“So,” she said, aiming those blue eyes at the empty booth next to us.
“Long day?”
Back to me. “Yes. Thankfully.”
“Know what you mean,” I said.
She played with a napkin. “What have you been up to?”
“After the Ingalls case quieted down, I took a little time off. Lately I’ve being doing court consultations.”
“Crime consultations?”
“No,” I said. “Injury cases, some child custody.”
“Custody,” she said. “That gets ugly.”
“Especially when there’s enough money to pay lawyers indefinitely, and you get stuck with an idiot judge. I try to limit myself to smart judges.”
“Find any?”
“It’s a challenge.”
The drinks arrived. We clinked glasses and drank in silence. She twirled the stem, inspected the menu, said, “I’m starving, will probably gorge again.”
“Go for it.”
“What’s good?”
“I haven’t been here in years.”
“Oh?” She seemed amused. “Did you pick it to indulge my carnivorous tendencies?”
“Yours and mine. Also, I recalled it as relaxed.”
“It is.”
Silence. My face warmed—Scotch and awkwardness. Even in the dim light I could see that she’d colored.
“Anyway,” she said. “I don’t know if I ever thanked you, but you made talking about my experience as easy as it could’ve been. So thanks.”
“Thanks for helping. It made a difference.”
She scanned the menu some more, gnawed her lower lip, looked up, said, “I’m thinking T-bone.”
“Sounds good.”
“You?”
“Rib eye.”
“Major-league beefathon,” she said. She looked at the empty booth again, brought her eyes back to the tablecloth, seemed to be studying my fingertips. I was glad I’d filed my nails.
“You’re taking time off from crime cases,” she said, “but you’ll go back to it.”
“If I’m asked.”
“Will you be?”
I nodded.
She said, “I never got to ask you. What draws you to that kind of thing?”
“I could recite some noble speech about righting wrongs and making the world just a little bit safer, but I’ve stopped fooling myself. The truth is, I have a thing for unpredictability and novelty. From time to time, I need a shot of adrenaline.”
“Like a race car driver.”
I smiled. “That glamorizes it.”
She drank wine, kept the glass in front of her lips, lowered it, and revealed her own smile. “So you’re just another adrenaline junkie.” She ran a finger around the base of her glass. “If it’s all about thrills and chills, why not just run cars around the track or jump out of planes?”
The work I did had been a factor in the breakup with Robin. Would we still be together if I’d settled for skydiving?
As I framed my answer, Allison said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. I’m just guessing that you crave more than novelty. I think you really do like making things right.”
I didn’t answer.
“Then again,” she said, “who am I to utter pronouncements without a solid database? Being a behavioral scientist and all that.”
She shifted her bottom, tugged her hair, drank wine. I tried to smile away her discomfiture but couldn’t catch her eye. When she put her glass down, her hand landed closer to mine. Just a few millimeters between our fingers.
Then, the gap closed—both of us moving in concert. Touching.
Pretending it was accidental and retracting our hands.
The heat of skin against skin.
The blue shirt with which I’d replaced the sweat-ruined yellow one was growing sodden.
Allison began fooling with her hair. I stared into what remained of my Scotch. Breathing in the alcohol. I hadn’t eaten much all day, and booze on an empty stomach should’ve set off at least a small buzz.
Nothing.
Too damned alert.
How was this going?
For the rest of the evening, we let loose a few more cautious bits of autobiography, ate well, drank too much, walked off the meal with a slow stroll up Wilshire. Side by side, but no contact. Her big heels clacked, and her hair flapped. Her hips rolled—not a vamp, just the way she moved, and that made it sexy. Men looked at her. Halfway through the first block, her hand slipped around my biceps. Breeze from the ocean misted the streets. My eyes ached with uncertainty.