Page 68 of At the Heart of It
As the guy walked away, Kate leaned closer to Jonah. “You’re a whack job, you know that?”
“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to observe a swingers club,” he pointed out. “What better way to observe than to play along?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not exactly dressed like I belong here.”
Jonah’s eyes skimmed over her body, and Kate reminded herself she’d just invited him to do it. It’s not like he was checking her out. He was just critiquing her choice of the fitted boat-neck dress with a zipper that ran all the way from her knee to the base of her throat.
“I’ve never seen you wear white,” he said. “It looks good on you.”
“Thanks. It’s Amy’s dress, actually. She said it would glow under the black lights.”
“Amy has good taste. You should probably unzip it a little if you want to fit in.”
Kate started to laugh. He was kidding, after all. But something about his words made her feel bold. Like she wanted to surprise him.
She lifted her hand and caught the zipper pull between her thumb and forefinger. Jonah’s eyes widened as she tugged it, exposing a few inches of skin between her breasts. “Thanks for the tip.”
Jonah’s throat moved as he swallowed. “Thank you.”
Their gazes stayed locked for a moment, and Kate focused on breathing in and out. Jonah broke eye contact first, but he didn’t look away from her. He let his gaze travel down her body, slow like a caress. Kate shivered, watching as his eyes lifted to her cleavage and stayed there for a few beats.
Then he picked up his beer and took a sip, muttering something that sounded like “Christ on a motherfucking cracker.”
She wasn’t sure why, but it sounded like a compliment. Kate picked up her own beer and sipped it. “So what were the other four things?”
He looked back at her, startled, and Kate hurried to explain.
“You said there were five things you admired about me. I was curious about the other four.”
She held her breath, hoping that didn’t sound desperate. Hoping she sounded like a bold, confident woman instead of one who’d spent way too much time reading self-help books and practicing ways to infuse her voice with the perfect pitch of casual nonchalance.
“Let’s see,” Jonah said. “You’re smart. Not just book smart or look-at-me-and-my-vast-collection-of-abstract-expressionist-art smart. You’re intellectual, but you’re also clever. Good at thinking on your feet. I kept noticing that today during filming. Everyone kept hitting you up with technical problems or gripes about the timing, and you always seemed to find a solution to everything.”
Kate felt her chest swell, which was dangerous considering the position of the zipper. She took a swallow of beer to keep from grinning like a big, dumb idiot.
“Thank you,” she said. “I love my job.”
“It shows.” Jonah spun his beer on the counter and studied her again. He wasn’t looking at her cleavage this time. He seemed to be taking in the whole package, which thrilled her.
“Item number three: you’re tenacious,” he said. “You don’t take no for an answer, whether it’s from me or Viv or the TV people. Someone puts up a wall, you find a way over it, under it, or around it.”
Kate had a hard time breathing. How did he know what to say? He was homing in on the things that made her proudest. The things she liked most about herself instead of the things she wanted desperately to change.
She swallowed hard, not sure if she wanted to hug him or kiss him. Neither seemed like a good idea in a swingers club, so gratitude washed through her when he kept talking.
“Number four: you’re kind,” he said. “I watched you make up a plate of food for that camera guy who hadn’t gotten a break all day. I watched how you interacted with Sam and Elena. How that guy from the network kept trying to get her to cry, but you called for a break in filming. I get it, you guys need the tears for the show—but you know these are human beings you’re working with. You’re not willing to crush someone’s spirit for the sake of a rating.”
Kate swallowed hard, feeling a pinprick of tears behind her eyes. No one had ever talked to her like this. Not even Anton when they’d done the Five Things exercise themselves. He’d fired off single-word descriptors like he was choosing them at random from a thesaurus, while Kate had stood there with her own two-page list gripped in a trembling fist.
“Jonah—” she said, wanting to thank him. Wanting to stop him. Wanting something else she knew she shouldn’t want but still desperately, urgently did.
He grinned. “Okay, it’s your turn.” He picked up his beer and took a gulp before setting it back on the bar. “And yes, I know that was only four. You have to do me before I tell you the fifth.”
Kate’s brain short-circuited a little on do me, but she took a deep breath and picked up her beer. She took a cold swallow, trying to smooth down the lump that had formed in the back of her throat. She looked around the room, trying to get her bearings. Trying not to notice the couple in the corner, the woman whose naked back arched with desire as the man slid his palms up her thighs and beneath her leather skirt.
Kate shifted on her seat, undone by a heady mixture of desire and affection and the sense that this was probably not the setting Jonah and Viv envisioned when they’d written the Five Things exercise.
She licked her lips and set down the beer. “It feels like I’m just repeating what you said, but I really do admire your intelligence,” she said. “Not just your geeky trivia about theater plays and books and owls, but the more understated stuff. The way you don’t just guzzle beer, you study it. The way you learn the subtle nuances and what makes it all come together. I admire that.”
