“Sure you didn’t. Lina, I’m getting another beer. Do you want one?”
“Yes. I’m going to the restroom.”
Jess took off in one direction, and Lina in the other, leaving Chase and Alex alone in the middle of the room.
The kitchen was nearly empty, and since she couldn’t face those two smug assholes again anytime soon, she pulled out her phone to kill a few minutes. To her delight, Peabody had messaged her again earlier in the evening.
Peabody: Did you eventually tame your dragon?
PaperGirl: Survived the battle only a little bruised. The war is ongoing. On many fronts.
She didn’t expect him to respond. After all, it was Friday night. Normal people were out having fun. So she was surprised when his reply came only a moment later.
Peabody: More dragons looming on the horizon?
PaperGirl: More like a bunch of entitled knights.
Peabody: I thought the knights were supposed to slay the dragons for imperiled maidens.
PaperGirl: Not these knights. Too busy staring at their reflections in their armor and congratulating themselves. Useless in dragon-slaying. Not that I need or want their help. I can handle my own dragons.
Peabody: I’m pretty sure I already guessed that about you.
PaperGirl: Sometimes I wish I had some of that armor myself, though. Must be nice to be so impervious. Sure they don’t care about anything, but nothing bothers them, either.
Peabody: It would be criminal to hide your heart in armor. What would the world be like if it was nothing but uncaring, impervious knights? They need to be more like you, not the other way around.
PaperGirl: Ha, that’ll be the day. I think these knights are irredeemable.
Peabody: Oh, well, then, nothing for it. You have to slay them.
PaperGirl: Damn, and I left my slaying sword at home tonight.
Peabody: Now I have the funniest mental image of you wielding a giant sword. Which is odd, since I have no mental image of you at all.
Jess drew in a deep breath, bracing for the worst. Here it came. He’d want to know what she looked like, and from there it would be just a short hop to an unsolicited dick pic. But once again, Peabody defied her expectations.
Peabody: So tell me more about these narcissistic knights. Maybe I can help you find the fatal weakness in their armor.
Oh, Peabody was dangerous, all right, just not in any of the ways she’d come to expect. Not only did he refuse to default to the lowest common male denominator, he kept asking her about herself and being funny and charming as he did it. She could very easily find herself over her head with this guy.
PaperGirl: They’re just some jerks. No one worth thinking about. What about you? Have you managed to set down the weight long enough to enjoy your Friday night?
Why did she ask that? He was probably out. He might even be on a date, which sent a little tremor of unease down her spine. She hadn’t thought of him being taken, but for all she knew, he was married with kids. Oh, that would be awful. Maybe she didn’t want to know.
PaperGirl: Sorry. Forget I asked that. I shouldn’t intrude into your private life.
Peabody: You’re not intruding into anything. To answer your question, yes, I’m out, but I’m not exactly enjoying myself.
If he was on a date, then it wasn’t going very well. He wouldn’t be texting her in the middle of it otherwise. She shouldn’t be so happy that he wasn’t having a good time.
PaperGirl: Sorry to hear that. Is it the place or the people?
Real subtle, Jess. That didn’t sound at all like she was digging for info.
Peabody: The place is fine. So are the people. The problem is me.
PaperGirl: In what way?
Peabody: Everybody seems to be going after what they want in life except me.
PaperGirl: Why can’t you do the same?
Peabody: It’s complicated. I work for the family business, so that’s what I do with my life.
He had no idea how well she understood that. Her older sister Gemma had skipped college and a career to help run the bar with their dad. Gemma didn’t seem to mind, but being the oldest by several years, she hadn’t had a lot of choice, had she? Somebody had to do it. Since the loss of their mother, that somebody was always Gemma.
PaperGirl: Ah, I see. I understand exactly what that’s like. We’ve got a family business, too.
Peabody: Do you work for them?
PaperGirl: No, but my sister does. That might be worse.
Peabody: In what way?
