“Actually, you’re doing two things at the same time. You’re changing the subject, and you’re trying to figure out if this is a date.” She swiped the bottle out of her mother’s hand. “Very clever, but it won’t work.”
With the perfume in her hand, Kristine muttered “Why not?” and spritzed a small amount of the light floral Victoria’s Secret scent on her neck. Yes, she had visited the store Jayce had suggested but walked out with only the fragrance.
Her mother gave her a sly smile. “Where did you meet him?”
“That’s it. No more changing the subject! It may have worked when I was little, but it won’t work now. Tell me about my father. Something. Anything!”
Her mother heaved a deep dramatic sigh. Always the actress.
“We’ve had this argument for a decade! I know you feel you have a right to know, but don’t I have a right to keep my private life private?”
Kristine snorted, and a tiny curl of smoke escaped her nostril.
“Please try not to be angry with me. After all, it’s ‘you and me against the world…’” Amy sang the opening lines to a song they used to sing together when Kristine was growing up. Her mother’s professionally trained soprano voice was as pitch-perfect as ever.
“Mom. Just stop it. My theories might be worse than the truth. For instance, were you raped?”
Amy gasped and slapped her hand over her heart. “Absolutely not!”
“Well, good. There’s one worry out of the way.”
“Honestly, Kristine, you need to just give it up. Any knowledge about him won’t do you any good anyway.”
“How do you know?”
Amy tossed her hands in the air. “I just do.”
“Mother! That’s the parental equivalent of ‘because I said so.’ I’m an adult, dammit. Stop treating me like a child who can’t handle the truth. I want to know something, no matter how ugly.”
“Well, I wasn’t raped.”
Kristine had just about had it with this stupid argument. She was fuming—literally. If she didn’t calm down, she’d probably greet Jayce with skin so heated, it would radiate right through his jacket, and that wouldn’t be suspicious at all. She grabbed her purse and sweater and marched to the front door of the apartment.
Amy followed slowly, looking dejected. That sad face was just more acting. Kristine was sure of it, so she shot her mother a parting glare and slammed the door on her way out.
She tried calming down by walking around her neighborhood for a bit. She’d lived here ever since she could remember, although she had been born in a hospital on Long Island. Why there? She didn’t know. Of course, her mother wouldn’t answer that question either.
Try as she might, staying angry with her mother was difficult. The woman had worked as a waitress and taken acting gigs on Broadway any time she could get a bit part. Kristine had to admire her. She had never been made to feel like she was getting in the way of her mother’s dream of acting, even though she may have been. The widow who lived in the apartment next door was a nice person and had watched Kristine when her mom had to work. Kristine was always taken care of.
She had essentially been a good kid. She came home from school on time, did her homework, and tried not to give her mother too much to worry about. Of course, it helped that Amy knew her dragon daughter was strong and fireproof with heightened senses and could protect herself. Theirs had always been a solid relationship. Kristine had only one problem with the whole arrangement—two, actually. Who the heck was her father, and was he partly responsible for her secret abilities?
Did he even know about her? Since she’d had to form her own theories, she had to assume he probably didn’t. Was he still alive? When her mom said it wouldn’t matter now anyway, that made Kristine think he had probably died.
She had to stop thinking about it. Otherwise she’d never calm down enough to meet Jayce for dinner. Maybe this was a mistake, but since three days were all they had, she didn’t think there was much danger of getting overly involved with the handsome Bostonian. And she needed a fling—badly. It had been a long time since she’d been with a guy. Actors were a worse relationship choice than firefighters, so the local options were slim.
She took a couple of deep cleansing breaths and forced herself to get out of her own head and look around. At almost eight at night, restaurants were well lit and plenty safe simply because of the number of people out and about. The continuous noise of traffic was like the city’s heartbeat. It always reminded her how alive Manhattan was. The occasional blast of a horn or siren was like that live entity letting out a shout.
The laughter of people exiting a bar lightened her mood. Maybe she’d be laughing in a few minutes too. Jayce Fierro was a charming guy with a good sense of humor. She might not know him well, but she’d been able to glean that much already. She was looking forward to spending some time with him.
At last she felt human enough to go meet her…date? Whatever this was, she wasn’t going to worry about it. She vowed to simply have a good time and let whatever happened happen. She dodged pedestrians and made her way to the Thai restaurant, hoping Jayce would be there. The very last thing she needed tonight was to be stood up.
Happily, she saw him leaning against the building, watching the people across the street. Sometimes she engaged in people watching too. One of her silly enjoyable pastimes was to sit at her favorite café that had windows at ground level and check out people’s shoes as she sipped her latte.
Tonight Jayce was wearing boots. Nice ones. Not the shit-kickers most firefighters wore even on their days off. And though he still wore jeans, with his hands in his pockets, she could see he had paired a dark-gray wool blazer with a white dress shirt. Good. He seemed to be treating this as a date too.
She sighed in relief, knowing she wasn’t overdressed.
He turned as if he sensed her gaze on him. His dark eyebrows arched, and a smile lit up his handsome face. If his reaction was any indication, he liked what he saw too.
