Chapter 14: The Unofficial Date

The jazz bar was called Blue Note, and it was the kind of place that seemed to exist outside of time. Dark wood, low ceilings, a stage that had hosted legends. The music was quiet enough to talk over but loud enough to fill the silences.

Elena hadn’t planned to come here. She had left work at nine, intending to go straight home, but her feet had carried her in a different direction. And when she walked through the door and saw Jay sitting at the bar, alone, nursing a whiskey, she almost turned around.

But he saw her first.

“Elena.”

“Jay.” She walked to the bar and sat on the stool next to him. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“I come here sometimes. To think.”

“About what?”

“About the choices I’ve made.” He signaled the bartender. “Another whiskey, please. And whatever she’s having.”

“Bourbon,” Elena said. “Neat.”

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the music. A saxophone solo, melancholy and beautiful.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Jay said finally.

“I didn’t expect to come. But after today…” She shrugged. “I needed to be somewhere that wasn’t my apartment or the office.”

“Fair enough.”

The bartender brought their drinks. Elena took a sip. The bourbon was smooth, expensive—more expensive than she would have ordered for herself.

“Nice place,” she said.

“I have expensive taste.”

“In whiskey?”

“In everything.”

She looked at him. In the dim light of the bar, without the cheap glasses and the untailored shirts, he looked different. Not like a different person, exactly, but like a version of himself that had been hiding in plain sight.

“Can I ask you something?” she said.

“Of course.”

“Where did you go to school?”

Jay hesitated. “Why do you ask?”

“Because you’re too smart for the jobs on your resume. You know things you shouldn’t know. You talk like someone who grew up with money, but you dress like someone who’s trying to hide it.”

He was quiet for a long moment.

“Connecticut,” he said finally. “I went to school in Connecticut. Private school. My father believed in education.”

“Where did you go to college?”

“Does it matter?”

“It matters to me.”

Jay set down his glass. He turned to face her, and his gray eyes were bright with something she couldn’t name.

“Elena, there are things about me that I can’t explain. Not yet. But I need you to trust me when I say that I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m trying to help you. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done because I believe in you.”

“Then why won’t you tell me who you really are?”

“Because I’m afraid that if I do, you’ll never look at me the same way again.”

Elena stared at him. The music swelled around them, filling the silence.

“Jay,” she said, “who are you?”

He opened his mouth.

And then his phone rang.

He glanced at the screen, and his face changed. “I have to take this. I’m sorry.”

He walked outside. Elena watched him through the window, talking urgently into the phone, his body language tense.

When he came back, his face was pale.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Stern is calling a special board meeting. Tomorrow morning. He’s moving to have you terminated.”

Elena’s blood went cold. “On what grounds?”

“Does it matter? He has the votes. Unless we can stop him.”

“How?”

Jay met her eyes. “Trust me. One more time. And tomorrow, everything will change.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

He paid the bill. They walked out of the bar together, into the cold night air. At the corner, he stopped.

“Go home,” he said. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Something I should have done weeks ago.”

He walked away before she could ask another question.

Elena stood on the corner, watching him disappear into the crowd, and felt the strange, terrible certainty that nothing would ever be the same.