PaperGirl: Remember when I said I had my dream job? She’s the one who makes that possible. She works there so I don’t have to.
Peabody: Yeah, you’re right. That would be worse.
PaperGirl: But it really sucks that you can’t do what you want. It’s never fair.
Peabody: Hey, don’t get the wrong idea. My situation is hardly grim. My issues are just that. Mine.
PaperGirl: Still, you’re entitled to feel how you feel.
Peabody: Thanks. There’s no one in my life I can really talk to about this.
PaperGirl: Anytime. I’m sorry you don’t feel like you can talk to the people in your life.
Peabody: Well, my family is out. And I don’t have a lot of friends I can confide in this way.
PaperGirl: And there’s no one else?
Ugh, that was pathetically transparent. And Peabody wasted no time in calling her out on it.
Peabody: Is that your way of asking if I’m involved with anyone?
PaperGirl: Um, maybe? Sorry, I’m a journalist. Nosy by nature.
Peabody: Just journalistic curiosity, huh?
To keep it light and teasing or to tell the truth? Putting herself out there was scary, but they obviously had a connection, right? It was entirely reasonable to be curious about his relationship status.
PaperGirl: Okay, fine. I’m asking. Are you seeing someone?
Peabody: No, I’m not.
...
...
Peabody: Are you?
PaperGirl: No.
Peabody: Okay. Good to know.
“Jess. Why are you hiding in the kitchen?”
She looked up to see Lina standing in the kitchen door, hands on her hips.
“Um...sorry. I was just texting someone.”
Lina’s eagle eyes darted to her phone and back to her face. “Who?”
Did she want to spill about Peabody already? Well, if she was going to tell anyone about him, it would be Lina.
“A guy, actually.” She could feel the silly smile taking over her face. She could hear it in her voice.
“Yes! You finally got back on Tinder!”
“No, I didn’t meet him on Tinder.”
“So you actually met a guy in real life? In New York? Wow, I didn’t know that was possible.”
“No. And I haven’t actually met him. I don’t even know his name. It’s Peabody. From the Journalist Collective.”
Lina was on the Collective message boards, too. Everybody in the industry was. And she’d mentioned Peabody to Lina once or twice, just commenting on his intelligence or humor. Lina knew she was a bit of a Peabody fangirl. Now Lina’s face settled into a stony frown. “Oh, no. You are not flirting with some rando from a message board.”
“Why is it any different than all those guys you talk to on Tinder?”
“There’s a picture, for one. And personal details.”
“Which they could be lying about.”
“I can tell when they’re lying. At least I know something about them. What do you know about this guy? Maybe he’s some fifty-year-old creepy suburban guy, married with kids, fishing for hot young girls on the internet.”
“Listen to yourself. If he was looking for young hotties on the internet, I seriously doubt he’d do it on the message bo
ards of the Journalist Collective. We don’t even post pictures there.”
“Okay, maybe not,” Lina reluctantly acknowledged. “But my point still stands. You don’t know anything about him.”
“I know plenty already. He has a family business, just like me. He’s a journalist, just like me. And he’s single.”
“Oh, my God, he’s sending you dick pics, isn’t he?”
“No! Lina, no dick pics. Can you stop being so suspicious just this once? This is...” She looked down at her phone, smiling again in spite of herself. “Actually, he’s kind of amazing.”
“Just be careful. Protect yourself, okay?”
Jess had tried out all the apps that connected people in the modern dating world, but after just a few months of insipid text exchanges and horrifying propositions from strange men, she’d given up and deleted her profiles. Lina, on the other hand, was a pro at all of them, from Tinder to Bumble. The upside was, at any given moment, she was juggling half a dozen potential new men. The downside was that she’d seen the very worst the dating pool had to offer. She laughed along with everyone else as she related her hilarious stories of dating disasters, but Jess was worried that Lina was growing jaded, that she’d lost her belief that good guys even existed.
