I move to the wardrobe built into the back wall of my office, already unbuttoning my cuffs. “Somewhere quiet. Controlled. Private.”
She follows me with her eyes, confusion turning to irritation. “You already had her background checked.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And I still don’t trust anyone.”
That quiets her for a moment. Not because she agrees. Because she’s trying to understand probably.
I pull out a fresh shirt and drape it over my arm. “The city is too exposed. Too many eyes. Too many exits. If I’m meeting a woman I barely know, it won’t be somewhere I can’t control the perimeter.”
Her mouth softens slightly. “You make dating sound like a hostage negotiation.”
“For men like me, it often is.”
She goes still at that.
I watch the thought land behind her eyes. Curiosity. Wariness. That same sharpened interest she gets whenever she senses the edges of the real me.
She doesn’t push this time.
Instead, she blows out a breath through her nose and reaches for the tablet again. “Fine. I’ll change it.”
She’s miffed. I can hear it in every clipped word. I shouldn’t enjoy that as much as I do.
“Good.”
“But if this woman declines because you’ve decided at the last minute to relocate her dinner to some mysterious secure compound in the woods,” she says, tapping furiously at the screen, “that’s on you.”
“It won’t be the woods.”
“That is not the reassuring detail you think it is.”
I let that one pass.
She starts calling restaurants, her voice calm and efficient as she negotiates tables, cancellations, transport, privacy. I step into the adjoining dressing room and change, listening to her work.
This should be simple.
Shirt. Jacket. Watch. Cufflinks.
A date with a suitable woman.
A strategic move toward the future I need.
Instead, every button I fasten feels like I’m putting on clothes for the wrong woman.
When I come back out, Zatanna is standing by my desk, the call just ending. She looks up.
And stops.
Her eyes flick over me in a quick, helpless sweep that tells me everything before she can hide it.
Black suit. Fresh shirt. Tie loosened just enough to suggest I didn’t care how devastating it looks.
Her throat moves when she swallows. “There,” she says finally, voice a fraction too soft. “I moved it.”
