“That’s what I said.”
“What else has he said about me?”
I glance at him as we walk. Something about the way he asked the question is a little off. Stiff. “Not much. He doesn’t talk about work at home, so that basically rules out any interactions you two would have.”
“Huh.”
“Why?” Mrs. Tallomore comes to mind. “What should he talk about?”
Jinx gives me a side-eye. “Nice try.”
“What?” I shrug one shoulder. “You want to know more from me. Is it not fair that I want to do the same with you?”
“It’s fair,” he cedes. “But not a realistic expectation.”
And here it goes again—their damn code of silence. “How am I supposed to get to know you better, mister, if this—” I give his cut a flick “—rules out most topics of conversation.”
He studies me a beat before returning his focus to the pavement ahead. “You could ask what my favorite food is.”
“Why? So I can cook for you?”
He smiles. “Or what I do in my downtime.”
“Easy.” I smirk. “You waste far too many hours trying to figure out my user name.”
He tilts his head. “Perhaps. But I have other hobbies too.”
“Like?”
Jinx sets a hand to his chest. “Why, are you asking me a question I can actually answer?”
“Touché.”
His chuckle warms my heart, blooming through my chest. “I read.”
I stare at him, wide-eyed, and stop walking to face him. “Pardon?”
“What?” He folds his arms. “Did you expect me to be illiterate?”
“Not exactly, but I guess I never saw you as a bookworm.”
“You can blame Chaos.” He nods for us to continue and resumes walking. “He devours information about anything and everything. History, philosophy, science, psychology. He loves learning new things, and so he always found places to hide books around the club so that our fathers didn’t know what he was doing.”
“They wouldn’t approve of him reading?”
“Not reading, as such.” He squints a little. “But topics that made him better than them. They had fragile egos. His father the most.”
“Oh.” Sounds hard. “How does this relate to you, though?”
“He forced me to go to the library one day so he could exchange books. I got bored waiting for him, so I picked up the nearest thing to me—a thriller on the returns cart—and started skimming the pages. Checked it out under his name since I didn’t have a card, and the rest is history.”
“Thrillers, huh?” I tease him with my smile. “Don’t get enough of that in your day-to-day?”
“It started as thrillers,” Jinx clarifies, “and then progressed to historical novels.”
“Romance?” I raise an eyebrow.
His lips thin in a veiled smile. “Wouldn’t that just tickle you pink?”
