Neanderthal Seeks Human(99)

His glare morphed into a perplexed frown as I spoke but then, when I reached the end of the last sentence, his features transitioned into something like petulant yet amused understanding and most of the rigidity left his shoulders and neck.

We stared at each other, again almost for a half minute, before I broke the silence.

“Or, you could take off your jacket…?”

Quinn’s mouth hooked to the side and he smoothly removed his jacket; he tossed it to the pile created by my discarded clothes. He began unfastening his cufflinks at his sleeves and the breath he released while pinning me with an irritated stare sounded relieved. It made me smile.

“You’re going to pay for that.”

I widened my eyes, “For what?”

“Hmmmm…” he fought a smile, “Do you have cards or do we need to get some?”

I stepped around him unsteadily and crawled across the bed to my luggage, “I have cards, I like to play solitaire when I travel.”

“Why don’t you use your laptop or the iPad?” He turned to watch me dig through my bag.

“I like the feel of the cards.” I fished them out then crossed to the couch. There was a desk against the wall but no table near the couch. There was, however, an ottoman. I placed a magazine on the ottoman and decided it would make a flat enough surface and started to shuffle.

Shuffling helped. It kept my hands from shaking when the faint sound of my sober-self asked, What am I doing? Am I really doing this?

He was… blindingly beautiful, and wealthy, and my boss; all really good reasons why we were not suitable.

But, I really, really liked him. He was damn sexy and interesting and crazy smart and annoyingly insightful. I had to trust that there was something about me that he saw and liked enough to abandon his slamps and his Wendell lifestyle. I didn’t like trusting, I didn’t like setting greater than mild expectations, but I wanted to have faith in him. Call it wine, call it Quinn-sniff induced obscurity but I was too warm and fuzzy feeling to dwell on the scary side of strip poker.

Impaired judgment… still check.

“So…” I heard Quinn’s voice from behind me; he sounded like he was still standing in the same spot. “I did actually come here to talk to you about something else.”

I glanced over my shoulder to find my suspicion was correct; “What’s that?”

He pulled one hand roughly through his hair and put the cufflink in his pants’ pocket with the other, “I need to talk to you about last Sunday, that- uh- guy, in the park.”

I was kneeling on the floor next to the ottoman; at the tone of his voice I sat back on my heels and turned my entire torso towards him, “Ok.” I placed the cards on the magazine top, he had as much of my full attention as was possible given my current lack of sobriety.

Quinn hesitated, sauntered as he spoke, not looking at me; “So, when I left Boston years ago I wasn’t very popular with… anyone.” He fiddled with the contents of the room- a lamp shade, the mini bar, the instructions for internet connectivity, “I made some data copies in order to make sure that I wouldn’t be… bothered in Chicago.”

He paused over the mini bar, touching a doll-sized bottle of Jonny Walker.

I asked, “Data copies?”

“The people I worked for, I made copies of their data when I installed the wipe script and degauseer.”

“You mean, the bad men?”

He gave me a small smile and nodded, “Yes. The bad men.” Quinn walked to the couch, seemed to hesitate, then sat down. He placed his large hands on his knees, like he might stand back up at any moment, “Janie…” he leveled me with a vacillating, undecided gaze.

“Yes…?” He was quiet for so long I felt the need to prompt him. I was beginning to feel a renewed sense of anxiety. This was a long buildup for him; he was usually a straight-to-the-point kind of guy.

He sighed then asked, “Have you had contact with your sister Jem recently?”

I’m sure I looked comical, gaping at him and his question. He might have asked me, ‘Do you want tampons or pads for your Bat Mitzvah?’ and received a less dumbfounded reaction.

I breathed out heavily and responded with the first words that occurred to me, “How do you know Jem?”

He shook his head, his eyes focused and attentive to the expressions which must have been kaleidoscoping over my face, “I don’t really know her. But- in an effort to be more than technically honest- I know who she is.”

“What do you mean, you ‘know who she is’?”

“I mean, just before I left Boston six years ago, I met her when I was at a… business associate’s house. She was- she was involved with him and was… introduced to me briefly.”