I don’t tell him how I flattened most of the guys on the ground that night.
Instead, I’m grinning. “Long Beach, you’d bulldoze everyone?”
He shares my smile. “You think I’m all sunshines and buttercups, but I’ve got a mean side.”
I think about how he made an enemy out of the girl who hit on me, but I don’t bring it up. “You’re sucking on a lollipop, legitimately.”
He smiles more, putting the sucker back in his mouth. “Who doesn’t like suckers, Oliveira? And you know, you say ‘legitimately’ a lot.”
Guess I’m not the only one noticing habits. “I do,” I agree. And while I untie my bandana, I tell Jack, “I’d definitely like to see this mean side phenomenon.” Flirting again. Twenty points deducted from Slytherin.
The Hale family would be so proud of my geeky ass thoughts.
“What’s with the bandanas?” Jack wonders. “You always roll them so they don’t even keep the hair out of your face.”
“Yeah, but it wicks away sweat.”
He nods, thinking that’s my full answer.
“I like how I look with them. And I look fucking hot. That’s my real answer, Highland.” Returning to the small box, I take out a handheld device and attach it to the doorframe.
“What’s that?” Jack asks, shifting his sucker from the left to right side of his mouth with his tongue. Fuck, I wish he wouldn’t do that.
I wet my lips and glance at the wall. “An alarm. It’ll alert me if the front door opens, and luckily, this is the only way in and out of the apartment. So while we’re out searching for Charlie, I’ll know if he comes back home.” Installing cameras here would be easier, but it’s too invasive. He deserves whatever privacy he has left as an American god.
Jack studies me for a long beat. “You love the challenge of it all?”
I’m a tactical badass, and Charlie is the one person who awakens a specific part of my brain. “I’d say it’s more the strategy of it all, and I’d love it more if I knew Charlie was safe.” I sweep him up and down. “You’re not breaking a sweat yourself.”
He smiles brighter. “Sometimes I film Ryke Meadows free-solo. I’m not climbing beside him. Usually I’ll be at the top or on the ground doing drone shots, but watching that guy climb his full route with no rope, no harness…man, that’s stressful. This is a lower tier. Probably because you’re with me and you’ve gone through it all before.”
Yeah, but not many guys on SFO would be okay with this situation. Lost a client. He’s out in the wilderness of a bustling city. No one to radio for backup. Knowing Jack and I have to find him. There is no alternative. No what if or maybe tomorrow.
It’s a lot of fucking responsibility, and not everyone has the confidence to hack it.
I glance at my watch. “Ten more minutes here, then we’re going to head to Le Chat Rouge. The show starts at nine.”
There’s a good chance Charlie will be there. I’ve never known him to come to Paris and miss some type of performance, whether it’s theatre, the opera, or anything in between. Doing the numbers in my head, I realized the longest time has passed since he’s been to Le Chat Rouge, one of his favorite cabarets in the city.
“And we can’t go in tees and jeans.” I open a baroque armoire.
“You keep clothes here?” Jack stands up.
“No, but I’m using his steamer.” One that Charlie never uses. Guy puts on wrinkled shirt after wrinkled shirt with zero care.
I squat down and rifle through a shoebox where he keeps it. “Pro tip: don’t wear tees if you forget a bag.”
Jack watches me. “Why is that?”
I grab the steamer and go to my backpack on a Queen Anne chair, digging for clothes. “Let’s put it this way, I’d much rather be wearing workout clothes to chase down Charlie, but when I first got on his detail, I had to chase him into a three-star Michelin restaurant.” I unzip my backpack. “I didn’t pass dress code, and I had to find the nearest department store and buy a suit. By the time I did, he was gone. Went to the airport and flew to Anchorage. I was a real cranky ass over comms that night.” I pull out my suit.
Turning around, I face Jack, and I meet his edging smile and honey-brown eyes that dip into me. Like I’m an ocean he’s swimming in. “Next time, call me,” he says coolly. “I’ll drive over with a suit.”
“Yeah?” I lick my lips slowly, recalling his apartment. “Aren’t all your suits in a cardboard box in your bathroom?” I begin steaming the white button-down, black slacks and suit jacket, catching sight of Jack’s widening smile and laugh. “Where’s the joke?” I ask.
He shakes his head and pops the sucker out of his mouth. “There’s no joke. You saw my Balikbayan box.”
My brows furrow. “Your what?”
“My mom’s side of the family is from the Philippines. We use a Balikbayan box to send household goods and clothes back to relatives. I had a couple old suits so I threw them in there. Once the box is full, I’ll sea freight it to my uncle’s house. He lives in a province in the Philippines called Batangas, where my mom grew up. Balikbayan is really a term used for a Filipino who’s gone abroad. Balik means came back. And bayan means country, land, a people, town.” He pauses to add with a smile, “What can I say, I’m a proud Filipino.”
I grin more, loving getting to know about Jack and his family, his culture. The biggest worry: the more I know, the deeper I’ll fall and I’m already flying too mother-effing close to the sun.
While I finish steaming out wrinkles, I tell him, “From one proud Latino to a proud Filipino, I gotta say I’m most interested in
