I’m aware.
No response. I wait.
Another thirty seconds pass before the lobby doors open and she steps out under the awning, looking around for the car.
There she is.
Dark hair, coat pulled close, expression already suspicious. The streetlight catches her face in gold for a second before she spots me through the back window and narrows her eyes like she’s not sure whether to be irritated or worried.
Probably both.
The driver gets out and opens the rear door for her.
She bends slightly, looking in. “What are you doing?”
“Getting back in the car,” I say.
“That was not the question.”
“No,” I agree. “It wasn’t.”
She hesitates just long enough to prove she knows this is a bad idea.
Then she gets in anyway.
The door closes. The rain keeps tapping at the glass. She turns toward me with that same wary, beautiful irritation she seems to reserve just for me.
“Well?”
I look at her for one quiet second before answering. “I changed my mind.”
About the date. About the evening. About a great many things, probably.
But I only say, “I need you with me.”
Her eyes narrow at once. “For what?”
I glance out at the road ahead. “Something that can’t be handled from your desk.”
26
ZATANNA
What hashe changed his mind about?
He does not clarify. Because of course he doesn’t. We drive for twenty minutes before I realize he has no intention of explaining himself.
Not properly, anyway.
He sits beside me in the backseat like this is all perfectly normal. Rain on the windows. City lights smearing past in long gold streaks. His phone silent in his hand, his expression unreadable, his whole body all composed stillness while mine keeps ricocheting between irritation and nerves.
I fold my arms. “So.”
He glances at me. “So.”
“That’s not a conversation.”
“No.”
