The Love Experiment

by Paton, Ainslie

  He said nothing, his eyes still on his cell. It would be smart to detour by Artie’s desk and recruit him before she went to Shona, if she could make her legs work.

  “Honeywell, do you smoke? Because if you’re going to carry on being pathetic and wanting an audience, I need a cigarette, so we have to relocate this stimulating argument to the alley.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t smoke. They’ll kill you.” Now he was trap-setting. But if he was so desperate to get away from her, why hadn’t he simply answered a call or walked out? Maybe he had a shred of compassion tucked into those trim gray trousers.

  “Do you at least drink? You can’t be a respectable member of the profession and not know how to hold your liquor.”

  She wasn’t much of a drinker. To her disappointment, she’d been called a lightweight more times than she cared to recall. She was trying to switch from coffee and make green tea her usual poison, but this was Jackson Haley, Heartbeat of the City, asking her for a drink. Wasn’t it?

  “I drink.” She could fake drinking. Done it a million times.

  “Tomorrow night, seven. Donovan’s. Tell Potter you convinced me to play ball.”

  “I did?” With only jellied hamstrings to show for it. This had to be a trick.

  “No, Honeywell, I have every intention of getting out of this story, but we can make it look like you tried.”

  That goddamn big swinging dinkus.

  Chapter Four

  Jack watched Kelly pour his drink and place it on a coaster in front of him. The bartender didn’t linger. She’d long since learned Jack didn’t do idle conversation. Five minutes later, a man took the stool beside him, placing an envelope on the bar top between them. The guy ordered a beer and Kelly poured it.

  Jack waited. There was every reason to believe this was Henri Costa, his whistleblower inside Keepsafe General Insurance, but he lost nothing in waiting for Henri to declare himself, though he had to make a determined effort not to snatch the envelope, rip it open and dive into the contents.

  “You’re Jackson Haley?” Henri didn’t turn; he spoke to the row of bottles behind the bar. “You look younger than your picture.”

  The best word to use to describe Henri was average. Average height, build, blue suit, white shirt, black shoes. You didn’t have to look exceptional to be courageous and Henri Costa had courage, the kind that could get him into a lot of trouble.

  “Is Henri Costa your real name?”

  Now the man turned with a panicked expression above his five o’clock shadow. “You can’t use my name.”

  “Relax, Costa. I need your information, not your name.”

  Costa prodded the envelope, pushing it slightly toward Jack. “It’s all here. Names, emails, phone transcripts, internal memos, financial records. I can’t afford to lose this job, but they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this. It’s corruption all the way to the top. They’re ruining people’s lives.”

  Jack put his hand on the envelope and slid it in front of him as Costa stood. “I’ll take care of it.” He’d use Costa’s information to start an investigation to verify the insurer was defrauding accident victims out of compensation by paying off doctors to invalidate legitimate claims.

  Thousands of privately insured accident victims had discovered their injuries weren’t covered because of a criminal loophole in how they were assessed. At a time when they needed help the most, injured people were left without support, often unable to work, with horrendous medical expenses and without hope of putting their lives back together.

  Stories like this were what Jack crawled out of bed for. It was how he made sense of his life. He downed his bourbon. He’d get started tonight, and if Henri Costa’s information checked out, Jack’s story would bring to light the corrupt practices of the insurer, start legal action, topple careers and with luck, provide relief and recompense to the victims.

  Costa left his beer untouched. It was on the bar top still when Honeywell slipped onto his stool. Shit, he’d forgotten about her.

  She took in his empty glass and the abandoned beer. She glanced at her watch. “Have you been waiting long?”

  “Something’s come up, Clickbait.” He swiveled to face her. “A tip I have to follow through on.”

  “Now?”

  “I didn’t buy that beer for you.” He signaled Kelly as he stood. “I’ve got an account, get yourself something on me.”

