Breaking Through

by A. M. Hartnett

  ‘Here we go again.’

  ‘Maybe I am,’ she teased, earning herself another surprised look that tickled her. ‘Even vapid sluts have bills to pay when they’re not sucking dick. What are you doing?’

  ‘You said go straight until I got to the bridge. Now I’m going on the bridge.’

  ‘The bridge that will take us into a completely different city, you mean?’

  ‘Oh, hell, I thought the phone was supposed to tell me where I was supposed to go.’

  ‘It did, but you weren’t paying attention. Just get into the next lane and go down and now we’re on the bridge.’

  ‘See, this is why I didn’t want to talk about my dick any more.’ He laughed as they motored onto the bridge above the shipyards. ‘Sorry, I really am. I told you I don’t know the city. I’ll turn around as soon as I can. Can you fish toll money out of the console?’

  ‘I’ll pay it,’ she said, kissing her coffee money for tomorrow’s break goodbye, and shrugged. ‘It was kind of my fault with the shitty navigation, and you’re nice enough to drive me home in the rain.’

  ‘Will this make you late?’

  ‘No, my sister doesn’t leave for work until nine-thirty.’

  ‘Then have a cup of tea with me before I take you home?’ It was Miranda’s turn to look surprised. ‘You said no handjobs. You never said anything about asking you for tea.’

  ‘I don’t drink tea,’ she murmured, and immediately regretted it. She actually wanted to have a cup of tea with Bathroom Blowjob Guy, Simon, and so she shrugged inside that ugly poncho. ‘I can have something else.’

  ‘Good. Now let’s see if I can find us a real coffeehouse without ending up in the sticks.’

  * * *

  ‘Have you even been here before?’ he asked as he shook his umbrella out on the welcome mat.

  Miranda shook her head, then peered up at him with suspicion. In the last few minutes she’d begun to doubt that he had truly gotten lost. He’d found the seaside café almost immediately, and the parking spot in an empty church parking lot just as quickly. The unsexy poncho had been left in the car.

  The arm he’d wrapped around her shoulders as they walked from the church lot to the café was supposedly to keep her close under his umbrella, but it had been such an easy sweep to get her nearer that she couldn’t help but think it was all part of a scheme.

  It surprised her how little she minded. When the hostess offered to take their wet jackets, Miranda passed hers over to him and got a charge out of his quick-fire look down her body. Save for the hem of her shorts, the clothes she wore underneath her jacket had been spared from the rain, so she wasn’t giving him a show, but that look seemed to go deeper than the yellow T-shirt she wore.

  She liked it.

  He ordered a green tea and caught her crinkling her nose. ‘What?’

  ‘I thought you were an espresso kind of guy.’

  He raised a brow. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I’ve seen you in the café at work.’

  ‘And noticed me?’

  She grinned, not about to admit that she had been shit-talking him in her head. ‘You don’t strike me as a green tea and espresso kind of guy. You strike me as a black coffee and powdered doughnut kind of guy.’

  ‘Do I also strike you as a fedora and tommy-gun kind of guy?’

  Miranda laughed and placed her order for a hot chocolate and a cranberry scone, then followed him to a table away from the window.

  ‘First things first, how old are you?’ he asked as he shrugged out of his blazer, then laughed as Miranda shot him a surprised look. ‘I’m going for about twenty-one, but it just occurred to me that you could be sixteen and I could be in for a hell of a lot of trouble.’

  ‘I’m twenty-three, and I have ID to prove it.’ She plucked her wallet from her back pocket and handed it over, then giggled as he peered at the government ID.

  She had to hand it to Simon Reeve: he was charming as hell. Now that the blazer was slung on the back of his chair and he had rolled up his sleeves to reveal strong forearms with faint blond hair, now that he had loosened his tie, he was transformed.

  ‘See? You won’t end up on the evening news, though I have to admit, I’m comforted to know that you’re not into under-age girls.’

  ‘They weren’t worth tangling with when I was seventeen, and they’re sure as hell not worth it now that I’m pushing forty.’

