“Because you brought a hired car for a four-mile drive to a restaurant, that’s presumably not changing addresses.”
“I wanted my hands free.”
“For what.”
“This.” He took her hand and laced his fingers through hers, resting their joined palms on his thigh. “You’re nervous.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes you are.”
“How can you tell?”
“Because you’ve been talking more since I walked into your apartment, and you aren’t a woman who talks to fill silence.”
“I haven’t been on a real date in two years, Gabriel. I’m allowed to be.”
“Two years. What happened that ended it?”
“He didn’t like that I worked Saturdays. He gave me a choice between him and a wedding I’d been booked on for nine months. I catered the wedding. He’d cleaned out his side of the closet by the time I got home.”
He laughed, tipping his head back the way he used to when something genuinely surprised him, and she felt the sound of it in her own chest.
“That isn’t the answer to why,” he said.
“No. It isn’t.”
“Tell me why.”
“Because Union Square could still be written off as a coincidence. The Strand was pushing it. This is on purpose.”
“It is.” He turned her palm over and ran his thumb along the inside of her wrist. “I like that about tonight.”
The car turned onto the bridge, and Manhattan opened in front of them in a glittering sweep of glass and water and light.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“A small family place in Tribeca, run by three generations. They make the best Bolognese in the city. I tried to copy the recipe once and Knox banned me from the kitchen.”
“Knox? In a kitchen?”
“Knox cooks when he needs to think. He’s good at it. I’m a hazard.”
“If you don’t cook, what do you eat?”
“Takeout, mostly. There’s a Tuesday-night standing order at a place near my office that you wouldn’t approve of.”
“Probably not.”
“Don’t ask.”
“Now I have to ask.”
“Let’s just say they have golden arches.”
“Gabriel.”
“A man has to eat.”
