Read Online Out of Time 01 - Out of Time by Monique Martin - Free Book Online Page A

compulsion to converse loudly enough to wake the dead. He turned back to Elizabeth, who’d been listening to the conversation with glee.
    “Can you imagine getting to see Babe Ruth play?” she said. “If we have time, we are so going to a game.”
    “This isn’t a vacation, Miss West,” he said, picking up his menu.
    “It isn’t a prison sentence either. Think of the opportunity we have. We get to see what it was really like. Not some revisionist history from a book, but the real deal. And I’ve always wanted to go to Yankee Stadium,” she added with a grin.
    “Miss West—”
    “I’m kidding. Mostly. And it’s Elizabeth, remember?” she said, wiggling her ring finger.
    He hadn’t forgotten, but after the incident in bed he felt more compelled than ever to keep his distance. It wasn’t bad enough that he’d dreamt of her and that the dream had coalesced, in a frighteningly smooth way, into reality. But if he was going to wake up every morning with a raging morning erection, this was going to be impossible.
    “First thing we should do is visit the local library,” he said. “We need to know the exact time of the next eclipse.”
    “Wouldn’t want to be caught with our pants down.”
    Simon cleared his throat. “No,” he said and quickly went back to his menu. The prices were absurdly inexpensive. Steak and eggs for a quarter. Coffee and a donut for a dime. Blue plate special only fifteen cents. Remarkable really, or would have been if he had more than twenty dollars to his name.
    He heard someone snapping gum and looked up to see their waitress impatiently tapping her stubby pencil on a pad. “What’ll it be?”
    “You don’t have Wheatina.”
    Snap. Pop. Snap. “Nope.”
    He stared down at the menu looking for something that didn’t sound positively dreadful.
    “We’ll have two specials,” Elizabeth said. “And two coffees, unless you want tea?”
    Simon was about to say something about being able to order for himself, but the idea of some tea in his future blocked out everything else. “Do you have Chinese Gun Powder?”
    “This look like an armory to you, buddy?”
    Elizabeth handed her menu to the waitress. “Two coffees will be fine.”
    Simon pursed his lips and gave up, handing his menu to the waitress. He watched her walk away and looked around the diner. Steam billowed from behind the cook’s counter. A corpulent man with a sour face and a grease-stained T-shirt tossed ridiculously large slabs of meat on the grill behind the long curved counter. There wasn’t even an empty stool, so Simon was pleased they’d managed to get a booth. At least here, they had a modicum of privacy.
    “We won’t be having tea at the Ritz any time soon,”
    Elizabeth said. “Better get used to it.”
    Simon wiped the tabletop in front of him with his napkin and set it aside. “That much is clear.”
    “So, how’d you sleep?”
    “Well enough, thank you,” he said uncomfortably. But she smiled back innocently, and he felt his tensions ease a little. “Did I snore?”
    Elizabeth grinned. “Nope.”
    “You did,” he said.
    “I do not snore.”
    “Like a locomotive,” he teased, thoroughly enjoying her look of embarrassment.
    “That’s not a very nice thing to say.”
    “The truth is often ugly,” he said, trying not to smile.
    She blushed. Beautifully. “Did I really snore?”
    “It was more of a gurgling sound really.”
    “Oh, really? Well, better a gurgler than a bed-hog.”
    “I beg your pardon.”
    “You practically pushed me off the side.”
    “I did? I’m sorry. I...” Who knows what he’d done in his sleep. If it was anything like what he dreamt of...
    “I was joking. Mostly. You did bogart the middle a little, but it is a small bed and well, by size rights you should have two thirds anyway. It’s only fair.”
    Simon was about to argue the point when the waitress arrived with the coffee.
    Elizabeth took a sip and let out a contented sigh. “Oh, I needed that. So,