Perfect Pairing (6 page)

Hal stared into her eyes, momentarily entranced by the words, the touch, the woman in front of her. Her clothes still looked perfectly pressed, and only one small strand of blond hair had fallen from the tortoise shell clip at the back of her head. She supposed the little imperfection would qualify as disheveled for Quinn, but Hal wished for more. She wanted to see her with her hair down and the buttons of that white shirt open.

“Hey,” Sully said from the doorway. “Why the serious faces?”

Hal stepped back and Quinn's hand dropped.

“Just talking a little business,” Quinn said calmly.

“How's that working out for you?” Sully asked, hopping to the ground and making room for Ian to join them.

“Not as well as it could be, but I'm ever the optimist.”

“Yeah,” Sully said, “you strike me as a real Mary Sunshine.”

Ian laughed, breaking the tension, and Quinn shot him a classic older sister look of annoyance.

“I guess we should be going,” she said.

“Us, too,” Hal added quickly, thankful for the escape exit. “I assume I'll see you around?”

Quinn frowned. “That fell just shy of the invitation I was hoping for.”

“But you'll take it and make it what you need, won't you?”

“What
we
need Hal.”

The hair on her arms stood on end. “I don't need anything.”

“Maybe not.” Quinn smiled. “Or maybe you just don't know it yet.” With that Quinn strode off.

“Well that was interesting,” Ian said, “and she's my ride, so maybe I'll see you guys later.”

“Bye,” Hal said.

“I'll talk to her,” Sully added with a wink.

“Okay, bye.” Ian awkwardly waved the hand that was still clutching his sandwich, then loped off to catch Quinn.

Once they were out of earshot, Sully turned to stare at Hal.

“What?”

“What do you mean ‘what?'” She punched her in the shoulder. “What was that?”

“I don't know.”

“It sounded like foreplay. ‘Taking' and ‘making' and ‘needing.'”

“It was business talk.”

“With her hands all over you?”

“Hand, singular,” Hal corrected. “On my shoulder.”

The touch had been entrancing, or maybe her eyes had frozen Hal. It certainly wasn't the business proposition that captivated her. It'd been a long time since a woman had sparked more than a passing interest, but Quinn wasn't offering any part of herself. She wanted Hal's skills in the kitchen and maybe her name recognition, but neither of those things were for sale. The sooner she made that clear, the sooner Quinn would move on . . . they all moved on.

“There's nothing there, man. She's a shark, a pretty shark, but one with big teeth.”

“All the better to eat you with,” Sully said.

Hal shook her head. “We need to stay away from her. Got it?”

Sully gave a noncommittal shrug, and Hal turned back toward the truck. “What did you mean when you told Ian you'd talk to me?”

“I may have offered him a job.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“What? You said we needed some summer help, and he jumped right in today.”

“So you hired him? Without clearing it with me?”

“No, I told him we had a job opening he would be perfect for, and I said I'd talk to you.”

“We don't know anything about him.”

“He's some sort of a computer wiz, full scholarship at UB. You know he's got to be good with numbers. He does computer programming and stuff on the side.”

“Then why would he want to sling sandwiches?”

Sully shrugged again.

“What did you tell him?” she asked suspiciously.

“I may have mentioned it's a great way to pick up chicks.”

Hal stared at her.

“What? It is. He could work the window and give me more time on the grill. He gets to meet girls and gets practice talking to them, we get to cook more, everyone's happy.” Sully pled her case, then for emotional appeal added, “Plus he's kind of cute and sweet, like a puppy. Please, can we keep him?”

Sully had been begging her for a puppy for a long time, but dogs were a big time investment, and health inspectors rarely appreciated animals in confined spaces with food. Maybe if she let her take on Ian as some sort of protégé or summer project, she'd shut up about the dog. Besides, summer in Buffalo lasted only a few months, and they did need the help. “Call and tell him to meet us at Larkin Square on Tuesday.”

“Awesome. I don't think you'll regret this. He's a good kid. Just one other thing though.”

“What's that?”

“He doesn't drive,” Sully said. “I told him we could pick him up.”

“Sure, where does he live?”

Sully grinned like she was nervous, or had gas.

“Where does he live?” she asked again. “It better not be like out by UB north campus or something.”

“Nope, he's staying in Allentown for the summer . . . with his sister.”

“Of course he is.”

Why couldn't anything ever be easy?

Chapter Three

Quinn pushed through the door of Domski's bar. It was only a little brighter inside than it had been in the parking lot. At least out there she'd had the outer reaches of runway lights. The inside featured dark wall sconces along the perimeter and low track lighting over the bar. A few patrons dotted the landscape, mostly clustered within view of the small rabbit-eared TV broadcasting a Yankees game. They all wore Bills T-shirts, union caps, or jeans flecked with paint and mud as marks of their belonging to the bar's blue-collar base. Her gray slacks and teal blouse once again marked her as an outsider, but she'd be damned if she'd change. She knew her people even if they weren't always able to recognize her.

