John nodded, seeming to accept this. Zoe breathed an internal sigh of relief. She had to focus, not count the four times his head tipped forward at a thirty-degree angle and the shine on his well-kept brown hair appeared in the lights, or the six glasses going by on the tray held by the five-foot-six waitress or the—
Zoe blinked, trying to refocus her eyes on John and her ears on what he was saying.
“So, I had to say to him, ‘Sorry, Mike, but it’s such a shame I have to go out on a date tonight,’” he laughed.
Zoe frowned. “You could have rescheduled if the date is inconvenient to you,” she said. “I would not mind.”
“What? No!” John said, at first leaning back in alarm and then grasping her hand again. “God, no, Zoe. I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again. That was just—I was being sarcastic. Or ironic, or something. I always forget which is which. Honestly, I wouldn’t cancel our date just for a work thing.”
Zoe’s eyes flicked down to her plate, by now empty of the excellent salmon roulades with lemon beurre blanc that had been her main course. This was the most recommended date spot in Washington, D.C., for a meal, and she could barely remember eating it.
She wasn’t sure that she could say that she would always put John first. After all, she was an FBI agent. She was expected to drop her life in order to pursue a case, not the other way around. She reached up self-consciously to tuck a strand of her short brown hair behind her ear, feeling as she did that it was one centimeter longer than she liked to have it cut. Things had been hectic lately. No time for the daily tasks that kept life going.
“I mean, of course I get it that you might have to cancel sometimes,” John said, sipping at his wine nonchalantly as if he hadn’t just managed to read her mind. “You have to stop serial killers from going on murder sprees. Your job is important. No one’s going to be upset if I don’t stay at the office all night trying to figure out if there’s a common property line across three different surveys from the 1800s and whether they can be applied to my client’s case. Except maybe my client, and he will be benefitted by the excellent mood I’ll wake up in tomorrow knowing that I spent my evening with you.”
“You are too nice to me,” Zoe told him. “Always. I do not understand it.”
It was true; she didn’t. She had messed up their first date completely, and on their second, she had dragged him out to a hospital to try and trace the records of a potential killer. Then he’d waited for her in the cold, because she—unthinkingly—had not bothered to tell him that she could find her own way home. Not many men would have wanted to sign up for a third date—and this was their fifth.
“You don’t have to understand it,” John said, smoothing his tie for the eleventh time that night in a gesture that she was beginning to recognize. “You just have to accept my opinion that you deserve it. I’m not being too nice. I’m being just nice enough. In fact, I could be nicer.”
“You could not be nicer. It would be against the laws of physics and nature.”
“Well, who needs those, anyway?” John flashed her that bright smile of his again and leaned back as the waiter collected their empty plates.
“So, what are you working on at the moment?” she asked, thinking she should try to take more of an interest in his life. He was always so attentive in asking about hers. Was she messing everything up? She was messing everything up, wasn’t she?
“Like I told you, it’s the ancestral property line row,” John said, giving her a little puzzled frown. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”
Zoe looked up at him, meeting his eyes with pupils that were just slightly dilated in the dim light of the restaurant, hearing the four beats of the gentle piano music in the background and how each note moved one up, one down, one up, half a note up, one down. If only she could turn the numbers off, or at least dim their volume. She needed to focus on John and what he was telling her, but nothing in her brain would stop. She just needed it to stop. Everything was spiraling, and she was no longer sure that she could regain control.
“I guess I am a little tired,” she said. As far as excuses went, it seemed like it might be semi-acceptable. If there could ever be any excuse for failing to give him the courtesy of her attention.
He didn’t know about her ability to see the numbers everywhere, in everything, and she wasn’t about to tell him. Not for the fourteen hundred fifty-three dollars and nineteen cents’ worth of dishes and drinks she had seen pass by their table in the hands of the wait staff since they sat down one hour and thirteen minutes ago.
“I have had a wonderful night,” she said. The worst part was that she meant it. When John spent all of their time together being accommodating and making her feel good, why couldn’t she at least listen to him?
“Well, I had an awful time. Shall we do it again next week?” he said, wiping his smile with a napkin. Even though he glimmered at her, his eyes sparking with a mischievousness that match the uneven curves of his mouth, it still took her a moment to realize he was joking. The words cut her to the core at the thought she might have ruined everything
“I would like that,” Zoe said, nodding, holding her emotions inside. “Next week it is.”
She got up to go, knowing by now that he would refuse to allow her to pay the ninety-eight dollars and thirty-two cents they had racked up on the bill, plus the tip.
Though it flashed through her mind, she didn’t say out loud that it would take luck for her to keep their appointment. Being an active agent meant that you never knew when your next case would come in, or where you would be required to go.
By this time next week, who knew where she might be?
Even right at this moment, their next killer was probably doing his work, setting them a puzzle—and there was always a chance that the next one would be the one she couldn’t solve. Zoe fought the uneasy feeling in her gut, somehow convincing her that she knew: this time next week, she would be in deep on a case that would make all the others seem like child’s play.
CHAPTER THREE
Zoe adjusted her position on the seat, settling further into the comfortable old armchair. She was getting used to sitting here, strange as it sounded even to her own ears that she was becoming accustomed to therapy.
Talking to someone week on week about her personal issues had once seemed like Zoe’s own idea of hell, but having Dr. Lauren Monk on her side so far hadn’t turned out so badly. After all, Dr. Monk was the one who had encouraged her to go on more dates with John, and that had, so far at least, been a good decision.
On her part, anyway. She was beginning to wonder whether John could say the same.
“So, tell me about this date. What happened?” Dr. Monk asked, adjusting her notebook on her knee.
Zoe sighed. “I just could not concentrate,” she said. “The numbers were taking over. It was all I could think about. I missed whole sentences of his conversation. I wanted to give him my full attention, but I could not switch it off.”
Dr. Monk nodded seriously, resting her hand on her chin. Since the session when Zoe had come clean about her synesthesia—her ability to see numbers everywhere and in everything, like the fact that Dr. Monk’s pen was heavier than average due to the slight fifteen-degree angle of droop as it rested on the edge of her fingers compared to that of a BIC—she had been finding the therapy even more helpful. It was freeing in many ways, to be able to really admit what was going on and how she was struggling.