“He's Brazilian, genius, he has an accent. You know, kind of like you do, only from another country.”
“Why are you getting snarky with me? You just said he gets on your nerves!”
“Just because he can be annoying doesn't mean he's not good at his job. Besides, this is a really hard workout. Don't knock it till you try it.”
He looked at the women in tiny little shorts, lifting their legs and smiling broadly.
“I don't think it would do much for me. It looks girly.”
“Girly?”
Her tone should have alerted him, but it didn't. “Yeah. Men like to work out with weights, not shiny yellow bands,” he said as he gestured toward the resistance bands the women on the screen were using.
“Care to test that theory, big boy?”
Now he heard the tone, but he was never one to back down from a challenge.
“What do you have in mind?”
“Throw on some gym clothes and try this with me. We'll see who's the last man standing.”
He raised his brows and looked at her like she was crazy. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.” Her arms were crossed over her chest and her face was set. He was beginning to recognize that look. She was not about to back down.
“All right, I'll be back,” he said airily as he left the room.
Ten minutes later, Will was panting on the floor, an ankle weight wrapped around his leg and his thigh muscles screaming. His ass was on fire and he had given up trying to ease the pain about three minutes ago. Liz looked up at him from her place beside him.
“No, you have to keep your hips level.” She stood and moved behind him, her feet on either side of his resting leg, her hands on his hips. “See, your left hip is higher than the right. They should be level. You'll get a better workout this way.” He groaned as she twisted him into place and Liz stifled a snigger. “As Leandro says, 'it's all about the angles'.”
Will was in so much pain, he couldn't even enjoy Liz's lycra-clad hips almost pressing into his. He watched the timer in the corner of the screen, desperately willing time to move faster so this torture would be over. With a final growl, he collapsed on the floor.
“Over your knees, Will. You're supposed to be in child's pose. It stretches out your glutes.”
He mumbled some unintelligible profanity and rolled to lie across his knees.
“Are you ready to concede?”
“Concede what?” he asked arrogantly, holding onto his last shred of manly pride.
“That my 'girly workout' is actually difficult? Even for a big, tough man like you?”
He refused to take the bait. He could hear the tease in her voice and decided that if he was going to lose, he would do so with dignity and not give her the satisfaction of seeing him humiliated. He decided he would do ten more minutes, then call a truce. Okay, maybe five more minutes.
Roughly sixty reps later, Will decided he'd had enough. With muscles screaming, he sat down and looked at Liz.
“All right, I admit it, your girly workout has merit. Now what do you want?”
“Hmmm. Let me think.” She tapped her finger on her chin in an exaggerated thinking gesture while Will rolled his eyes. “Next week's date, we get to do what I want to do. I pick the restaurant, the activities, everything. And you have to go along, no complaining.”
“I thought you liked my restaurants,” he said, slightly offended.
“I like them fine, but they're very... you. I'd like to go somewhere more me sometimes.”
He pursed his lips in thought, then said, “Okay, you pick. But not one of those weird places where you sit on the floor and eat with your hands.”
She rolled her eyes and popped out the DVD. “Deal.” She put the case away and turned to leave the room, leaving Will still sprawled out on the floor. God, he's enormous. He takes up nearly half the floor! “You might want to take some ibuprofen for that ass. It'll burn like hell in the morning.”
He gave her a dirty look as she left the room, a smirk on her lips.
**
“Why did I agree to this?”
“Because my ass is stronger than yours and you couldn't admit it.” She answered him with a triumphant smile and what he would have sworn was a smug expression.
“Remind me not to accept any more bets from you,” he said sourly.
“Now, honey, that's no way to start the evening,” she teased. She smiled and added, “Just relax—you might start to like it.”
He glared at her, but turned his attention back to the front of the restaurant.
After listening to the master of ceremonies speak, he turned to Liz. “How did you hear about this?”
“Laura told me. We usually come together. It's more fun to come in a group, but I thought it might be better for you to experience your first time without an audience.”
“Thank you for that,” he answered dryly.
His attitude was beginning to get on her nerves, but she was trying not to show it. “Is it really so bad?” she asked quietly.
He looked around at the eclectic environment and the people in their cheap clothes who seemed to be paying zero attention to him. He sighed.
“Sorry, I'm being a bad sport. It's not so bad, just unusual for me, that's all.”
She smiled and squeezed his hand. “It really can be fun if you just let yourself get into it. I promise not to make fun of you.”
He responded with something incoherent and went back to scanning the menu. When the waiter finally arrived, he ordered a bottle of wine and two appetizers. Liz looked at him with a raised brow.
“What? You're the one who said it was for a good cause. Doesn't the money go to charity or something?”
“The money from the tickets goes to charity, and I believe a portion of the restaurant's revenues, but certainly not all of it.”
“Well, the wine selection wasn't bad, and I could use a drink.”
Seeing his tired expression, she relaxed her stance and asked gently, “Long day?”