At least the usual clients were accustomed to her presence. If they wondered what brought her here, they didn't let it show as she moved to her usual spot in the back corner. Dropping her leather briefcase on the table, she settled into a dark green booth bench. Her pant leg stuck to a cracked patch of faux leather upholstery, and she shook her head, unsurprised that the material was already coming apart. She'd told Dom to go for the nicer finishes, but did he listen to her? Of course not.

She smiled faintly as she opened her laptop and listened to the lumbering, uneven steps of her host as he approached her table.

“The usual?” Dom Piotroski asked.

“Yes, please. And you could turn the lights up, too,” she said without looking up.

“Yes to the first, no to the second.”

“Why not?”

“Same reason as always, Quinn. If I turned up the lights, everyone could see how dirty the place is.”

“You could clean a little bit.”

“The dirt is part of the charm.”

“Fine then, how about some extra chips?”

“That I can do.” He clomped away down the wide aisle, back to the bar, but when he returned with a gin and tonic and a basket of kettle chips, he pulled up a chair and parked himself at the end of the booth. “How's business?”

“I think I'm supposed to ask you that.”

“It's not my fault you're bad at your job.”

She finally leveled her best icy stare at him, but he only smiled. God, how did he manage to be so damned good-natured all the time? Most people would've given the guy a free pass to be bitter. If losing his right leg in an IED attack wasn't enough, he'd lost his father, Dom the second, to lung cancer six months later, and then damned near lost his business, not that most people would consider folding on a dive bar in the shadow of Buffalo's airport much of a loss.

“I am not bad at my job, Dom,” she said.

“I don't know. I hear you leveraged your own capital on a pretty risky business venture no one else would even look at.”

She glanced around the room quickly, making sure not to let her eyes wander to his artificial limb. She did not pity him. She admired him, but for more reasons than the carbon fiber leg he was still learning to walk on. “That place is a hole in the wall, but they make good chips. I suppose I can't help thinking with my stomach.”

He shook his head. “Yeah, your stomach. Couldn't be the tin woman actually had a heart all along.”

“Don't you have work to do?”

“I am working. I'm having a meeting with my investor.” He grinned, the expression crinkling his eyes and rounding his unshaven cheeks. Funny how he'd kept his high and tight Marine haircut but otherwise seemed to relish looking as unkempt as possible. She supposed she understood that. Her suits and skirts served their purpose, but that didn't mean she didn't chafe against other restrictions of the perceptions of people around her. Maybe that's why she came in here
so often. No one expected the high-end businesswoman to pore over investment reports in a dive bar on Buffalo's east side.

“Is there something specific you need to talk about?” Quinn asked. “Maybe another line of credit to fix the rips in the cheap material you used to cover these booths?”

He laughed. “No, but I love the way you worked that in. You're very subtle.”

“I've heard that more than once this week, and in that exact same tone.”

“Uh-oh. Better tell Uncle Dom all about it.”

“Don't do that Uncle Dom thing. It's creepy. You're a year younger than I am.”

“But you've held up better,” he shot back quickly. “What's her name?”

“Why do you assume it's a her?”

“Because I've yet to meet a man who can offer you a serious challenge.”

True. Men generally made the bigger show of disagreeing with her, or put her off, making snide remarks or unoriginal insults, but in her experience they fell harder and faster. Hal had a different approach. She was cautious and confident without being overblown. Still, she'd made some lapses in judgment, and not just by letting Quinn back on the truck. She'd also clearly misjudged Quinn on several levels. Her background for one. And she'd obviously been surprised by her ability to keep up in a fast-paced work environment. She probably thought Quinn came from money. It was a common mistake, one she actually prided herself on inspiring.

The biggest fault, though, in Hal's dismissal had been her willingness to let Quinn walk away on even terms. That mistake spoke to a misunderstanding of both her motivation and her fortitude. She might've felt bad about allowing the underestimation to flourish if she'd had bad intentions, but she didn't. Looking from Dom to the little hovel of a bar he was proud to call his own, she reminded herself a few insults couldn't shake her resolve.

“You've got that look on your face again,” Dom said.

“What look?”

“Like you're proud of our dirty little hole in the wall.”

“Your
dirty little hole in the wall,” she corrected, “but yes, I think pride is warranted. Domski's might not look like much to most people, but most people don't ever take the time to see something worth saving.”

“That's poetic.”

“There are three generations of Buffalo under all this dirt, and I do believe you were right to build your own layer on top of it.”

“Why do I get the feeling you're about to buy something very expensive?”

“Not this time Dom,” she said seriously. “This time I'm going to build it.”

