“It’s a date,” I replied.
She rolled her eyes, and in their reflection, I saw my car approaching. “Did you drive here?” I asked her. I then realized that she’d already been standing near the entrance when I arrived.
“Uh, no. I… Uh... I... walked.”
My eyebrows drew together. This wasn’t a residential part of town. “This entire block is zoned commercial.” I knew that from acquiring The Tower several years ago. It was unlikely Jada had walked any farther in heels.
“It’s the next block over,” she said with a shrug.
“Too far. Get in.” My driver, Genevieve, was already holding the door open for me.
Jada looked between my driver and me, fidgeting. “I can walk.”
I held up my to-go box. “And I could eat a bowl full of butter. Doesn’t mean I should.”
She cracked a smile for a second, then it fell again. As if having made a decision, she walked past me and slid into the back seat.
Satisfied, I went around the other side of the car to get in. With the doors shut, the smell of the pastries riding shotgun blended with the smell of roasted coffee beans sticking to our clothes.
Genevieve looked in the rearview mirror with a pleasant smile. “May I have your address?”
Jada rattled off a street name and number… then cringed.
I wondered why, but then I caught sight of the GPS up front. It was seven miles away. “You didnotwalk that far,” I said, checking her feet for blood. That would have been brutal.
“I lied, okay?” She held her hands up in surrender as Genevieve pulled onto the road. “And I know lying’s terrible to do on a first date, so I’m assuming that a.m. booze sesh tomorrow is off the table. Not that it was really on the table, but, well, you get the point.”
I knew I should probably be upset about the lie, but I also knew there had to be a good reason for her to keep her address private. “I get it,” I said. “If you need Vieve to drop me off before you to protect your privacy, I totally understand.”
Jada gave me a wry look. “Nice offerafterI told you my address.”
My pride tried to survive the comment, but then I got curious. If her house was seven miles away, how did she get here? “Did you Uber to the café?”
“I took the bus,” she said.
My gut dropped. “The bus?” I literally read a news article yesterday about someone being exposed to fentanyl on the bus. Pretty sure there had been a shooting just the week before. The thought of Jada getting hurt made it hard to breathe.
“Too high and mighty for public transportation?” she accused.
And yeah, I knew it seemed snobby coming from a co-founder of a billion-dollar company. But, “It’s not about that,” I argued. “People die on public transit.”
“People die in car accidents,” she countered.
I narrowed my gaze, hating the thought of her being around lunatics on the road at all. “At least on the road there’s a wall of metal and glass between you and those who would do you harm.”
“If only there were a wall of metal and glass from Mr. Judgy Judgerson,” she countered.
I swore I heard Genevieve laugh, but she quickly covered it up with a cough.
“Judgy Judgerson?” I echoed.
“Mister,” she added.
I bit back a smile. “Did you get that from the daycare?”
She stuck her tongue out at me, and I laughed.
The conversation was over... for now.