  “Jack.” She swiveled, just as he stepped into the gap between their stools. Her knees bumped his thighs. He almost touched her shoulder to steady himself. Her face colored and her mouth shaped an O. “Sorry, ah, I.”

  He said almost the same words, dropping the Costa envelope. He’d gotten a nose full of floral perfume while she’d come too damn close to kneeing him in the groin. He bent to snatch up Henri Costa’s evidence and she moved too, and he scored an elbow to his ear. It knocked his glasses askew. When he straightened up, she had her hand clapped over her mouth, but it wasn’t enough of a barrier to stop her laughter spilling over.

  He adjusted his glasses. “Yeah, very funny, the defender of the people needs defense against a woman who wrote about feminist art activism today.”

  “‘Knitting in the City.’ You read my story.”

  Curiosity had gotten the better of him. He read a dozen papers every morning and subscribed to more national, international and special interest news services than he could list, but he’d specifically looked for her story this morning because she’d surprised him.

  She clasped her hands at her chest and fluttered her eyes. “Aw, Dinkus, you care.”

  Dinkus. “At least it wasn’t ‘Movie Heroes in Extremely Tight Pants,’” which was the actual lead story for the Courier in terms of eyeballs that day.

  “If you read that story I’ll have to rethink my stance on your sexuality.”

  “I stopped at the headline.”

  She grinned. “I won’t call you Dinkus if you don’t call me Clickbait.”

  He’d intimidated her for all of five minutes yesterday, and she’d held her own admirably. There was something farm-fresh and freckled about Honeywell, with her auburn hair and her pale, otherworldly eyes, and for a moment he wanted to tell her to get out of this industry before it turned her humor to hardness and disappointed her.

  “Sorry about the assault,” she said, with a shrug more reminiscent of a schoolgirl than an ace reporter.

  “I’ve had worse.”

  “I’ve heard you do a fight club thing.” She gestured to her eyes. He had no idea what color they were—washed out, ethereal. “How do you manage with glasses?”

  “Contacts.”

  “But you don’t wear them during the day.”

  He almost responded. Almost fell into the back and forth of a discussion with her like he’d done yesterday. She had such an open, easy manner, a good skill for a reporter to use to get people to open up. But he had the Costa envelope and a night of reviewing its contents in front of him, and she made him feel ancient, eight years between her twenty-eight and his thirty-six. And love, even a watered-down, highly stylized infotainment for the masses version, wasn’t an experiment he was signing up for. Better to hit it and quit it before he wasted any more time.

  “See you ‘round, Honeywell. You’ll do great with Chan.”

  “Hold on, Haley. We have a date.” He’d stepped away, but she spoke loudly. “If what’s in your envelope is going to become invisible if you don’t look at it tonight, then by all means, dump me.”

  He turned in time to see her tip her chin up to the ceiling, then she leveled her eyes at him, less schoolgirl than grade school teacher. No man in his right mind would dump this woman without further investigation. But this was work and she was a huge distraction and he hadn’t been interested in dating for so long now, he wouldn’t know ho
w to start. It was better that way for all concerned. Married to the job was fine with him. It had the occasional perk of attracting the right kind of female attention and that worked—no complications.

  “Is it?” she said.

  “Is it what?” He had no idea what she’d said, only that the tone was not to be messed with.

  She quirked her head to the side and pointed at his hand. “Does that envelope you’ve got a death grip on contain proof of alien life?”

  Now that would be a story he’d like to write. “Proof of something equally important, I hope.”

  “And you have to look at it right now?”

  “I told you, this love experiment, it’s not for me.”

  “Gotta say, if Artie Chan wasn’t going off on a medical conference junket, I’d agree with you. Might’ve been the one doing the standing up. You forgot about asking me here, didn’t you?”

  No point pretending otherwise. “Don’t take it personally, Click—Honeywell. You’re enterprising, you’ll work this out.”

  “Before or after we explain to Phil what we’re doing here together?” She waved over Jack’s head and then dropped her voice to a confidential hush. “He didn’t know I existed before yesterday.” She laughed, making her stool swing side to side in a tiny arc. “Look at me, coming up in the world.”

