With her hands in her lap, she glanced over. “Now what?”
“We have one stop to switch trains once we hit Manhattan in about fifty minutes.”
She tapped her fingers. “So what do we do now?”
He looked around. There were already people with their heads back, eyes closed, purses and briefcases held close. There was more than one person with a laptop open, and even more listening to music on their cell phones.
“I’ll tell you what we’re not going to do,” he said. “We’re not going to honk our horns, or slam on our brakes . . . or sit at a dead stop, watching the time.” Not that he watched much of the time. If he was that crunched or due in a meeting that couldn’t be rescheduled, he would use the company helicopter that sat in a hangar on the property. Maybe not on a morning like this, where the sky was too dark and the ceiling too low to fly, but on a normal shitty driving day, he would.
When the train slowed down to stop and pick up more passengers, Rachel sat taller.
He reached over and grabbed her hand. “Is it the people?” he asked.
“It’s just new. I think. I’m fine.”
No, she wasn’t, but he was determined to make sure she was. Across from them a man had fallen asleep, his jaw slacked open. The woman sitting next to him kept looking at him.
“Shall we lay bets on how long before his head bounces on her shoulder?” he asked Rachel.
She smiled and stared until the woman beside the sleeping man looked over.
Rachel looked down and talked over her shoulder. “Five minutes.”
“I’m guessing three.”
Rachel glanced up briefly. “How will she wake him up? Nudge or noise.”
“Both.”
For the next four minutes, they took turns watching until the man’s head drifted too close to the woman.
She shifted in her seat, and his head bounced back up, eyes open.
Rachel bit her lips together to keep from laughing.
Jason nudged her leg with his, pointed out a kid not much older than Owen, bopping his head to the music he was listening to.
“I’m thinking he’s a musician.”
“He has the face for theater,” she whispered.
For the next fifty minutes they sat while the train filled to standing room only, talking about the people and laying bets on other people’s behaviors.
And Rachel stopped fidgeting. Twice Jason found his hand covering hers, and once he looked down to see her hand on top of his.
Once in Manhattan, she followed close behind as they switched trains. He pointed out the trains that went uptown and which ones went downtown. They stood facing each other and holding on to a pole. A couple of times, he held on to her when the train took off or came to a stop. Unlike the first leg, this time she jumped right into talking about anything and everything. When he led her from the subway and onto the snowy streets of Manhattan, she was chatting like she always did.
She glanced at her watch. “I still have twenty minutes.”
He started walking toward their building.
Rachel’s legs didn’t move.
“What?”
“We can’t walk in together.”
“Why not?”
“People will talk.” She looked around.
“About how we were on the subway at the same time?”
“They will assume something else.”
He pulled her to the side of a building and away from the mass of people, all trying to get to work on time.
“Which we both know is just an assumption.”
She sighed and looked at him as if he had only half a working brain. “Rumors are bad, Jason. I can’t deal with that right now. Melissa already thinks I want her job. Julie is starting to look at me funny after every meeting. Gerald just stares.” She grasped his hands in hers. “Just wait here two minutes, let me go in first.”
“You’re serious.” He was amused.
“Please.” She blinked a few times. The overly animated movement of her eyelashes said she was trying to sway him with a smile.
Which worked.
“This is ridiculous.” He shifted on his feet, knowing he wasn’t moving for two whole minutes.
“Thank you, Jason.”
She leaned forward, kissed his cheek, and then walked away.
Chapter Thirteen
Rachel took great pride when Gerald paused by her desk, thirty minutes past eight, and stared.
“You’re late,” she told him, teasing. “I hope you don’t make this a normal thing when it snows. I mean, we do have snow here in Manhattan.”
“What the . . . ?”
She grabbed her coffee cup, looked inside. “I could use a refill. Want one?”
Julie snickered from her cubby.
An hour later she snuck into the break room and texted Jason. Thank you.
He’d been such a sport, letting her walk in without him. She was sure he understood her position, but still, considering how he had gone out of his way to help her through her virginal stint on the train, he took waiting in the cold well.
You’re welcome.
Let me know when you’re leaving and I’ll meet you at the station.
She waited while his dot, dot, dot filled her screen.
You sure you don’t want to stagger our departure by ten minutes to avoid wagging tongues?
She’d considered that, actually.
The risk of me missing my stop outweighs the possibility of seeing people I know on the subway.
Ha. I see how this is.
She smiled into her phone. Have a great day.
You, too. Now get to work. I’m not paying you to stand around and flirt.
Rachel tossed her head back. If I were flirting, you’d know it. Okay . . . that bordered on flirting.
Looking forward to it.
She couldn’t text fast enough. Someone is cocky.
Someone is fooling herself.
Why was she giddy inside?
Am not!
Are too.
Were they suddenly five years old again?
Two hours later she replied a second time.
Am not!!!
Half his staff was late, a quarter of them didn’t even bother showing up at all, and the other quarter kept watching him as he went about his day. Jason didn’t care.
Rachel had placed a smile on his face the minute she jumped into his Jeep without argument.
And she was flirting with him.
Good, old-fashioned flirting that resulted in silly smiles and warm, tingling shivers deep inside his chest.
He soared through his day. It helped that two of his outside appointments canceled due to the weather. Audrey kept eyeing him; twice she asked him what had him smiling. Twice he told her he had a lot to smile about.
The hours rolled down to the end of the day. The snow had stopped by noon, leaving three feet on the roads and creating havoc most of the day. The same staff that showed up late left early.
Audrey poked her head into his office by four thirty. “Hey, if you don’t mind . . .”
“Go,” he encouraged.
“See you in the morning.”
He waved her off and picked up his cell phone.
Leaving in twenty minutes. He sent the text to Rachel and waited for her reply.
Street level at the station?
Perfect.
Yep, he had it bad. What was worse, he didn’t care.
He saw her a block away. How that was possible in a sea of people all rushing to leave the city, he didn’t know. But Rachel stood like a beacon for him to find.
She waved when she noticed him. “This is nuts.”
The crowd was much thicker on the way home.
“It will thin out on the second train.”