by daisy harris
Yeah, Kuri could have dealt with it if she didn’t work for him, and if he hadn’t had complete control over the rest of her life. The only problem was, Kuri didn’t know if Frank could handle having her in his life any other way.
Chapter Ten
Frank felt Q-ter’s stare, even before the kid cleared his throat in the doorway.
“Uh, boss?”
He didn’t look away from his screen. He flicked through missing person and arrest reports, looking for any sign of Kuri. “Whaddaya want, Q?”
“Your attention, for one thing.” Q-ter marched across the room, and then sat on Frank’s desk. He was wearing his normal striped t-shirt and khaki pants, but something about him was different. Maybe it was Frank’s imagination, but Q seemed to have filled out a little through the shoulders.
“You have it.” Frank folded his hands in front of him. He didn’t close his browser.
“Frank, you need to stop.” Q-ter picked up one of Frank’s spare pens and twirled it through his fingers. “You’re making us all nuts for one thing, and much as it pains me to say it, we actually need you to do your job.”
“I…” His eyes flicked to his computer screen when an Asian girl’s face appeared. But it wasn’t Kuri, just someone who looked like her.
“You’ve missed responding to two donor emails and you haven’t looked over my reports of our last two extractions. I can’t send the reports to our funders without your approval.”
“So send them.” Frank scrubbed at the back of his neck. “You never make mistakes, so why do I even have to approve them?” He wondered whom he was asking, Q-ter or himself. There was a time when Frank had insisted on reviewing every bit of data Q-ter produced or entered. But that time had faded until everything Frank did for the kid felt like a rubber stamp.
Q-ter shifted off Frank’s desk, his forehead creased in confusion. “Well, okay, I guess I could do that. But, y’know, none of the donors knows me. Could you at least send an introductory email?”
“They all know who you are. They’ve seen your name on reports, seen you cc’d on emails. Hell, I’m sure I mention you in just about every communication I have with the board of directors.”
“Oh.” Q-ter’s eyes were pensive behind his huge glasses.
“You sent out that mailer last year.”
Q-ter spun the pen so fast Frank was worried one of them would lose an eye. “It’s just—I’m not good at public relations.” Q-ter looked at the floor, nibbling his lip. For all the shit Q gave him about wanting more independence, Frank knew Q-ter asked for help a lot of times he didn’t need it.
“I’m sure you’ll do fine.” He turned back to his computer and his obsession with finding Kuri. From his door, Q-ter started to say something, but Frank’s phone rang. “I gotta take this.” Frank waved Q-ter off, calling after him to shut the door. “Hello?”
“Frank?”
His heart lurched—missing one beat, then another. Frank dragged in a breath in an effort to get it beating again. “Kur?” He waited for her answer, scared that if he said anything more she might hang up.
“Yeah, it’s me.” She paused.
“Are you okay? Do you need help?” Frank thought of all the places she could be, all the trouble she could be in. It made him desperate to track her down and drag her back, even as he could barely force out another word for fear of pushing her away.
“Frank?” Her voice was stern.
“Yeah?”
“Stop it.”
He processed for a second, but Frank knew what she meant. So, forcing back every impulse he had, he tried again. “So, how are you doing?”
“Good.” Kuri’s smile carried over the phone. “Really good, actually.”
“That’s nice.” Frank heard the edge to his voice. She’d worried the fuck out of him, and now she was really good?
“Yeah. I got a job out here.” She paused to give him a chance to reply, but Frank didn’t. “And I finally got a driver’s license. Pretty wild, huh?”
Frank could tell she was trying to be light and flirtatious to get him to tell her it was all okay. Well he wouldn’t. “Huh.” He thought about saying something about how the roads would be more dangerous with her on them, but Frank couldn’t bring himself to be that cruel.
“I can hear you thinking, Frank.”
“Yeah? What am I thinking?” He leaned back in his chair. She couldn’t see his I-don’t-give-a-fuck posture, but it still felt good.
