Believe It or Not by Tawna Fenske Page B

order, not bothering to consult the menu. Violet quirked an eyebrow at him.
    “I always order the same thing,” Drew said as he handed his menu back to the waitress. “I come here a lot.”
    “You mentioned that,” Violet said dryly. “My mother, on the other hand, did not.”
    “What?”
    “Nothing.”
    Violet reached for her wineglass and took a sip, apparently drinking more cautiously than she had the previous night. He studied the way she held the glass, her exquisite fingers curved around the stem. He wondered if she’d learned the precise way to hold a piece of stemware or if it just came naturally.
    As if sensing his eyes on her, Violet turned back to Drew. “So, do you have some sort of low-grade hearing loss?”
    “What?”
    “You were blasting the music so loud, the mice woke up and started running in their wheel to the beat of ‘Eye of the Tiger.’”
    “Sorry about that. Moonbeam never seems to notice, but I’ll try to keep it down.”
    “You weren’t kidding about the eighties music.”
    Drew grinned. “We’re actually doing this whole eighties theme next week. We were trying to find the right song for Jamie’s routine.”
    “Sounded like you found the right one. Either that, or you just wanted to play that stupid ‘867-5309’ song over and over and over—”
    “‘Jenny,’” he said, lifting a glass to the most famous—albeit the only —hit Tommy Tutone had ever recorded.
    “Hey!” squeaked Drew’s date. “That’s how I got my name. My mom totally loved that song, and my dad was like, ‘Whatever,’ so that’s what they named me, even though the song had been out for like five years by the time I was born.“
    Drew stared for a few beats, certain he couldn’t possibly have gotten so lucky. “Jenny?” he asked. “That’s your name? Jenny?”
    She scowled at him. “What the hell did you think it was?”
    “Jenny, of course,” he backpedaled. “I knew it was Jenny. I just…” Drew picked up his drink and downed it in one gulp.
    Jenny was glaring at him in earnest, and Drew wondered if she planned to throw her neon-pink drink in his face. He probably deserved it. Maybe he should save her the trouble and just pour it over his head and call it a night.
    Across the table, Violet cleared her throat. “Didn’t that song come out in 1982?” She shot Drew a look that said exactly what she thought of him dating a woman barely over the legal drinking age.
    Jenny turned toward Violet, her drink-tossing plans momentarily forgotten. “Something like that, why?”
    “No reason,” Violet said. “Actually, 1982 was the year a brutal cold snap swept in from Canada and plunged temperatures in the Midwest to all-time record lows. Even Portland recorded a record low temperature for September, which was forty-one degrees Fahrenheit. Statistically speaking, a meteorological event like that—”
    Drew sat back in his seat and let Violet carry the conversation away to safer, albeit weirder, territory. He was grateful. He was relieved.
    He was also ridiculously, stupidly certain he was falling for her.
    Idiot.

Chapter 5
    After enduring two hours of drinks and conversation with Drew and his ditzy date, Violet almost forgot there was a business reason behind her outing with Chris Abbott.
    As the elevator doors closed behind them and they began their descent from the thirtieth floor, Chris turned and touched her elbow. Violet looked up at him, wondering if he was going to kiss her. Had she eaten too much garlic in the bruschetta?
    He smiled. “Would you like to go get coffee someplace quiet so we can go over the books?”
    “The books,” Violet repeated, feeling her cheeks flush. The elevator doors opened and Violet stepped out onto the lower level, grateful she’d refrained from puckering up. “Of course. I think there’s a little place just a couple blocks this way.”
    Chris fell into step beside her. “I wonder if they have matcha green tea? Moonbeam insists it’s quite high