  ‘You’re not forty.’

  ‘You want to see my ID?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He pulled out his wallet and tossed the laminated card towards her.

  Simon P. Reeve.

  She looked from the terrible photo to the man, and thought there was something odd in his expression, but it was gone as soon as she caught a glimpse of it.

  ‘So you weren’t lying when you said you were new in town. You still have your Ontario driver’s licence.’

  ‘Another thing on my to-do list. See? Almost forty.’

  ‘Thirty-eight, actually. You still have a year and seven months to go.’ She tossed the ID back to him, and once he had replaced it in his wallet she mirrored his pose by cupping both hands around her cup. ‘So, Mr Reeve, what exactly do you do for that politician upstairs?’

  He hesitated, drumming his fingertips against the teacup as he pursed his lips.

  Miranda leaned closer and lowered her voice. ‘Are you the guy who gets the hookers and blow for rich donors?’

  Simon laughed and shook his head. ‘Do you think about your words before you let them out?’

  ‘You have no right whatsoever to act shocked by that question.’

  ‘I’m not shocked, and without giving too much away I don’t get “hookers” and “blow” for rich donors, but if they’re involved in anything like that I’m the guy who finds out about it. I’m the guy who is paid to know everything there is to know about everyone.’

  ‘You dig up dirt.’

  He didn’t confirm this, but he didn’t deny it either. He simply raised his cup and took a sip of the yellowish-brown brew.

  ‘I never would have thought local politics would need a man like you,’ she said.

  ‘Every level of government, no matter how small, uses men like me. Roe is going for the federal party leadership at the end of the summer. He’s got such a reputation as an MLA that up until recently the seat was pretty much his, but the competition is heating up for the leadership. I need to make sure he comes out of the wash squeaky clean.’

  ‘And make sure his competition doesn’t come out so clean.’ Again, he didn’t answer, and Miranda laughed. ‘All right. I get it. We won’t talk about your job, which I have to admit makes you sound like a Jacobean villain.’

  ‘Let’s talk about you,’ he said, giving her a look that suggested he was already trying to work out who she was. ‘So far all I have is that you’re twenty-three, you sell insurance, you like to paint and you’re raising your sister’s baby.’

  She swirled the frothy contents of her mug, then tore off a piece of her scone. ‘Sadly, that’s pretty much the gist of who I am.’

  ‘Did you grow up here?’

  She gave him her life in point-form, how she and her sisters had been latchkey kids while their mother worked the jewellery counter in a department store, how her father had been a truck-driver nearly 25 years her mother’s senior and had suffered a massive heart attack in a motel room in Virginia. She told him about Juliet moving to the West Coast, about Des getting pregnant and the father up and leaving for Alberta with the promise of sending her money, only to get there and announce he was marrying someone else. She recounted Des’s shocking and sudden death by heart attack at 24, just two months after giving birth to Eddie. She told him of her mother’s return to her Cape Breton home, where she found comfort in her big family in the aftermath of Des’s death, and the last year living in the Agricola Street house with Eddie.

  She told him too much, she thought, but she found herself unable to stop. Maybe it was becau
se for all the talking she did during the day, she rarely got to talk about herself, and he didn’t seem to mind.

  The whole time, Simon listened with his chin perched on the heel of his hand, saying nothing as she unfolded her life’s story. Then she prompted him for his own past.

  Once more, a moment’s discomfort passed over him but he seemed to swat it away with a hand in front of his face.

  ‘I was born in Ottawa and moved to Montreal when I was a kid. I lived there until I went to the University of British Columbia. I was there for one semester before I transferred back to Quebec. I just screwed around and sponged after I dropped out. I got into this line of work in my late twenties after finally finishing my degree.’

  ‘Bored or broke?’

  ‘Both, and tired. I had a friend offer me a job working for his company, sort of as his personal assistant. How sad is it that I was nearly thirty before I actually worked for a living?’

