“Three,” Ace said. “Not that I’ve been counting.” He looked relaxed, leaning back in his chair, his foot still bandaged.
“We should do this every day.” Halluis’s look was wistful.
“I’m afraid that would ruin it. No. This is a moment to be cherished and repeated only sparingly to keep it from being commonplace.”
They all nodded. “I want to thank you guys for believing in me. I can’t tell you how much it meant to know you had my back.” There was a tickle in the back of my throat and a burning sensation assaulted my eyes.
“I’ve learned that working with you will never be boring,” Ace said. “Yeah. You make this spy business more fun than work.”
“Hey,” Halluis said. “Take that back. I think it was a lot of work. It was the hard work that made it fun.”
“That’s something I’d never say,” Ace said, screwing up his face, making everyone laugh.
Halluis punched him. Then he glanced at me and his face turned serious.
“I’m sorry I didn’t answer your call. I wanted to, believe me. But Siron was standing right over me.”
I shook my head, “It’s all right. I understand. Siron’s orders have to be followed. They are paramount.”
“If she’d only told me to cut you off, that would be one thing, but she had me transmitting everything your phone heard to her. I couldn’t pick up or it would cause terrible feedback, and you’d have known we were listening.”
“Wait.” I grimaced. “When did you make this connection?” I wondered when she started listening. Maybe she hadn’t heard what I’d said about her.
“I had a bad connection about the time Markay called you. I was able to get a better connection where we could hear everything about the time you hotwired the second car. I’m so sorry. I hated every moment of it. I never wanted to do that to you.”
“You were just following orders, Halluis. I would never hold that against you.”
Jeremy was oddly quiet throughout the entire exchange.
I thought maybe I should pull him in. “Jeremy, you came back at just the right time.”
“Had I been there earlier, maybe a lot of the chaos could have been averted.”
“Are you kidding?” Ace said. “And miss the whirlwind? The excitement? All I can say is they better keep us together as a team from now on.”
“I second that,” Halluis said. “We are fast and forward thinkers and we are extremely quick on our feet.”
“Not to mention our total awesomeness,” Ace interjected. Both Halluis and Ace had excited looks on their faces. Jeremy looked up from the spot on the table he’d fixated on. “Siron has already put in that recommendation.” Despite the happy news, he looked sad somehow.
“We wouldn’t have it any other way,” Halluis said.
“For sure,” Ace said. “The Fearless Four. Together forever.”
“Forever!” Halluis said and lifted his glass. We all followed suit, clinking our glasses together again and repeating forever. It seemed Jeremy whispered it. Then we all drained the remaining liquid from our cups.
We had to hail the waiter to bring us our checks. In America, the waiter would have left it a half hour after he brought the food and scowled at us until we left, but not here. Here they expected you to stay for forever. Ace handed me a bag of something.
“My favorite French candy. You’ll have to tell me what you think.”
I peered inside to see brightly colored hard candies dusted with sugar. “They look fabulous. I took a dark red one and popped it into my mouth. Jeremy, Halluis, and Ace each took one as I held the bag out to them. We stood and walked to the metro, Ace using crutches, all going our separate ways.
***
As I fiddled with the door lock to my apartment, I felt him.
“Need some help with that?”
Just then, the key slid in and I turned the knob, opening the door. “Got it,” I said, opening the door up wide and indicating I wanted him to go in. He smiled and entered. I watched Jeremy walk to the couch and take a seat before I shut the door and joined him. How I wanted things to be different between us.
“You were really quiet today.” I kept my eyes on my fidgeting fingers.
“Yeah. Well, I had a lot on my mind.”
“Care to share?” I glanced up at him.
“It’s not a good idea. I shouldn’t.”
“Not fair!” I said in a loud whisper, looking at him full on now. “Share with me,” I pleaded.
His eyes held a troubled look. “I’m so glad I’m back with you.”
I glanced at my new phone and had to resist the urge to check it again for bugs. I didn’t want anyone hearing my conversations again. “Me, too. This is hard on me too. It doesn’t have to be awkward between us.” I swept the room with my eyes to make certain there were no listening devices in the apartment.
“That’s just it. It does have to be awkward. I can’t stop how I feel about you and yet we can’t be together, but we have to be near each other all the time. That full three hours at the restaurant, my mind was fixed on finding a solution. How can I be your handler and be with you all the time and not be able to touch you, feel your soft skin, your incredible lips, your embrace. It’s too hard. I’m going to ask to be transferred. Maybe then they’ll let us be together.” He looked exhausted, dark lines visible even in the dim light of the room.
Hot tears pressed on the backs of my eyes as the raw emotion I’d been suppressing threatened to escape. He did still care for me. I worked hard to speak. “No. That doesn’t work. It can’t work. Like you, I can’t be away from you and I
