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“And she’s not my type,” Strike says tiredly when he returns from another trip to the bar. He places their drinks on the small table. This will be his fourth beer and her third glass of wine. It feels justified, in celebration of a big breakthrough in an even bigger case.
“She is exactly your type.”
“She’s not,” he grumbles.
“Fine.” Robin throws her hands up in surrender. “She’s not. She’s not your type at all.”
But inwardly, she scoffs. She knows she’s right, of course. The she in question, a certain journalist involved in the case, is the embodiment of what Robin imagines to be the wettest of Strike’s fantasies. The look, the bearing, finally the clearly signaled interest - for Strike to deny even the potential of an attraction seems to Robin the height of hypocrisy.
In the buzzing silence that’s fallen over their table, she takes a healthy swig of her wine.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what my type is?” he finally says. Distracted from her ruminations, she’s not entirely certain if this is an actual encouragement or just a jab at how, yet again, alcohol seems to have unleashed her craving for inappropriate intimacy.
He’s not wrong about the latter, if that’s what it is - she did bring up the wretched woman, didn’t she? The last subject she wants to think about and yet, inevitably, the one to which her thoughts keep circling back.
She raises her eyebrows.
“Why? Would you actually answer if I did?”
“Maybe.” He shrugs.
“Fine.” She puts her glass on the table, props herself on her elbows and leans in ever so slightly to better look him in the eye. “What is your type, Cormoran?”
He doesn’t answer. His eyes study her face. His fingers, wrapped around his beer, flex slightly. But still he doesn’t answer.
Good, she thinks to herself, and if the sourness in her stomach is anything to go by, she’s either really angry or turning into her Aunt Carol with her widely publicized wine-induced heartburn. Why would she want to hear his type, anyway? She’s seen it in the flesh, more than once, and frankly, the biggest glutton for punishment should consider it more than enough.
She rolls her eyes at his continuing silence and picks up her wine again, Aunt Carol’s genes be hanged.
“Whatever,” she mutters into the glass for good measure.
But before she can take a sip, the glass is prised away from her fingers and put aside, and she yelps at the interruption.
Strike offers no apology, just clasps her hands in his. They are warm, dry, a little rough. She stares, transfixed, at the picture they present. Hers, slender and fair; his, darker and so much bigger. His thumb starts rubbing her knuckles, softly, gently, and she just can’t seem to stop staring.
Her crimson face must be visible to anyone who’ll bother to glance their way, but at least no one knows the back of her throat has started swelling dangerously.
She finally looks up and meets his eyes. What she sees there causes the anger (for it must have been anger, after all) to morph into a feeling that’s very different, although just as hot and burning.
“So.” He clears his throat, and the grip of his hands over hers tightens. He’s not as calm as he looks, not nearly. “So,” he repeats. “My type.”