“I don’t want to get into it.” She sounded frustrated.
Frank couldn’t wait for her to start yelling. It would feel a hell of a lot better than this pussyfooting around. “What did you call for, Kuri?” He clicked shut the browser on his computer, as if Kuri might have been able to look through the telephone and see that despite Frank’s callous manner he’d been searching for her nonstop since she left.
“I’m coming to Seattle for Christmas. I thought maybe you’d want to… Forget it.”
“No.” Frank raised his voice, knowing his desperation cracked through his words. “No, I want to see you.” Silence carried over the line, but Frank knew from her breaths that she hadn’t hung up.
“You want to have dinner?” Kuri asked, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
“Yeah, sure.” He wanted to ask if she was seeing the other ZU members, where she lived, what she was doing, but Frank was scared he’d start yelling. Either that or he’d cry.
“Great. Maybe at the same place?”
He nodded. “Yeah, that would be nice.” Frank floundered for something to say next. Christmas was only a few days away, but he wanted to keep hearing her voice. If nothing else, it would prove she was still alive.
“And Frank?”
“Yeah?” He would tell her anything, absolutely anything if she would say she’d come back. Even if he never touched her again, he needed to see her face.
“You’re not my boss anymore.”
Frank rolled up out of his seat. He was on his feet, pacing the room before he could formulate an answer. “Yeah, I know, Kuri.”
“So this is a date.”
He stopped short, blinking. Frank struggled to catch up to the conversation when a second ago he felt cut off at the knees and now she’d grabbed him by the balls. “What do you mean?” If she was asking for sex somehow, he couldn’t do it. Frank wouldn’t let himself get set up for disaster.
“I mean…” She took a deep breath. “That you can’t be both things to me. You can’t be my boss and my boyfriend.” Frank’s stomach dropped to his toes before she backtracked. “I don’t mean that I want you to be my boyfriend. Yet… I mean, you can’t be a romantic interest if you treat me like an employee.”
“I don’t think of you like that, Kur. You know I think of you as—”
“Your child?”
The sentiment flayed him to the bone. “No.”
“’Cuz you know that’s even creepier, Frank.”
“I said I didn’t think of you as my kid.”
She was silent for a long moment, enough time for Frank to wonder if maybe she was right. Then Kuri said, “Regardless. You’re not my boss, or my father, or my maker.” Her words were so similar to what Q-ter had said a few months back that Frank couldn’t help but feel defensive. But as much as he wanted to tell her she was wrong, he wanted to see her more.
Then she said something that stole his breath, so Frank couldn’t have talked if he wanted. “But you are a man that I like. And I want to see you again.”
Frank dropped his head, his chin touching his chest. The tears came then, thick and fast behind his eyes. They didn’t fall though, just filled him with the force of his emotion until he could hardly choke out the words, “I want to see you too, Kur.” He wasn’t sure if it would spook her if he said what was bursting from his lungs, but he couldn’t hold back the words. “I’ve missed you.” Oh hell, I’ve missed you so much.
The tiniest whisper met his ear as Kuri said, “I miss you too.”
Kuri pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot. The streets were slick and cold, and the winter rain threatened to freeze and turn the roads to icy sheets. She would have expected the place to be crowded with lifers trying to drown their holiday sorrows in the restaurant’s bar. However, only a few cars littered the lot. None of them she associated with the ZU, which meant that Frank had probably walked.
She had to force herself to haul open the restaurant’s door rather than just getting in her hatchback and driving away. Approaching Frank felt like walking into a trap. As she navigated between rows of booth tables, she half expected him to have brought the entire ZU team for some kind of intervention. But when the waitress pointed out Frank’s table, it was just him, sitting alone.
Frank’s hair was shorter than she remembered, his iron-colored curls cropped close enough to his head to look more like tight waves. He wore gloves at the end of his crisp, white shirtsleeves. He stood when she approached, his chin raised and his shoulders back. He seemed to have gotten bigger while she’d been gone—no doubt because he’d been hitting the weights with even more maniacal fervor since he was so pissed at her. But Kuri had to admit that the definition she could see even through his clothes made her mouth water.
