Page 13 of The Perfect Deception

Like a flick of a switch, Mr. Flashy­pants was back.

“I didn’t know you were into this band,” Seth said.

The sound of Adam’s laugh sent a chill down her spine. “You know me, al­ways will­ing to try some­thing new.” But the tone of his voice in­di­cated oth­er­wise. “See you around, Seth.”

Whereas be­fore, Adam’s hand on her back had warmed her, this time, when he put it there again, she felt as if he were steer­ing her away from pub­lic view. She stayed silent on their walk back to the car, Adam’s non­cha­lant whis­tle grat­ing on her ears.

Once in­side his car, she looked out the win­dow at the city lights. There was noth­ing to see, but she didn’t want to look at Adam.

“I’m glad we did this,” he said, as he pulled onto the high­way.

Her mother had taught her man­ners. No mat­ter how un­com­fort­able she felt, she would live up to them. “The band was great. The food was de­li­cious.”

“Sorry about back there,” he said. “I should have in­tro­duced you.”

“It can be shock­ing to run into peo­ple in odd places.” Ex­cept that didn’t fully ex­plain his change in de­meanor.

She half lis­tened to his small talk in the car as they drove the rest of the way home, try­ing to fig­ure out why he demon­strated two such dif­fer­ent sides of his per­son­al­ity.

He walked her to her door, paused out­side of it, look­ing around as if to see if any­one was watch­ing. “I had a lot of fun with you tonight,” he said. “Thanks for giv­ing me an­other chance.”

“You’re wel­come.”

He reached a hand out and traced a line down the side of her face. Prick­les of goose bumps fol­lowed his fin­ger. She shiv­ered. Did she want him to kiss her? Be­fore they ran into Seth, she would have said yes. Now she wasn’t sure. Laugh­ter from an­other build­ing in­truded.

He dropped his hand to his side. “I’ll call you to­mor­row?”

Nod­ding, she fished her keys out of her purse. He waited for her to get in­side be­fore rais­ing his hand in a wave and jog­ging back to his car.

Adam let him­self into his high-rise apart­ment af­ter drop­ping off Dina at hers. She was a sur­prise he was en­joy­ing dis­cov­er­ing. When their hands had touched over din­ner, he’d felt…some­thing. “Sparks” was stupid, but he didn’t know what else to call it. From the way she’d jumped, he’d bet she’d felt some­thing too, es­pe­cially when she didn’t pull her hand away as he wound his fin­gers around hers. Stand­ing at her door, he hadn’t wanted to let her go so quickly.

He’d wanted to taste her lips. Her skin had been soft. If only Seth hadn’t in­truded and those peo­ple’s laugh­ter hadn’t in­ter­rupted them. Next time. He’d have to make sure there was a next time, even if he was sup­posed to be cool­ing off his so­cial life for the time be­ing.

The red light of his an­swer­ing ma­chine glowed. His body tensed. Only one per­son called him on his home phone—his fa­ther. Toss­ing his keys onto the black gran­ite counter, he hit play.

“Adam, it’s Dad. Where the hell are you? It’s a Thurs­day night. Please tell me you’re not out par­ty­ing. You’re sup­posed to be im­prov­ing your work ethic, not aban­don­ing it. Call me.”

Jab­bing the Erase but­ton, he stalked out onto his bal­cony. He gripped the rail­ing as he stared into the night, no longer pic­tur­ing Dina’s face. His apart­ment com­plex was next to the train sta­tion, but if he looked out in­stead of down, he could see sil­hou­ettes of the trees on the Green in the dis­tance.

When had his life turned to shit? Out of all the con­clu­sions his fa­ther jumped to, he im­me­di­ately leapt to par­ty­ing? Maybe he was work­ing. Or at the li­brary. Or help­ing Kim study for the bar exam. He shook his head. With the types of as­sign­ments his fa­ther had foisted on him, there was no need to work late. The li­brary? Hadn’t been there since law school—stop­ping out­side to talk to Dina the other day prob­a­bly didn’t count. Help­ing Kim? His fa­ther didn’t know about that.

He shifted from one foot to the other. No won­der his fa­ther was sus­pi­cious. Al­though would it kill him to have a lit­tle faith in his son? He laughed to him­self. His fa­ther’s faith in any­one had dis­ap­peared when his wife left twenty-two years ago. Adam pushed away from the rail­ing.

Head­ing back in­side, he looked around. He wasn’t in the mood to go to bed. He didn’t feel like be­ing alone. But there weren’t any friends he could call. His gaze fell onto his law school grad­u­a­tion photo perched on the mar­ble-topped cof­fee ta­ble. He stood next to his best law school friend, Ja­cob Black. They hadn’t talked in a few months. Ja­cob knew his fa­ther. He knew Adam. Maybe he’d be able to give him ca­reer ad­vice.

Pulling the name from his con­tacts, he di­aled.

“Ja­cob! It’s Adam.”

“Hey, it’s been a while.”

Just the sound of his buddy’s voice made him feel bet­ter. “Yeah, how are you?”

“Great. Busy with work, as I’m sure you are.”

Adam swal­lowed. “Any chance you’re free to catch up?”

“Ab­so­lutely. To­mor­row night?”