Serious Moonlight(56)

“Only?” He swiveled in his seat and stared at me with a look of concern.

I felt my cheeks getting warm. “I’ve had relationships,” I said, thinking of last summer’s fling with Will Collins under the basketball hoop. “Just not official, we’re-a-couple-in-public dates. My grandmother was insanely strict and overprotective.”

“I . . .” His face went through several contortions. “I don’t understand that, like, at all. And it—”

“It’s weird,” I said quickly. “I get it.”

“Weird is fine. Trust me. Weird and me are like this,” he said, crossing his fingers.

I chuckled, nervous.

“It’s just . . .” He imitated a bomb noise and made an exploding gesture at his temple. “My brain is like, whoa. You better do things right with this girl, because you’re normally a huge screwup. And that’s a lot of pressure.”

“Well, that’s dumb,” I mumbled.

“Umm . . . ?”

“It’s dumb,” I said again. “I don’t like when you push me away or keep secrets. It makes me anxious, and I need you not to do that. I want it to be like it was between us that afternoon on the ferry ride into the city. Remember?”

“I remember,” he said softly.

“Everything felt natural and good, and I wasn’t worried you were keeping things from me. I want that. And”—I took a deep breath—“I want what we did in the secret mansion room too. I think? Maybe you’re right, and maybe it could be better than it was the first time between us. I don’t know. But if we can’t have everything, if it’s either just a sex thing or a Nick and Nora partnership thing between us, then I guess I choose Nick and Nora. But I don’t understand why we can’t have both. Why is it so hard? Is this normal? Can’t it be easier than this?”

But what I didn’t say was that deep down I was worried the problem was me. Because deep down I was worried that there was something he wasn’t saying. Maybe it was the secret that the kids at Clue for Couples had brought up. But what if it was something else? My frightened-rabbit heart cowered in the corner; it did not want to think about this too much.

He blinked at me. And then he said—

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay,” he repeated, exhaling and nodding several times.

I honestly had no idea what he was agreeing to and was just about to ask him when he leaned over the wheel to see around me. He waved to someone outside my passenger window, a bespectacled middle-aged woman in an apron who was holding the door open for a customer and smiling at us. “That’s Annie, the owner. Hold on. I have to pick up this food. Don’t go anywhere.”

I wasn’t sure where he expected me to go after midnight on a street full of bars. I sat there, deep in thought, going over everything he’d said, and tried to fill in some of the blanks on my mental profile of him.

Suspect: Daniel Aoki

Age: 19

Occupation: Hotel van driver, graveyard shift

Medical conditions: (1) Deaf in one ear due to Houdini escape trick accident. (2) Distractingly good-looking. (5) Excellent smile. (4) Good kisser. (5) Really good kisser.

Personality traits: Knows lots of card tricks and enjoys performing for people. Gregarious. Maybe not as gregarious toward me as I wish he’d be; sometimes withholds information.

Background: Lives in West Seattle, Alki Beach neighborhood. Mother (Cherry), whom he lives with, was magician’s assistant. Secret woodworking talent; his mother wants him to go to a trade school.

Unsolved mystery: Has a standing appointment for some unknown reason every week. Something happened in high school that is the subject of gossip, but he STILL won’t tell me what it is. Why? (Ongoing investigation.)

A few minutes later Daniel returned with tightly tied bags of takeout that not only Melinda but several others at the hotel had ordered. He handed me a small bag containing a box of egg rolls. “A gift from Annie,” he explained. And I looked out the window to see the woman standing in the doorway of the restaurant. I held up my hand in thanks and she waved in return.

“Does everyone in the city like you?” I mumbled.

“It’s not easy being this awesome,” Daniel said, giving me a smile that held a little shyness in it. And with a van full of Chinese takeout and an undefined agreement between us, we headed back to the hotel, both of us deep in thought. Right before we got there, I remembered a text I’d gotten earlier from Aunt Mona.

“So, hey,” I said. “Remember that Ukrainian art gallery owner I was telling you about? The one my aunt knows? He said he’d take a look at our spreadsheet tomorrow afternoon. Want to come along?”

Daniel’s brow furrowed. “Does he know we stole it from Darke’s hotel room? How much did she tell him?”

“Nothing,” I said, surprised that he was so concerned. “I warned her to keep it on the down-low. We can make something up about why we need it translated.”

His shoulders and brow relaxed in tandem. “Okay. Then, yeah. That sounds good. Excellent, actually. Just let me know where and when and I’ll be there.”





“Truth walks toward us on the paths of our questions.”

—Maurice Blanche, Maisie Dobbs (2003)