  She was something this Derelie Honeywell. She made him smile, though the bite of Madden’s hand on his shoulder put a stop to that.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Madden’s eyes went to the envelope.

  “Yeah. I’m about to go—”

  “You’ve done your lovemaking experiment then?” Madden switched his gaze to Honeywell.

  “Making good progress,” she said, making Jack raise a brow at her. She didn’t falter under Madden’s glare. She’d just lied for him. Farm fresh gave good urban savvy.

  “Good to hear, because Haley...” Madden squeezed Jack’s shoulder. “I don’t see this love story happen, that fraud story—” he nodded toward the Costa envelope “—you’re hoping is your Pulitzer gets buried on page fifty to give your son-of-a-bitch father something new to complain about.”

  “You won’t do that.” For all the clicks and ratings guerilla knitting, weird animals from the deep, gruesome murders and appalling bridezilla stories got, the Courier’s reputation as a serious newspaper still mattered.

  Madden laughed. “Trying me would make my year, Haley.” He let go of Jack and left them, going into the adjoining restaurant, where he met a woman who wasn’t Potter. Man was a dog, because that white woman didn’t look like his sister, nor was she adjusting her neckline like she was a source of any story except a bedtime one.

  “Your father is a son of a bitch?”

  That’s what Honeywell went with? She followed up with, “Phil and Shona aren’t exclusive,” and rounded out with, “If I didn’t want this job, I’d like to see you go up against Phil.” And what do you know, urban savvy with a side of reckless endangerment.

  Honeywell was almost eye-to-eye with him, sitting cross-legged on the stool. Jack took in the fact she had legs for the first time since she’d almost done him some damage. She had damn fine legs.

  “Go on, get out of here. I won us some time,” she said.

  Jack was back on his stool before he realized what he was doing. The envelope would wait for the half hour it took to show the woman some respect. He wouldn’t demean her by calling her Clickbait anymore. Also, he needed to eat, so it wasn’t Honeywell who was making him stay.

  “They make a good burger here,” he said.

  “Make mine with extra cheese and a side of fries.”

  Interesting. He’d half expected her to turn up her nose at a burger or ask for it to be free of all the things that made it great. Women lived on kale, as far as he could make out.

  “I can’t resist a good burger and I can’t get a read on you, Jackson Haley. You smoke and drink and throw punches. You eat badly and dress well. You’re passionate about reporting, and you haven’t tried to come on to me, which, given the setup would almost be understandable.”

  He signaled Kelly and ordered. He wouldn’t know how to come on to Honeywell. He should know. But he hadn’t had to worry about that kind of thing. It’d been on tap. Now it seemed like a terrible gap in his capability set. “And you surprised me, Honeywell. You lied to Madden.”

  She shrugged. “You’re still here, and if you check your phone, Shona has emailed us both the first set of questions. I’d call that progress.”

  “The paper is pimping us out and you’re comfortable with that?”

  “We don’t have to become lifelong friends.” Her eyes went to her hands in her lap. “I get that’s not going to happen. All we have to do is meet a couple of times and record how the questions and answers makes us feel.”

  He checked his phone. Goddamn lifestyle reporting. It was taking over the news business. “Chan is really away on a conference?”

  “He really is. It’s in Hawaii. He’s taking vacation time.”

  “Would you lie to me, Honeywell?”

  She looked at him with a frown. He put his cell down to watch as she considered that. Those eyes were the palest blue on a color chart, right before you hit gray. They should make her seem icy. “I might if I thought it would help. If I thought you’d buy it. Getting you to do the story looks good for me.”

  They stared at each other. Nothing cold about her, a smile that could start an adventure and a complete lack of posturing. “How am I supposed to trust you now you’ve admitted that?” But oddly, he did trust her, her answer was so damn honest.