“Yeah.” He groaned and ran his hands through his hair. “There was a problem with a prototype that now basically has to go back to design, which will set launch dates back and be a very expensive mistake, and to top it off, one of our best designers resigned today. It's going to be bloody hard to replace her—especially with us being in the middle of this project. I was hoping to finalize it by the end of the year, but without Thompson, we'll probably be set back.”
“Why did she resign out of the blue? Is everything okay?”
“Yes, for her anyway. She’s pregnant and her husband’s been transferred to LA. She apologized and I think she genuinely feels badly for leaving us in the lurch, but with the move and the baby happening at the same time, she didn’t want to do the lonGodistance relationship thing and she thought it was a good time to move on.”
Liz sat back, suddenly feeling bad for her judgmental thoughts earlier. He'd had a hard day and his attitude was understandable. “Can she not stay just for the redesign?”
“She’s staying for six weeks, as required in her contract, but it would be miraculous if it was done by then.”
“Could she not be persuaded to do just a few more months? When is she due?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t ask. I’m not even sure if I’m allowed to.”
“You two are friends, right? Was she the one in the green dress at the Partners in Technology gala?”
“God, Liz, I don’t know what she wore, but yes, she was there.” His hands went to his hair again. “I wouldn’t call us friends, but she’s certainly a respected colleague.”
She squeezed his forearm where it lay on the table. “I’m sorry, Will. I know this is stressful for you. Do you want to go somewhere else? We can just go home if you’d rather.” She wanted to stay, but she could tell he was in a bad mood and was trying to be considerate.
“No, it's all right, Lizzy, we can stay. I could use a distraction. I have to start interviewing tomorrow for Thompson�
�s replacement and it's got me in a foul mood, that’s all. Let's enjoy the evening.” She smiled at him. “Now, would you like to tell me what the hell is going on?”
Liz couldn't help but laugh at the expression of complete bewilderment on his face. “Well, the outside picture is that this restaurant hosts this event once a month for charity. All the ticket sales go to an orphanage in Central America. It's almost completely supported by this one event.”
He raised his brows.
“See, now you can relax knowing you've done a good deed. The guy who was talking earlier will walk us through the process. It's sort of a mystery theatre, but it's interactive.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there are actors who play parts and have a set script, but the audience participates to a certain extent. Some people are actually assigned parts to play, but I didn’t sign us up for that. You take these,” she held up a few small pieces of paper that were standing up in the center of the table, “and you can write down conjectures of what you think will happen, who you think did it, or what you would like to see happen, things like that, and the servers collect them. Sometimes, if a person is really close or even completely right, they kill off that person in the audience.”
“What? How do they do that?”
“Well, I've never seen the killing off, but once Laura got too close to the right information and when the lights went down, they snatched her. They were really quiet and sneaky about it. When the lights came back up, she was just gone. Then we saw her locked up in a room onstage. Of course, it was a stage, so two of the walls were missing and it was all figurative, but you got the idea. She stayed put like a good little prisoner and they added her to the script. That's part of what makes it so fun—you never know what's going to happen and they don't really know either.”
“I don't want to go on stage.”
“I know. I don't like the idea of being kidnapped, either. Just don't be too clever and you'll be fine.” She patted his knee and he sat back, taking it all in. He and Liz had a small square table set catty-cornered against the back wall and they sat on adjacent sides so both of them could see the main stage area. The atmosphere was energetic and lively and everyone seemed prepared to have a good time.
Liz seemed content to sip her wine in silence, and he did the same. After two months of marriage, they had learned how to be quiet together. There were no more awkward silences and heavy pauses. He was glad they had come to a sort of companionship. It made everything they had to go through together that much easier.
“Oh, it's starting!” she said excitedly, and he turned his attention to the front where several men in pinstripe suits were arguing over what to do about some sort of problem. He let the stress of the day go and tried to just enjoy the evening. He wasn't as successful as Liz in having a good time, but he made a valiant effort and was surprised that he actually enjoyed himself.
“Well, what did you think?” Liz asked as they walked back into their building.
“It was fun—surprisingly. Though it was way too easy.”
“Well not everyone is as brilliant as you, Mr. Youngest CEO Ever,” she retorted as they stepped off the elevator.
“Oh, come on! It was so obvious that Angelo did it! He was mad at Eric for stealing his girl and he had plenty of opportunity.”
“But what about Sylvia? She had motive, too! She'd been in love with Eric for all those years and then he went and chose Carla instead. That kind of anger can make a girl crazy.”
“It wasn't a feminine crime!” he urged as he opened the door and let her in ahead of him. “Everyone knows women prefer poison unless it's in the heat of the moment, and then they usually go for a gun. Eric's murder was clearly planned out in advance, which disqualifies Sylvia because he wasn't poisoned.” He said the last with smug finality.
“So if you were so sure of your theory, why did you say you thought Eric killed himself on your answer sheet?”
