I turned back to see Jameson had taken my advice and again stretched out, his feet resting on the ottoman in front of him.
“It’s good you’re off tonight, being Friday and all,” I said.
“Yeah, agreed. I have a bit of a headache too, so I’m glad for the break.”
“Oh no. I have a medicine cabinet with everything you could possibly need. Can I get you something?”
Jameson smirked. “Of course you do. But I’m good. I took something earlier.”
“You sure?”
“I’m positive.”
“Okay, well, it’s there if you need it. When do you go back to work?”
“Sunday. So this is kind of my weekend.”
“I swear, you have the weirdest schedule.”
“It takes a bit to get used to, but you do eventually. You want me to print out a copy and post it on the fridge for you?”
He grinned, and I lost my train of thought for a second.
“What?”
“My schedule.”
“Oh, would you?”
Jameson’s eyes widened. He’d obviously been kidding, but if he was offering, I wouldn’t say no. I liked spreadsheets and schedules. They made me feel more in control.
“You really want me to hang my schedule on the fridge?”
“Well, only if you want to. That way I know what nights you’re home for dinner. Unless you have a…” I trailed off, not really wanting to think about him on a date with some other guy.
“Yeah, okay. That makes sense. I’ll print it out the next time I’m at work.”
“Or you can email it to me and I can print it out here.”
“Either way.”
I smiled and reached up to loosen my tie. “So, how was your shift? Other than the headache.”
Like a switch had been flipped, the easy mood in the room shifted and Jameson tensed. Then he sat there for a minute as though trying to decide what to say.
“It was…interesting.”
“Interesting?” That was an odd choice of words, and something about Jameson’s demeanor said it wasn’t interesting in a let me tell you a story kind of way.
“Yeah, I ran into my sister.”
Sister? Well, would you look at that? Maybe Gabe had been right and I just needed to give Jameson some time to get to know me before he opened up. “You have a sister?”
“Yep. One.”
“She younger than you?”
He nodded. “By two years.”
“I figured. You have that whole protective big-brother vibe about you.”
“Not really.” Jameson sat forward and ran a hand through his hair. “I hadn’t seen her in months. But we got called out to a fire yesterday, some abandoned place, and there she was.”
Holy shit. “She was in the fire? Is she okay?”
Jameson blinked, and for a second I wondered if he’d heard the question, but then he nodded. “Yeah, she was actually running out of it.”
“Oh thank God.” I shook my head, totally blown away by what he’d just told me. “Do you want to call her and invite her over? If you haven’t seen her in a while, I could leave and you could order in.”
“Nah, that’s okay. I wouldn’t know where to call. But thanks, GQ.”
My instinct was to keep pushing, to work out a way for them to meet up somehow, since they’d been estranged. But I got the feeling that his telling someone about her was what he’d really wanted from this—from me—and his thanks was the end of this conversation.
So despite everything telling me to probe deeper, I let it go. If he wanted to come back to it, he would.
“Well, are you hungry? Because I am.” I walked into the kitchen, but nothing in the fridge grabbed my fancy. “Alexander had me work through lunch, and I only managed to snack on vending machine stuff.”
I shut the fridge door and turned around, drawing up short when I found Jameson standing in the kitchen directly behind me.
“Jesus, I didn’t even hear you walk over here.”
A half-smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and just like that, the mood relaxed.
“I’m stealthy like that.”
Stealthy. Sexy. And so close that if I reached out I could—
“Hey, before I forget again, about last weekend—I wanted to apologize for being such an ass.”
I shook my head. “It’s fine, really. There’s nothing to apologize for. I was the one who overstepped.”
“No, you were just trying to help.”
“Still, I know I can be pushy.”
“You? Never.”
I wondered if he was thinking of that first night, when I pushed for him to let me somehow thank him.
“I am sometimes. But I like to think I’m polite about it.”
“Ah, that’s right. You did mention you liked to be polite.”
“Exactly. So when I’m determined to get something, I’m politely pushy about it. Also, it’s a trait that’s needed in a job like mine. You don’t say no to someone like Alexander Thorne. So therefore, I have to be able to make everyone give me whatever it is I’m asking for.”
“So basically you’re good at manipulating people.”
“I prefer the term persuading.”
Jameson snorted. “Isn’t that the same thing?”
I cocked my head to the side, eyeing him closely. “I thought you were apologizing to me.”
“You said I didn’t have to.”
“Touché.” I picked up my phone and began to scroll through the fast food options. “Do you feel like going out and grabbing a pizza? I know you said you had a headache.”
“Nothing I can’t handle. Pizza sounds good.”
“Great.” I backed out of the kitchen. “I’m just going to go and get changed real quick. Give me a few minutes?”
Jameson lowered his eyes over what was left of my suit, and my pulse began to pound a little harder.
“Take your time.”
That wasn’t going to happen. If I started to think about whom I was going out with and the way he’d just looked at me, I’d start worrying about what to wear. So less than a minute later I was back in the living room in a pair of jeans and a hunter-green cable-knit sweater.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
Jameson got to his feet, and I noticed he’d switched out his sweatpants for black jeans, a white Henley, and a pair of boots. Damn, the man was fine.
“You going to pizza or a study group, GQ?”
When I merely glared at him, Jameson chuckled and grabbed his leather jacket off the arm of the couch, then we headed downstairs to the parking garage.
As we made our way over to our spots, I pulled my keys out and hit the key fob, and Jameson walked up to his bike.
“You ever been on one?” he asked.
“What?”
Jameson grinned. “A motorcycle. Ever been on one?”
“Oh.” I shook my head and laughed. “No, never.”
He fastened his helmet then gestured to the seat behind him. “Wanna go for a ride?”
Chapter 16
Jameson