Quinn tried not to let it bother her that Hal had rejected her again but offered Ian a job. Still, it didn't make any sense. Hal wasn't dumb or callous or lazy or incapable of working well with others. She got along with Sully, and she seemed to have hit it off well enough with Ian. Hell, all of Buffalo seemed to be in her fan club, so what was Hal's problem with her? She'd been nice and polite, at least the second time around. She'd been efficient and helpful, too. Why did Ian walk away with a job offer while all she got was an innuendo-laden dismissal?

“Are you sure you're okay with this?” Ian asked.

“Of course,” she said. None of this was his fault, and she enjoyed seeing him excited. He didn't get out enough for a guy his age. Few friends ever called, and she'd never seen him around any girls. Maybe a job that required him to interact with human beings instead of computers would give him a chance to develop some social skills.

She pulled into the gravel parking lot a block from Larkin Square and unsnapped her seat belt.

“Are you coming in, too?”

“I thought I would. You're not the only one with work to do tonight.”

“Quinn, please don't start another fight with my boss.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off.

“I know you don't mean to. You just can't help yourself, which is why you need to stay away from her.”

“I'm going to scout your competition tonight,” Quinn said as she exited the Jetta. “You won't see me anywhere near Cheesy Does It.”

“You're going to come into Larkin Square on my first night of work and buy dinner from someone else?” His boyishly smooth forehead wrinkled.

“You told me to stay away.”

“From Hal, not from me.”

“You're going to be with Hal.”

“I know. It's fine. I don't care.” Clearly he did.

“Hey.” She softened her tone. “Maybe you could smuggle me out a
Hippy Dippy
, okay?”

“Are you ever going to try a different sandwich?”

“Why? I know what I like.”

He shrugged and walked toward the hum of truck motors.

“Are you nervous?”

“A little.”

“I'm sure you'll do great.”

“You have to say that. Big sister rules.”

“Really? When was I ever nice to you when you didn't earn it?”

He grinned. “You did have me convinced I was adopted for almost two years.”

“Right, and I also convinced you babies had to be eaten to get into women's stomachs.”

“That might be why I've never had a serious girlfriend,” he admitted, “but that all changes tonight.”

She stopped walking. “Wait, what does this job have to do with girlfriends?”

He blushed. “Sully said—well . . . she might have mentioned that a lot of women order from the truck.”

“And women customers equal automatic dates?”

“No. I mean, not really, but Sully said . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Sully said what?”

“Chicks dig guys who cook.”

She tried to hide her smile but failed. “Sully is a poet for the ages.”

“She's funny and smart.”

Quinn assured him. “You're smart.”

“I'm computer smart. She's people smart.”

Quinn nodded and didn't add street smart as she wondered what kind of crowd she'd exposed Ian to. He wasn't used to the speed of work or conversation Sully and Hal thrived on. He hadn't developed the skills she had for detecting insincerity or thinly veiled malice. Maybe she sheltered him too much. Maybe she wasn't sheltering him enough now. Still, he wasn't the curly-headed toddler who followed her around any more. He had a good heart and a willingness to please, and whatever her issue with Hal, Quinn knew on a gut level she wouldn't take advantage of him.

“All right, get to work. Call me if you need a ride home.”

“Sully said she or Hal could drop me off when they are done.”

“Okay, then text me if you're going to be out late, and I'll leave a light on.”

“You know this isn't my first day of kindergarten, right?”

She sighed heavily. “Just go.”

He smiled and jogged off toward the bright yellow and blue truck.

She watched him go, forcing herself not to follow. He could probably handle himself better around Hal and Sully than she could, which stung. She was the people person in the family. She was the businesswoman. Why was he the one working with Hal while she stood apart from the group like some social reject?

She hadn't felt like an outsider in a long time, and she didn't like it. She'd built herself a very neat and controlled life, with no room for chaos or uncertainty. She made the offers, she wrote the contracts, she chose when and where and with whom she met. And she had chosen Hal, but she could have easily chosen someone else. She still could. At least thirty other food trucks filled her immediate vicinity. Any one of them could represent plan B. Sure, she'd never really had to execute a plan B since she'd never failed at plan A, but she almost always considered various contingencies. So, while she'd yet to give up on Hal, it wouldn't hurt to do a little shopping around.

Quinn sat cross-legged on a large, orange, circular patio cushion. The seat looked like something out of a bad seventies porno, not that she'd ever watched one, but circular beds big enough for multiple torsos had their place in popular culture, and those places weren't generally anywhere she'd want to sit. Unfortunately, it was her only option. By the time she'd collected several samples from various food trucks, all the tables and barstools were occupied by hipsters. She'd made several laps around the pavilion before finally succumbing to necessity and lowering herself as gracefully as possible onto the porno pad. At least she wasn't wearing a skirt tonight, but she felt certain her navy blue dress slacks would need to be dry cleaned after this.