"What happened back there?" Barney asked as soon as he caught up with Robin. The woman could have been a track star. Even with her in stilettos, he'd had to break into an all out run to keep up with her, weaving through the oncoming traffic until he caught up with her on the tree-lined park path. "Should I not have asked about," he paused, too afraid the mention of the other man's name would send Robin running again, "you know who?"
Robin swallowed and ran a shaking hand over her upswept hair. Fear glimmered in her eyes, her mouth going tight. "Greg. His name is Greg." Her skin flushed from the exertion of her run, bright spots of pink against skin gone pale. "I don't want to talk about him."
Barney knew this look, the wild animal in her that was perfectly willing to chew off its own leg to escape some real or perceived trap. Knew, as well, what he could do about it. He owed her that much. "Okay, you don't have to, but you do need to calm down. There's a bench over there by that big tree. We can sit for a while. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to, just be. I'm not leaving you out here by yourself."
"Just be," Robin repeated, slow and questioning, like she didn't understand the meaning of either word. Still, she nodded. Still, she let him take her hand in his and lead her to the bench, settling her there before he sat down beside her.
Barney draped an arm over the back of the bench, his hand close enough to hike her wrap back onto her shoulder. "I still owe you dinner," he said as soon as he was sure her breathing had begun to slow. "We could find a restaurant. Not Carmichael's, though."
"Smurf penis," Robin said with the barest of smiles. "I don't think they'd allow me back in there, anyway."
"Nah, we could show them Ted's wedding pictures if you really want to eat there. They have his photo by the host stand, so they'd know it was the same guy."
Robin cast him a sidelong glance through lowered lashes. "How do you know Ted's picture is posted at the host stand at Carmichael's?"
"I cannot reveal my sources."
"You mean you took a girl there."
He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. "I mean I picked up a girl there. Her blind date didn't show, and a kindly stranger, one to whom the bar manager owed a favor that I am too much of a gentleman to mention, oddly enough found himself in the same situation. He then offered to make the best of a bad situation, since they had both already planned to spend the evening with a complete stranger anyway."
"Classy," Robin said, in a tone that conveyed she thought it anything but. "Do I need to ask how the evening ended?"
Barney shook his head at the memory. "Catch and release. That woman was basically Girl Ted. Hopeless romantic, completely devastated, sure she was destined to be forever alone if some guy she didn't even know didn't want to have dinner with her. I couldn't Blue French Horn her. I bought her dinner, told her it was the guy's loss and put her in a cab home."
"You made a Blue French Horn play?" Robin's mouth tightened, slanting at only one corner. "That's low."
He tapped a finger to one temple. "Only in theory, never in practice. I'm not proud of it. The Playbook II tanked. That was right before I went off the rails, so to speak." He'd come up with the idea of a perfect month four shots later. "Sad, huh?" Sad and desperate.
There was a moment of heavy silence before Robin turned to face him. "Greg was my boyfriend."
"I had inferred that. Was it serious?"
She brushed a loose lock of hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. "He thought it was. It's over now."
"You jumped out of the car and ran when I asked about him. Did things end badly? Do you want him," he made air quotes, "taken care of?"
The tightness about Robin's mouth and jaw softened. "Because you know a guy who can do that?"
"I know a lot of guys who can do a lot of things. Plumbers, accountants, baristas, bartenders, you name it. I hate the thought of somebody hurting you." Somebody else, a voice in the back of his head added. She wouldn't have been in the position to be hurt by this Greg person if Barney hadn't hurt her first. If he had any say in the matter, he'd make sure he was the last man to ever break her heart. It was his fault, all of it.
Robin blinked in a rapid, fluttering movement, her head tipped back. He knew that tactic, too. Robin Sherbatsky was not going to cry in public. "I'm okay," she said when he handed over his pocket square. She dabbed at her eyes and crumpled the mascara-smeared linen in her hand. "I left him. We weren't right for each other."
"So why did you run?"
"Because I thought," she paused there, glanced away from him and shifted her feet. "I thought it would make a difference."
"What, that you had a boyfriend?"
Robin answered with a tilt of her head.
"That, Sherbatsky, is the most ridiculous thing I have heard tonight, and this is coming from the man who got a text message that the gala is postponed because some prep cook set a dishtowel on fire. Article One of the Ex Code states that the ex who has a baby is not allowed to take offense at any past romantic partners of the other ex. True story."
"There's an Ex Code?" Robin twisted the tip of the pocket square and dabbed at the corner of one eye. "That's article one?"
Barney scuffed one foot in the dirt. "I made it up when you bolted. Seriously, you're smart, funny, gorgeous, and single. You can date anybody you want. The Gregs of the world are going to happen. Besides, you're on a date with me now. This is still a date, isn't it?"
Robin set the wadded linen on the bench between them and dug in her purse for her compact mirror. She flipped it open and closed one eye, then pressed a fingertip to the root of her lashes. "I'd like it to be." She lifted her finger and blinked again.
"Here, let me. Did you bring glue?"
She pinched a tiny white tube between two fingers and extended it to him. "Do you remember how?"
"Please. I could do this in my sleep." Had done it in his dreams, more times than he'd care to admit. "Eyes up and hold still." He squeezed out a miniscule drop of eyelash glue onto the tip of his finger and tipped her chin upward with his other hand. "Almost there." He applied the glue to the loose end of the lash at the outside of her eyelid. His touch lingered. One one thousand, two one thousand.
"Barney?"
"Yeah?"
Her breath caught. "You don't have to press it. It dries on its own."
"I know that."
"So are you going to kiss me or what?"