Maybe she was right. Maybe they didn’t exist. Or maybe Peabody was one of the last good guys out there. Jess knew which possibility she preferred to believe in.
“I’ll be careful. But, Lina, he really is great.”
Lina still looked dubious, but she relented. “Just keep me filled in on all the juicy details.”
“You know I keep nothing from you.”
“I’m holding you to that. Now, I didn’t drag you to a party so you could hide in the kitchen texting.”
Jess grimaced. “Are they still out there?”
“Chase is running his mouth about how super-amazing their website is to his posse of adoring fangirls, and Alex has disappeared somewhere, so we’re safe to mingle. Now get out here.”
Laughing, Jess pocketed her phone and followed Lina out of the kitchen. But nothing the party could offer was more appealing than what was waiting for her on her phone. She couldn’t wait to get home so she could get back to Peabody.
Chapter Seven
Peabody kept texting her all weekend. While she spent tedious hours poring over a dry, dense city contract for computer services, she kept her phone next to her on the bed as their endless text conversation spun out. They spent forever dissecting their favorite pieces of investigative journalism, and then moved on to a lengthy debate on who made the best Batman. She knew he loved Mexican food but didn’t much care for sushi. He knew she hated greeting cards because they were too sentimental, but she wept uncontrollably at the first ten minutes of Up. But she still didn’t know his name, his age, or even where he lived, outside of “the tristate area.” He didn’t offer and she didn’t ask. And it was funny how little any of that stuff seemed to matter.
Gemma invited half a dozen family members to Sunday dinner, filling their house with the familiar hum of conversation and laughter. But tonight, Jess didn’t want to spend the evening surrounded by family. She wanted to escape to her room, her phone, and Peabody.
She half listened, her leg bouncing up and down under the table, as Aunt Elena, her mother’s older sister, argued with Uncle Richie, her father’s younger brother, about the subway system. Ordinarily, she’d be in the thick of the debate, but tonight, she couldn’t make herself focus.
“Don’t you think so, Jess?”
Jess blinked. “What?”
Aunt Elena was staring at her expectantly. “You ride the subway every day. What do you think?”
“Um...” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Her whole family stared at her in mystification. If there was one thing Jess had never been short on, it was an opinion.
“Everything okay, Jess?” her father asked, eyeing her closely. John Romano had been forcefully thrust into single parenthood over a decade earlier, and he’d learned to read all three of his daughters like books.
“Everything’s fine, Dad,” she promised him. The last thing he needed was more worry.
Elena returned to her conversation with Uncle Richie. Her father watched her for another moment before joining in with his brother and sister-in-law.
Gemma leaned in beside her. “What’s wrong with you tonight? You’re about to jump out of your skin.”
“Nothing. I’m just...distracted. Livie’s distracted, too, but you’re not giving her a hard time.”
Currently, Livie was bent over the table, scribbling out a list of arcane symbols and numbers on her napkin. She’d been puzzling out some sort of astrophysics problem before dinner and it looked as if the answer had just hit her.
“Livie was born distracted. You weren’t. And usually you like nothing better than bitching about mass transit. So what’s up?”
“I told you, nothing.” Jess glanced down at her phone in her lap. There was a tiny red bubble on the BulletChat icon. He’d messaged her again.
Gemma followed her gaze and arched one eyebrow. “Oh, I see,” she murmured with a smirk.
“Hush,” Jess hissed. “He’s just a friend.”
“Oh, he is, is he? Well, he’s going to have to wait. You know how Aunt Elena is about cell phones at the table.”
“It’s not even her table,” Jess grumbled. “And Livie’s doing math.”
“You sound nine. And that’s different. Do what you want, but I’m not gonna save you from Elena.”
Jess sighed and stuffed her phone back in her pocket before taking another bite of Gemma’s astoundingly good lasagna. Gemma spent her life pulling taps and sparring with Romano’s grizzled old patrons, but she could create magic in the kitchen.