  “You don’t need to trust me. I can’t hurt you. Whatever this power play between you and Phil is about, it’s got nothing to do with me. I don’t think either of you care about me one way or another.”

  She made him sound like a chump. “You’re making it difficult for me to dump you and this ridiculous story, Honeywell.”

  “I am?”

  “You know it.”

  “Oh no I don’t. You’re all business and power to the people, Jackson Haley, and I’m all ‘look at Jesus’s face in a piece of toast’ and ‘here’s a python that ate a goat.’”

  She said that so matter-of-factly he nearly choked on his laughter, shocking the Jesus toast out of Kelly, pulling a beer behind the bar.

  “Swear to God, Haley, you’ve been coming to my bar for years and I’ve never seen you laugh like you meant it. Didn’t know you had it in you.” Kelly cocked a thumb at Honeywell. “Who is she?”

  She was a woman who’d gotten in his goddamn way and was about to complicate it.

  Chapter Five

  Derelie had skipped yoga and the chance to see Yogaboy do his sinuous sun salute to prop up a bar with Jackson Haley. And he’d forgotten all about her. It was bad enough Ernest was forgetting her. Ernest wasn’t competent with a calendar. Maybe Jack wasn’t either. But then she’d almost taken out Jack’s manhood with her knees and his eyesight with her elbow, so perhaps that was the problem.

  She’d liked how his eyes had gone wide and he’d grunted in surprise when her knees grazed his thighs, almost reaching for her and dropping his precious envelope. Another few inches higher, she’d have been able to verify if his balls were Texas-sized. They’d said sorry at the same time.

  And then he’d stayed and suggested the best burger she’d eaten in years. It was a burger to make all future salads taste like grass clippings. She wondered if he’d notice if she undid the button at the back of her pencil skirt.

  He was a man trained to notice things. But he was selective. And at the moment, he wasn’t being a bastard.

  Not that she cared. Jackson Haley was a high-profile assignment not a potential assignation. She wanted Yogaboy to notice her. Over the months they’d shared the same class cycle she’d shuff
led her mat closer to his to give him a fair chance of catching her eyes. But he was so focused in his practice, he’d never once turned his man-bun her way; she’d only ever seen his tattoos sideways and upside down. It was a crime against hotness.

  Jackson Haley’s notice, outside of what he could teach her about the newspaper business, was a little too unsettling to consider, although he did show traits of being human, and under the gruff stuff there was a sense of fun. She hadn’t had to think about him in burlap undies since the food arrived, but he’d just read the first question from the study, and his brows veed under his glasses, so feeling tentatively secure was probably a mistake.

  “‘Given the choice of all people in the world, dead or alive, whom would you want as a dinner guest?’” He looked at her right on cue to see her lick mayo off her finger. “Goddamn ridiculous, pseudo-intellectual dinner party question.”

  She licked another finger, because he was riled up and wasn’t paying any attention to her, which meant she could eat her fries and undo her button. She tried not to even sweat around Yogaboy, because according to her yoga instructor, sweat was her fat crying for release. So unattractive. But that whole “keep yourself nice in front of the boy you like” wasn’t a factor with Jack. He noticed her in the way he’d notice a roadblock before he drove over it.

  “I can’t believe this is a university-designed study. A load of bullshit.”

  “At least they got the right use of whom,” she said, when the look he shot her way had that “explain yourself right now” quality. “I’d invite a dead person for sure. Think of the interview opportunities from any of the great figures of history. I’d invite Jesus and ask him why he thought people keep seeing his face in their burnt toast.”

  He blinked hard, as if what she’d said had come at him like a punch. “That’s your answer?”

  She took a fry from the basket and waved it at him. “Why not?” He wasn’t going to do this for real—what did it matter what she said? She’d have to come clean with Shona in the morning and completely fail to recall Phil sitting a dozen yoga mats away in the restaurant part of the bar with a glamorous blonde woman in a shirt at least a size too small. That was one of her lessons about the city, more people, more politics, more secrets to keep.