  ‘You should talk to my sister,’ she grumbled. ‘She’s a temp – sometimes – but if you ask her she’ll tell you that she’s a musician. In all fairness she made more money with her music in the last six months, but that’s only because she hasn’t taken an office job and doesn’t have to get up in the morning. Too bad she blows about half of it on herself.’

  ‘So how do you support yourself and a baby?’

  The place was too nice and the food too good to indulge any further talk about disappointment, so Miranda shook her head and told him she was changing the subject.

  ‘I want the truth: why did you pick me up? And don’t give me your bullshit about chivalry.’

  ‘There’s some truth to that,’ he said with a sheepish look. ‘You looked so sad and pathetic standing there, I couldn’t bear it.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But …’

  He lifted his cup and took a sip, and he didn’t need to say anything more. His hazel eyes told her the answer to her question, and the quiet hunger that radiated back at her made her feverish all of a sudden.

  She pushed her damp hair off her hot neck, and her pulse fluttered in her veins as he lowered his cup. The corners of his mouth quirked, telling her that he knew exactly what he had just done to her.

  ‘You’re not my type,’ she told him, seeing no point in beating around the bush, ‘not even a bit, and that whole bathroom thing was a bit of a turn-off.’

  ‘Right.’ The laughter that shook his voice irritated her and at the same time amused her, and she couldn’t hold back a smile.

  ‘But you did buy me a four-dollar scone, so I suppose you’re all right.’

  ‘Oh, is that all it takes?’

  ‘To get me on my back?’ She shook her head and giggled. ‘No, but it’s a start – and you haven’t tried to bullshit me yet, so I like that.’

  Simon frowned. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I just asked you pretty much point-blank if you wanted to get in my panties, and you didn’t try and act like it never crossed your mind. If you were trying to bullshit me, you’d be spoon-feeding me some crap about how you’re not that kind type of guy and then try and win me over by telling me about how your job makes it so hard to meet women. If you were bullshitting me, you’d have spun that whole bathroom thing into your tale of woe somehow, expecting me to sit here and go, “Poor baby, so sensitive and sad – how can I not sleep with him?”’

  ‘I sincerely hope you’ve never fallen for that.’

  He finished his tea, tore off a piece of her scone and popped it into his mouth as she studied him. After a moment under her scrutiny, he slung his arm over the back of the chair and sprawled out, legs bumping hers under the table.

  She didn’t pull away. She let him settle with his knee resting against hers, and enjoyed how the warmth crawled along the inside of her thigh, reaching for a more intimate shelter.

  ‘Why did you get in my car?’ he asked.

  ‘I was sad and pathetic,’ she countered.

  Simon cocked his head. ‘And?’

  ‘And, honestly? That’s it. I just wanted a ride home, but now I’m having a good time.’ She met his gaze with a nod. ‘I think I can overlook the whole bathroom thing.’

  He groaned. ‘Can we please drop that once and for all?’

  ‘Are you embarrassed by it?’

  ‘I’ve gone from embarrassed to mortified.’

  ‘I’m thrilled that you’re mortified, and yes, I’ll drop it now, but I might need a cookie to make up for taking away the one thing I have to hold over your head.’

  ‘I’ll get you two cookies if I can get your phone number.’

  The line of communication they had been weaving back and forth between them drew taut with his request and pulled her closer to him even though she didn’t move a muscle. Miranda found it hard to speak.

  She still didn’t understand why he would want to sit and have coffee with her, and she didn’t understand why he wanted her number now. Picking her up with the purpose of getting her into bed – that she understood, but this reaching out threw her. He wasn’t her type, and she’d bet money she sure as hell wasn’t his.

  It’s not that he had charmed the memory of the event in the bathroom from her mind. In fact, it was at the forefront of her thoughts. In that silence, she couldn’t stop thinking about sex.

  He took a slow sip of his tea, and the throaty sound of his swallowing it reminded her of the one he’d made as he went deeper into the woman’s throat. That sound rattled around inside Miranda’s head, and as he rubbed his thumb around the rim of his mug she couldn’t help imagining the same motion stroking her through her bra.