“So is he hot?” Gemma pressed.
“I’m not discussing this with you.” Gemma would be even more suspicious of Peabody’s motives than Lina had been. Older than Jess and Livie by several years, she was both big sister and mom, and fiercely protective of them.
“Come on, you know I’m just gonna keep bugging you.”
“Aunt Elena,” Jess said brightly, breaking into the larger conversation. “Didn’t you say Kendra has a new boyfriend?”
Elena’s eyes lit up with glee as she launched into her favorite topic ever—the marital prospects of her daughter. “She does, and this one is a keeper. He’s a cop, and so handsome. I think I hear wedding bells. What about you, Gemma? Anybody new in your life?” Elena’s second favorite topic was the marital prospects of the Romano sisters, especially the eldest.
“I am going to kill you,” Gemma muttered to Jess under her breath before replying to Elena with practiced nonchalance. “Nope. Working too much for all that stuff.”
“You’re not getting any younger, you know. Those eggs of yours won’t last forever.” Elena’s third favorite topic was motherhood.
Okay, maybe it had been mean, throwing Gemma to the wolves, but Jess wasn’t ready to open up this thing with Peabody to outside eyes just yet. Not to Gemma and certainly not to Aunt Elena.
After dinner, Uncle Richie, Aunt Elena, Uncle Michael, and Richie’s girlfriend, Sheila, headed to the living room to watch football. Their father, oddly, slipped out the back door.
Jess and Livie, in the middle of clearing dishes, paused, watching him pass.
“Where is Dad going?” Livie asked.
Jess peeked through the kitchen window. John Romano was standing in the bare, cold backyard, head tipped back, talking on his cell. He was facing away, so Jess couldn’t see his face, but a shiver of unease skittered down her spine. Her father was not secretive by nature. “He’s making a phone call. Outside. What the hell is that about?”
Gemma eyed the closed door uneasily as she packed up leftovers. “He’s been acting weird lately. I don’t know.”
; “Is he okay?” Jess pressed, feeling guilty that while she’d been obsessing over Peabody, something might be legitimately wrong with their father.
“He seems fine. Just keeping to himself, sneaking off to make phone calls in private and stuff.”
“That’s weird,” Livie said.
“Very weird. Is it the bar?” Jess pressed. “Are things bad?”
Gemma shrugged. “No worse than they ever are. You do the books, Jess. You know better than anyone.”
Yes, she did. The truth was, Romano’s barely broke even most months. And in some months, it didn’t. Business wasn’t good, but as Gem said, no worse than usual.
“So what’s he sneaking around about?”
“Who knows? What are you sneaking around about?”
“I’m not sneaking.”
“So who’s the mystery man on your phone?”
“When did this become about me?”
“Since now. Who is he?”
“None of your business.”
Gemma chuckled. “Look at you, all worried about Dad when you’re just as secretive.”
“Look, I promise I’ll tell you when there’s something to tell. Right now, it’s just...new. And maybe nothing.”
Livie, up to her elbows in soapy water at the sink, rolled her eyes. “Just let her go talk to her mystery guy. I’ll clean up.”
Jess turned to stare at her sister. “You weren’t even paying attention at dinner. How do you know about him?”
“I notice things, you know. Especially when it’s you.”
Ah, Livie. With her brilliant, expansive mind and the obsessive way she sank into her work, everyone assumed she was oblivious to what went on around her. Jess knew better, though. The two of them were very different, but less than a year separated them and Jess understood Livie better than anyone. The middle Romano sister might be quiet, but she saw everything.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. Go.”
“Just promise you’ll tell us all the details when it gets juicy,” Gem added. “And take Spudge with you before somebody trips on him and breaks an ankle.”
“Thanks, Livie. I owe you one. Come on, Spudge.”
Upstairs, she settled down on her bed with her phone. Spudge stared longingly up at her, too old to jump up on the bed as he once had.
The One I Love to Hate Page 6
