The skinny man in the Sherpa cap and designer-torn denim who was walking past, stopped. “Nikki?” He pulled off his sunglasses and beamed. “Oh, my God. This is crazy.”
Rook stood by, leaning an elbow on Cy Young’s pitching arm, as he watched Nikki and her old college boyfriend hug. And just a little too exuberantly to suit him. Now he did regret the campus tour. This guy Petar went up his ass from the day he had met him last fall. Rook convinced himself it was not some possessive, irrational jealousy of an old flame. Although Nikki said that’s precisely what it was. Petar Matic, her Croatian ex, screamed Eurotrash, and Rook couldn’t believe Nikki didn’t see it. To Rook, this journeyman segment producer for Later On!, a post-midnight talk show he looked down on as Fallon-lite, posed as if he held the pulse of late night comedy in his pale-fingered grip. Rook knew there was only one thing Petar Matic held the pulse of every night, and he tried not to imagine it.
“Oh, and James is here, too,” Petar said, parting at last from Nikki.
“It’s Jameson,” said Rook, but Petar was too busy delivering a man hug shoulder bump for it to register.
Nikki touched his cheek and said, “Look at you, you grew your beard back.”
“Just stubble,” Petar said. “Stubble’s like the new deal.”
“All the rage in Macedonia,” said Rook. Petar seemed oblivious to the jab and asked what they were doing there. “Just a getaway.” Rook draped his arm around her shoulder and said, “Nikki and I are grabbing a little alone time.”
“Thought I’d show him our old stomping grounds,” she said. “What about you?”
“I’m having alone time, too. But alone.” He chuckled at his own joke and continued, “I came up from New York for the day to guest lecture a Communications seminar about the future of late night talk shows.”
“Professor Mulkerin?” asked Nikki.
“Yep. Funny, I barely got a C in that class, and now I’m the star alum.”
“Well, it was great to see you,” Rook said, the verbal equivalent of checking his watch.
“You, too, Jim. I wish I had known. We could have planned dinner together.”
Nikki said, “Let’s!” The smile she gave Rook held the hotel sex card clenched in its teeth.
Rook forced a grin. “Great.”
On the cab ride back to the Lenox, since Nikki didn’t have a knife, she cut the silence with her tongue. “Know what you’ve got, Rook? Petar envy.”
“Don’t make me laugh.”
“You have a thing against him, and it shows.”
“I apologize. I just didn’t see dinner with your old boyfriend as part of the RTWOTC plan. Is this payback because I got a massage from a practitioner who happened to be somewhat attractive?”
“Rook, she was a Victoria’s Secret model without the angel wings.”
“You thought so, too, huh?”
“Your jealousy is transparent and over-the-top. Forget old boyfriend. Yes, Petar did try to rekindle when we ran into him last fall, but I ended that.”
“He hit on you? You never told me that.”
“Now he’s just an old friend.” She paused to peer up at the top of the Pru then said, “And yes, this still is an RT-whatever. But just to remind you, since you may have been too traumatized—or in denial after your gunshot—Petar was a huge help breaking that case. This is my chance to say thank you.”
“By having me buy his dinner?”
She looked out the window and smiled. “Win-win for me.”
He booked a table at Grill 23 for the simple reason that, if it was good enough for Spenser, it was good enough for him. After starting off with topneck clams and an extraordinary Cakebread Chardonnay, dinner wasn’t pure hell for Rook. Perhaps just purgatory. Mostly he smiled and listened as Petar gassed on about himself and his exciting behind-the-scenes role booking guests for Later On! “I’m this close to the big get,” he said, and lowered his voice. “Brad and Angelina.”
“Wow,” said Nikki, “Brangelina.”
“I hate those cute nicknames,” said Rook.