“Is that what he said?”
“Kind of.” I took the shot and brought it to my lips. “He told me I looked and smelled rich.”
I tipped my head back and swallowed the icy liquid down, where it lit a fire in the pit of my belly.
“Um, that doesn’t sound like a bad thing to me.” Jude refilled both our glasses. “That sounds like he was enjoying the view and smell.”
“If he was, he had the best poker face I’ve ever seen. I don’t think he smiled at me once. He acted as though he couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”
“And yet you can’t stop talking about him.” Jude winked and downed his second shot. “What is it about the ones who play hard to get?”
I wish I knew. I let out a sigh, then tossed back my second shot. There was no reason I should still be thinking about Jameson. He’d given absolutely no indication he was interested in seeing me again, and yet here I was, wondering how I could get in contact with him.
“You’re thinking about him right now, aren’t you?”
“He was just so…so…” I sighed again.
“The guy who didn’t smile at you?”
“The guy who saved me. He was dreamy. The guy who didn’t smile at me, he was”—I thought of the way Jameson had backed me up against the brick wall—“still dreamy—in a badass kind of way. Did I mention he rides a motorcycle?”
“No, you didn't.” Jude grinned and pointed at me. “You dirty little slut.”
“What?” With the alcohol making me feel nice and relaxed, I started to laugh. “Hardly. It’s not like I did anything.”
“But you wanted tooo,” Jude sang. “Hey, I’m all for it. You need to relax. Maybe this Jameson guy can help you out.”
“Yeah, because he was so interested in what I had to offer.” I grabbed the vodka and poured myself another shot. “He said I was too soft around the edges for him. Me. I work for one of the best journalists in the world. The top in this country for sure. He goes into dangerous situations all the time, and I—”
“Stay in the office and make sure his schedule is organized?”
I glared at my laughing friend. “Fuck you,” I said with no real malice. “My job is not as easy as you think.”
“I’m sure,” he said, trying to bite back a laugh. “I’m sure it’s very dangerous navigating the moody temperaments of everyone in the ENN building.”
“It is, actually. But all I meant was, I can adapt to situations. I could be edgier…grittier…”
Jude looked me up and down, then shook his head. “Yeah, no you can’t. Jameson was right—you look rich.”
“Uh, hardly. I’m a personal assistant.”
“For the top journalist in the country.”
“So? I don’t earn what he does.”
“I know, but you save all your extra pennies to make sure you look like you do.”
“So I like to look nice. Is that a crime?”
“No, but you look rich, especially at that pub. You said it yourself: we stood out like sore thumbs.”
I glanced down at myself and then blew out a breath. “You’re right. You’re right. But he could’ve at least let me buy him a drink or dinner to say thank you.”
“Maybe he didn’t want your money?”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, he didn’t want my body either. Trust me, I all but threw it at him.”
“Hmm.” Jude tapped a finger to his lips. “I have an idea. What if we go back next week? Obviously he hangs out there. Maybe you’ll see him again.”
“Uh…” My head was spinning a little now, and I wasn’t sure it was the best idea to make plans. “Maybe we should wait until the morning.”
“Okay, but think about it.”
That wasn’t going to be a hardship. In fact, I had a feeling I wasn’t only going to be thinking about Jameson for the rest of the night. I was going to be having very vivid dreams about him, too.
Chapter 5
Jameson
THE OLD WAREHOUSE elevator groaned to a stop as it reached my floor, and I stepped out into the drafty hall. It was still pretty early for a Friday night, but after the Mitch disaster, I’d decided to just leave it at that.
It wasn’t like anyone had caught my eye as a possible distraction from my empty bed—at least not anyone who was an option—so it was best to just cut my losses and sleep away the hours between now and tomorrow morning, when I was due down at the fire station for my next shift.
When I reached my front door, a familiar red flyer greeted me, and in bold letters on the diagonal it read: EVICTION NOTICE.
“Motherfucker.” I ripped it down with more force than was necessary and crumpled it into a ball, then I unlocked the door and headed inside. I switched on the floor lamp that stood in the corner of the main living area and tossed the piece of paper in the wastebasket with the others that had come the past five days.
This was exactly what I’d been wanting to avoid tonight. The cold, hard reality that was now my life. My building had just been bought by some rich-ass investor wanting to bulldoze the place and build fancy new condos. It was all part of the gentrification taking place in parts of Chicago. That was all good and well for the investor, but it meant I needed to be gone by the weekend or I’d be tossed out on my ass.
It was just one more headache to add to a life that had turned into nothing but stress lately, and that didn’t seem to be ending anytime soon.
I scanned the sparse contents of the open floor and remembered a time when I’d been excited to move in here. It’d been a hell of a deal with two people on the lease, but that was a long time ago. There was only me now, and as I stared at the closed door of the bedroom next to mine, the usual wave of nausea rolled through me.
Not wanting to think about that tonight—or any night—I dropped my keys on the scuffed-up coffee table and headed into the kitchen. I yanked open the fridge and noted it was even emptier than the place itself. An old container of lo mein sat on the top shelf next to two bottles of beer and a half-gallon of milk, and below that was a carton of eggs. It wasn’t all that unusual for my fridge to run bare during shifts, but it’d been a good week or so since I’d even bothered with the staples.
I snatched up a bottle of beer, twisted off the top, and flicked it into the sink. Then I made my way over to a side window and took a seat on the bench I’d built by it. The view was nothing to write home about, but at least it gave a glimpse of something outside of this room, which had become suffocating lately, despite the space.
I rested my back against the window frame, propped my boots up on the ledge in front of me, and stared out at the elevated tracks of the L. It was one of the reasons we’d taken the place, the power of the train as it rushed by, called to the adrenaline that roiled around inside people like us. But now it was just a reminder of something I’d rather forget.
I took a swig of my beer and shut my eyes, determined to think of anything other than the fucked-up situation I now found myself in. Not surprisingly, the first image that came to mind was a tall, distinguished figure in a pair of black pants and suspenders. GQ—or Ryan, as he’d corrected me—was about as far removed from this place as one could get.