Janelle sighed heavily, as if this issue had been weighing on her. “It is. I went to the library myself, but I can’t find a place that’s just right. And I know you have such a good eye for talent that I thought you might have an eye for this as well.”
“Okay,” Sutton said carefully. She felt as if she were being tested in a new way. There was no deal yet, but she was being asked to jump through yet another hoop. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“Oh no. I was just thinking maybe you could go today. Maybe you and your lovely fiancé could see if you could find a good spot. I’ve heard the section on Renaissance Astrology on the fourth floor might be good, but I don’t have time to get over there today. Would you be a dear and report back to me? It would help immensely as we get closer to making a decision.”
“And I should bring my fiancé for this?” Sutton asked, because it was a strange request—not only to check out the location, but to bring along her beau.
“Don’t you think it might help to have Reeve with you?”
Sutton pressed her lips together and sucked in a deep breath. Janelle was grade-A annoying. But if this was how the game had to be played, Sutton was up for it. “I’m sure it will help immensely. Renaissance astrology, you say?”
“Yes. Renaissance astrology.”
“All right. I’ll just make this last call and head on over.”
She phoned the final agent on her list, then she rang up Reeve. “Hello, pretend boyfriend. Where are you right now?”
“Just going for a run with my friend Jill.”
Sutton felt a flare of jealousy. “Jill? Good friend, is she?”
“Great friend.”
“Can you meet me at the public library on Fifth and Forty-Second in an hour?”
“I need to shower. Make it an hour and a half.”
“Gotta go,” Reeve said to Jill as they ran down the West Side Bike Path.
“Come on! You’re the only one who can keep up with me. I thought we were going for eight miles today. You’re such a wuss,” Jill said, and pushed Reeve on the arm as they kept pace together.
“Ha. I could totally school you. But I have to be somewhere.”
“One, you can not school me. Two, where do you have to go? I thought you were out of work this week? Besides, you were supposed to help me get ready for my Crash the Moon audition with Patrick Carlson,” Jill said, referring to the musical she was auditioning for. The mid-day sun beat down on them. It was November and the air was chilly, but with five miles under their belts already, Reeve felt pretty warm.
“I promise I’ll help you tomorrow. I gotta jam all the way to the east side to shower, then get to midtown.”
“What’s the gig? Who was that on the phone?”
Reeve shook his head and laughed. Then he told Jill everything. Her eyes widened and she punched him on the arm, as if she were proud of him. “Can you get me an audition for Escorted Lives? Hell, I’d be happy to play a receptionist at the agency. Anything, anything at all.”
Reeve stopped running and kissed Jill quickly on the forehead. “You know I’ll do whatever I can for you.”
Then he ran across town, showered, changed and caught the subway to the New York Public Library where Sutton was waiting outside by the lions. Damn, she looked sharp in black leather boots, a short skirt, and a black coat cinched at the waist. All that luscious hair was pinned up again and she had her glasses on. He couldn’t help himself. His eyes wandered to her legs, and just as he suspected, he saw the slightest hint of lace. Thigh-high stockings again. She was killing him, especially because she had that same plastic smile on as she did last night, and he couldn’t read her.
She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
Hell, no. That was not going to do. “After six months together, all I get is the cheek?”
He shook his head and placed his hands on her face. He forced her to look at him, her blue eyes meeting his browns, and he gazed at her, as her pupils grew bigger and her walls started to fade away. Her body shifted the slightest bit closer, but he didn’t move. He stayed totally still. He wanted her to feel the weight of his stare. He wanted her to feel undressed with his eyes, unwound by his touch. And then, there it was. The slightest parting of her lips. He wasted no time, diving in for a deep and hungry kiss on the steps outside the library as book borrowers and researchers and students and tourists and anyone and everyone streamed up and down the steps. They were a postcard of kissing. They were the couple reunited after the naval hero was at sea. They were lovers who couldn’t keep their hands off each other after weeks apart. They were every kiss on every street that anyone ever wanted to gawk at, that anyone ever wanted to be. She moved against him, her chest lightly pressing against the cotton of his tee-shirt beneath his scratched leather jacket. Just when he felt her start to give in completely, he pulled apart, grabbed her hand and led her up the steps.
Still wobbly from the kiss, she missed a step and stumbled. In one swift move, he grabbed her elbow, then slid an arm around her waist.
“You okay?”
Her eyes were wide, the tiniest bit of shock in them. It would only have been a small tumble. It would only have caused a minor scrape or bruise. Still, she seemed glad to have been caught.
“Thank you.”
Then he stopped and gave her a soft kiss on her forehead. “I’m always happy to catch you.”
That kiss.
He kissed her like it was the only thing that mattered in the world. She ran her fingers absently across her top lip, as if she could recall the kiss. She wanted to revel in it. To live in it. To encase herself in that bubble of an afternoon kiss. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair in the least when it was all an act. When he had the raw talent to pull that off, to make a kiss seem so believable that she’d suspended disbelief out there on the steps. She had to restore the balance of power somehow, especially after the way she’d tripped. She was woozy and drunk from his kisses, so drunk she could barely walk straight. She had to right her ship. So as they wandered through shelves upon shelves of hardbound volumes on science and literature, on history and make-believe, Sutton chatted in a low voice.