  ‘I don’t –’

  She started to tell him she didn’t think it was a good idea, that one cup of coffee wasn’t enough to convince her that he could aspire to be her type, but that’s not what came out. Her arousal had rattled the words right back down her throat.

  ‘I don’t have any evenings free,’ she finally said. ‘I work from two until eight, six days a week, and go right home because my sister goes on stage at ten.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ he said easily, but she wasn’t finished.

  ‘And I have an eighteen-month-old in the mornings, so even breakfast is out. Lunch is debatable, depending on whether you like kids and having carrot sticks thrown at you.’

  ‘What is it you’re trying to do here?’ he asked her with a chuckle.

  ‘I’m just saying, I don’t know what you’re looking for but you might not get it from me.’

  Simon leaned forward and grinned. ‘I’m just looking for your phone number.’

  Miranda couldn’t think of an argument against that, and, with him looking so devilish and boyish at once, she didn’t want to give him one, so she told him her number and watched him type it into his phone.

  ‘I should get your cookies and get you home,’ he said with a satisfied air.

  ‘Are you going to get me lost again?’

  ‘I make no guarantees, but if I do I’ll pay for you to take a cab to where you need to be in time.’

  As they reached the entrance and he shook out his umbrella, Miranda gave his jacket a tug. ‘Did you seriously get lost, or was this the long way of getting my phone number?’

  He placed his hand over his heart. ‘I swear, may God strike me dead, I didn’t mean to take that wrong turn. It’s not my first, either. Last week I went to get my car detailed, and at the intersection right in front of the shop I went the wrong way and ended up on the highway.’

  Miranda crooked a brow at him. She wasn’t sure if she believed him, but if he was lying, she liked the way he lied.

  Chapter Two

  It was just shy of nine o’clock as they headed towards the church parking lot, Miranda sheltering under Simon’s umbrella. It was still raining, but it was a more moderate downpour rather than the pelting agony that had drenched her.

  Though still damp, Miranda felt warm and content with the cranberry scone washed down by creamy hot chocolate. Her cookies were in her bag, destined for breakfast
the next morning.

  Walking in the murky twilight, Miranda longed to press closer to him. He smelled amazing, a mix of cheap soap and expensive cologne. It didn’t seem like such an outlandish idea to link her arm with his or even slip her hand into his pocket, but she didn’t.

  With every step that took them closer to his car, the urge to ask him home with her became more powerful.

  She didn’t care if it made her a hypocrite. She didn’t care that he’d probably take off as quickly as possible and avoid eye contact with her on the elevator if they ever met again, and she’d feel like shit for a while before the hate set in.

  None of that mattered now as the rain started to come down hard again and he wrapped his arm around her waist as they ran.

  She wanted Simon Reeve in bed with her.

  He held the umbrella over her as she got in on the passenger side, showing that chivalry he’d spoken about even as he cursed the stream that dripped from the slope of the umbrella down the back of his neck. She shifted on the seat, the poncho and her jacket now heaped at her feet, and shivered from the absence of his body heat as he scrambled to get the umbrella into the trunk and himself into the car before he was as soaked as she had been when the evening started.

  ‘God damn,’ he said, shaking the droplets from hair that had already begun to curl with the moisture. Hers had gone wild as soon as it dried, and when she’d combed her fingers through it she’d enjoyed the appreciation in his eyes.

  ‘Do you want me to reset the navigation?’ she asked as he tapped the face of his phone.

  He shook his head. ‘No, it’s still set. I just need to charge it a bit; the app sucks the battery.’

  He stretched his arm past her and popped open the glove compartment. Miranda bit her lip as he came closer than ever before, arm pressed against her knee as he tugged at a tangled white cord with a charger at the end. He quickly attached it to his phone, plugged the other end into the cigarette lighter, and then leaned in to close the compartment.

  Maybe if he hadn’t looked up at her she wouldn’t have kissed him. Maybe he had known she would, or planned to do it himself. Either way, as he began to straighten up again Miranda cupped his face and pressed her mouth to his.