“Heya, Kuri.” He smiled.
Even though Kuri knew he was mad as hell, she couldn’t help but smile back. “Hey, Frank.” She took the hand he offered, stepping forward when he drew her in to kiss her cheek. His body hovered near hers, inviting her to get closer. Kuri went on tiptoe to peck his cheek and then went to her seat.
Frank swung around behind her to push her in. “How was your trip?”
Kuri wondered if somehow he managed to track down where she lived. It wouldn’t have been easy. She swore Q to secrecy when he fabricated the alias she used to apply for her job. Of course, Q might have caved. “Fine. I’m living in Spokane now.”
“Oh.” Frank’s look of surprise said he hadn’t actually found out where she lived. Maybe he’d just gotten so used to pretending he knew everything that he came off that way all the time. “That’s nice.”
“Well, it’s sunnier than here, which I like.” She searched Frank’s eyes, looking for censure.
He only unfolded his napkin and put it on his lap. “I know how much you like it here in summer. Remember that time you, Barb and Shani went to the beach in Alki for Fourth of July and your car broke down on the way back?” Frank chuckled at the memory.
“Oh my God, yeah. That old sedan was so rundown and we didn’t have another car.” Kuri giggled. That had been years ago—before Q-ter joined their team. Back then Frank had called Kuri, Shani and Barb his “Angels”. Kuri’d never gotten around to watching the old movie. “You took four buses to come get us.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged, trying to be modest. “I’m pretty sure the folks on the last one thought I was gonna knife them. It was three in the morning by then and I didn’t want to take off my face mask.”
Kuri couldn’t believe how easy it was to talk to Frank once they got going. He grinned easily, and after the waitress took their order, he reached across the table with his glove-covered hand. He turned his palm up in invitation. But she didn’t know if she could touch him—even with the leather covering. “Frank, I…”
Frank pulled his arm under the table, color rising on his cheeks. “Sorry, doll. I didn’t mean to make you nervous.”
She shook her head. “No.” Kuri ducked to meet his downcast eyes. “No, you didn’t.”
He scrubbed a hand through his hair, leaning back in his seat. Then he asked the question she’d been dreading. “So, um, how have you been doing?”
Kuri knew he was asking about her psychological well-being, not something mundane like her life or her job. She wasn’t sure, though, whether she was comfortable talking to Frank about her mental health. Not when he’d been way too involved in her life before. “I’m better. Not glitching anymore.” She folded her napkin, fussing to place it at a perfect angle. “I mean—my doctor says that on some level I’ll always be struggling.” She kept her eyes on the table, not wanting to see Frank’s look of surprise that she was seeing a doctor other than him. “But for now, yeah—I’m a lot better than I was.”
“Oh.” Frank pushed back so far from the table, Kuri was pretty sure he was balancing on the back legs of his chair.
“You’re gonna topple over if you tip any farther.” She gave him a little twist of a smile.
Frank thunked back to the floor. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. Your doctor doesn’t suspect?”
She knew he wasn’t bothered so much that she’d be found out as a stein as that she was relying on someone other than him, but Kuri played along. “She’s a counselor, but she referred me to a low-cost clinic as well.” Kuri was lucky the clinic hadn’t insisted on any blood work before prescribing her medication. She’d been able to ride through on the forged medical records she’d planted in the nationwide database.
Kuri suspected she could have battled her PTSD without the antidepressants that buffered her moods, but it wouldn’t have been easy. “Nope. You always did say that I could pass better than any stein you’ve known.”
Frank raised his eyebrows. “No kidding. Better than I thought. Hell, I could send you…” He trailed off, eyes widening as if Frank knew he’d traveled into taboo territory.
