Chapter 10: Friday at Eight

The new face at Friday's dinner had green eyes, a gold watch and a very good smile.

She sat across from Averett in the window of a steakhouse on Park Avenue and checked the time under the tablecloth.

It was eight-oh-six.

"You look like you want to be somewhere else," she said quietly.

"I look the way I always look," Averett said.

"You look better than usual. Who is he?"

"Who?" Averett asked.

"The big one at the corner table, drinking water and not blinking.

He's looked at you a dozen times since we sat down."

She smiled for the window.

"Tindle will love it. He'll put it in a caption."

Averett took a long drink of his wine.

At the corner table, Jarek's hand tightened around his glass.

Averett knew exactly how many times Jarek had looked, because he had counted too.

By the time the main course came, he had given two answers about his father and laughed at a joke that wasn't one.

He leaned in on cue while a flash went off outside the glass.

He hit every mark.

Twice he felt Jarek's gaze on the back of his neck.

At ten-forty she kissed his cheek.

"Thanks for a lovely night," she said, loudly, for the microphones, and walked out into the street and the car that was not his.

Jarek held the door of the real car for him.

His face was set.

He said nothing until the car was moving, and then he said it to the window.

"Do you sleep with them?"

Averett's mouth went dry.

"Ask me properly."

"I just did," Jarek said.

"You asked me to the glass. Ask it to my face."

Jarek turned.

The streetlights ran across his features in bars of gold, and Averett could see the cost of it.