“You weren't supposed to be looking at mine!” he exclaimed. She shrugged sheepishly. “And I put that, miss-know-it-all, because I didn't want to be dragged on stage in front of two hundred people for guessing the right answer!”
She laughed as she put her purse on the table and kicked off her shoes. “Well, next time, I think you should write down your real theory and see what happens. Then we'll know if you actually figured it out ahead of time or if you just said you knew all along when it was over.”
He gave her a disapproving look. “You're on, missy.”
She smirked, reached up to kiss him on the cheek and turned to walk down the hall. “Night, Will,” she called over her shoulder.
He said goodnight in return and it was a full five minutes before he realized he'd just made another bet with her in the same night he'd sworn never to do it again.
Clever little minx.
18
Moment of Truth
“So what all do you think they’ll ask us?” Liz asked Will as they rode to the interview for immigration. It had been two and a half months of studying and PDA and fake-romancing and she felt ready, but also incredibly nervous.
“I have no idea. Jamison said that in a case where there’s no suspicion, it’s all pretty straight forward. They look over your files and if everything’s in order, you’re approved and move on to the next step, which is just a doctor’s appointment for me and then we get the card.”
“But we might get more intense scrutiny,” she said. She’d talked to Andrew and Laura and looked up a lot of information on her own, but she just wanted to talk it out again and make sure she hadn’t missed anything.
“Exactly.”
“We’d be all right, though, wouldn’t we? I mean, we’re living together, we know all sorts of things about each other. We’ll be fine!” She tried to sound breezy but it came across as slightly hysterical.
“Of course.” He wasn’t convincing.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t make you nervous. I talk when I’m anxious—bad habit, I know. All right, I’ll stop talking now.”
“That would be helpful,” he said quietly.
She looked out the window then back at him, noticing the white knuckle grip he had on the steering wheel and how the muscle beside his mouth twitched every few seconds.
“Hey,” she reached over and squeezed his forearm, “it’s going to be okay, really. I have a good feeling,” she said more calmly than she’d sounded all morning.
“Thanks,” he replied. He relaxed a bit and took a deep breath, then stopped the car and announced they’d arrived.
They sat in a plain grey waiting room with several other families, the air filled with more languages than either of them could decipher. Finally, after waiting half an hour during which Will never stopped bouncing his knee, the name Harper was called and told to go to window three.
They looked at each other and rose together, Liz falling in behind Harper as he stepped up to the glass. A short man with red hair asked their names and then laid out their file in front of them. Liz recognized everything she’d put together with Andrew; her birth certificate and tax returns and school enrollment forms and copies of her driver’s license.
“All right,” began the man, “there’s no problem with your military or police reports, and your background check is clean. Your job checked out, as well as your personal affidavits. Your wife’s financials are all in order and your residency requirements are met. In short, you’re approved pending a successful medical examination.” He slid the thick packet under the glass. “Here’s where you go to have that done.” He gave Harper a sheet of paper. “And this says that you understand what to do now, which is to set up a medical appointment and give the doctor that form. If the exam is satisfactory, you’ll be granted a permanent resident visa and should receive it within fourteen days. If it is not satisfactory, your visa will be denied. Sign here, please.”
Harper signed his name and slid the paper back under the glass. “Is there anything else I need to do?”
&nb
sp; “No, you’re all set. Have a nice day.”
Harper thanked him, grabbed his papers and walked away.
“Well, that was anticlimactic,” Liz said quietly as they retreated down the hall. “I don’t know what I was expecting, but that sure wasn’t it.”
“Yeah, me neither. It was so, so…”
“Simple? Quick? Undramatic?”
“Yeah, and so not something we should have been stressing over.”
“Don’t relax yet. You still have to pass your medical exam.”
“I’ll pass. They’re mostly checking for incurable infectious diseases and tuberculosis. I’ll be fine.”
“That’s a relief.”
When they got back in the car, Liz flipped through the folder in her lap while Harper immediately called the doctor’s office to set up an appointment. She skipped over the files with their basic information and opened the Proof of Relationship file. In it were the pictures they’d taken at her little apartment on the lower east side. She felt a rush of nostalgia looking at them, not so much for the images themselves but for that time and place in her life. It had been a great place to live for the three years she’d been there and she missed it sometimes—though not terribly often.
She couldn’t help but laugh at the completely made up items in the file. The pictures with Jen and Andrew, the “events” they’d orchestrated where they were both wearing party clothes and holding champagne flutes filled with ginger ale (that looked just like champagne in pictures). When she got to the emails they’d written each other, she snorted out loud.
“What’s so funny?” Harper asked.
“These emails we sent each other for our proof of relationship file. I can’t believe I wrote these with a straight face!”
“Which ones?”
“Listen to this: Hey babe, I’m free after eight. Want to break in the new sofa?”
“Did you really write that? And give it to someone?” he cried.
“You saw it before! I sent them all to you so you could change the time stamp, remember?”
“Yes, but I didn’t read them all.”
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