“You know I can’t work for you anymore, right?” Kuri asked it as kindly as she could. She understood the ZU’s mission, and loved what they did for steins like her, but unless she went to work for another branch in another city, Kuri couldn’t see a way to continue with the Underground.
“Yeah.” Frank drank the last of his beer and then fiddled with the glass. He stared at the foam ring around the top for so long that Kuri might have thought he was done talking. But the set of his jaw told her that Frank was just mulling over how to phrase how he felt. “I don’t want you to work for me anymore either.”
Kuri knew her mouth was hanging open. Frank never gave anyone up willingly. Sure, they’d saved steins who didn’t stick around, but those were the folks who never started working for Frank. The ones he didn’t have a relationship with.
“I miss you. I really do.” Frank was scrubbing at the back of his neck as if he could rub off their awkwardness. “But…I miss you. Not the job you do.” He looked up at her, meeting her eyes. His expression was so wide open that it made her heart feel like it softened inside her chest like an overripe fruit.
“I know.”
“I miss you yelling at me, and calling me out on my shit. I miss how you always say you’re going to get hamburger or fish, but end up eating liver.” He rubbed his face, chuckling. “Hell, I even miss those plastic shoes you used to wear. I swear, I can still hear them knocking on the floors sometimes.”
Kuri’s bottom lip trembled. When Frank gently, slowly placed his hand on the table again, she laid her palm on top of his and tangled their fingers. “I miss you too, Frank. I just can’t—”
“You don’t have to.” He stroked his thumb over her palm. He studied her wrist like he was mapping the course of her veins. “You don’t have to come work for us, or even move back to Seattle.” He smiled at their clasped hands. Then he whispered, “Just call me sometimes. Let me know when you’re gonna visit again.”
His quiet request brought tears to her eyes. Kuri swiped a finger under each of her eyelids before the drops could fall. “Sure, Frank.” Kuri wished they were standing, because then she could have climbed into his arms for a hug. But she was glad in a way that they were still waiting for their meals. If she touched him so soon, it might break their careful truce. “Of course I’ll give you a call.”
Chapter Eleven
Frank stopped watching the phone after three days. Still, he couldn’t help but stare at his calendar, wondering whether Kuri was taking off the whole week between Christmas and New Year’s. He’d stopped shutting off his schedule and left it open in the corner of his screen, counting down
the days until 2074.
He stalked away from his computer and lay back on his weight bench. Q-ter had teased him about having a combination office/gym, but a lot of the time, work was frustrating enough that Frank wanted to burn off his energy between phone calls and reports.
Frank wrapped his hands around the bar over his head, braced his feet on the floor on either side of the bench and pressed straight upward. He grunted, wanting to wash away all his thoughts in a rush of endorphins, in the burn of muscle tissue tearing and rebuilding.
Bane and Shani didn’t understand how hard it was for Frank, to be always trapped behind a computer in the office when the others got to work in the field. Then, as he exhaled on the flex of his arms, he considered what Kuri would have said.
She’d tell Frank to stop being such a martyr and get out and do field work if he wanted to so badly. Frank pressed through a set and then grabbed a towel off the floor. Kuri—even the version of her in his brain—was right. Q-ter managed most of the recon. The main reason Frank was around was to oversee the younger stein. But Q-ter was more than equipped to handle more responsibility. He only relied on Frank because Frank let him.
Lying down again, Frank lifted the weights into a straight-armed press. He lowered the bar to his chest, and right when he was about to press upward, his phone rang. Tucking his knees up to keep tension in his core, he listened to his answering machine pick up his call.
Then he heard Kuri’s voice. “Hi, Frank. I’m working this week, but I was thinking of coming back into town for New Year’s.”
He wrenched his arms upward, his grip failing at the last moment so the weights landed in the rack with a clang. Not hearing what Kuri said next, Frank dove across his desk to the phone. “Hello?” He clutched the receiver in his sweating hand, hoping she hadn’t hung up.
“Oh, hey. I didn’t think you were there.”