way he said them. It was the fact that he said them at all.
I don’t want to be left by you, she thought to herself.
Knowing that she only had another couple of seconds to stare at him, she drank in his face, that hard, harsh face that she knew she was going to see in her dreams—assuming she ever slept again.
“Who are you?” she whispered. “Really.”
“I’m a friend.”
Ouch, she thought as she sat back.
The pain that shot through her rib cage made her realize that sometime between when he’d been prepared to shoot at some innocent Civic owner to keep her safe, and the ordering of their cheeseburgers and fries, she’d made a decision she wasn’t prepared to look too closely at. But it seemed like that was a door being shut on his side.
Well, he’d have sex with her. It wouldn’t mean anything to him, however. Friends, benefits, all that.
Syn slid out of the banquette, and now he got serious about the water. He took the glass and downed everything that was in it. Even the ice.
“Are you going out to fight?” she said.
“What’s your number? I’ll call you.”
Jo had a thought that she didn’t want him to die. Which was hyperbolic and silly. Then again . . . two dead bodies in as many nights? Kind of made catastrophizing look like a sensible attitude to take about life.
“Are you married?” she asked.
The recoil he pulled would have broken the neck of a lesser built man. “No.”
Okay, that was a relief. At least she wouldn’t be fantasizing about someone else’s husband. Not that she was going to be imagining anything. Nope. She might be reckless, but she wasn’t a masochist.
I’m a friend.
The three most crushing words in the English language when you were attracted to someone. Then again, given that she shouldn’t be with someone like him anyway, maybe they were a lifesaver.
“Take care of yourself,” she said softly.
Syn nodded his head, and then he was gone, striding out of the bar, out into the night. As if he hadn’t really wanted her phone number. As if the fact that they wouldn’t see each other again didn’t matter.
Where did all those only-I-can-help-you’s go? she wondered bitterly.
And P.S., how come she was turning into a chick? Real women didn’t wait for Prince Charmings to come along and give their lonely, spinster existences meaning. Chicks did, though. They got doe-eyed in the wake of departures and they finished their dinners by their