Assignment Austin

by Lucey Phillips

  I texted Colin, “Let’s go.”

  We said a couple quick goodbyes and found our way back to the car.

  “I thought you were going to stick to travel reporting—no more news,” Colin said. There was a sing-song, teasing tone in his voice.

  “Come on—they just took Kara’s boyfriend away,” I said. “Also, shut up.”

  Colin laughed.

  We drove downtown and went to a small auditorium inside the police department. When we showed a woman at the door our Alt News America press passes, she looked confused but let us in.

  The department’s civilian PR rep, Felix High, started the press conference by going over the basics: Harris Myer was fifty-three years old, the owner of SoCo Athletics, and a roller derby sponsor.

  Felix said there was not an official cause of death yet—the medical examiner’s report wasn’t done. But preliminarily, it looked like he was killed by trauma to the head.

  “We haven’t recovered a weapon,” Felix said. “Detectives are speaking with several persons of interest, but no arrests have been made.”

  A reporter in the front row asked, “What’s the motive? Were drugs involved?”

  Felix shuffled his papers and replied, “At this time, we don’t have any indication drugs were involved. And we don’t believe Mr. Myer was robbed.”

  Beside me, Colin made a hmf noise. I looked at him with raised eyebrows.

  He leaned toward my ear and whispered, “Heard some rumors at the party—steroids.”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. It was an expression I hoped showed intrigue—and camouflaged the flustered feeling that had come over me when I caught the subtle aroma of Colin’s cologne.

  There were more questions, but Felix wasn’t able to provide any useful answers. Finally, he introduced Lacey Myer, Harris’ niece and captain of the Violent Crown.

  Lacey was a tall, heavyset woman. She seemed to be with another woman who was standing farther back on the auditorium stage. That woman had blonde hair with gray roots, and was dabbing at her eyes with a wadded-up tissue.

  “Uncle Harris and Aunt Rita were like a second set of parents to me. They never had children of their own, but they took wonderful care of me and my brothers,” Lacey said.

  She took a deep breath and continued. Her voice became more unsteady as she talked.

  “We are devastated by this random act of violence. This happened in the middle of the day in a busy community. Someone must have seen something. On behalf of my family, I urge anyone who has information about my uncle’s killer to tell the police now.”

  I leaned toward Colin and whispered, “How does she know it was random?”

  “Yeah, that doesn’t make any sense,” he said.

  A reporter called out, “Did your uncle have any disgruntled employees or customers?”

  Lacey’s face instantly flushed deep red. “My uncle was a long-time business owner and he always treated his employees fairly. I started working in that gym when I was twelve years old. No, he absolutely didn’t have any disgruntled employees.”

  Her hands were clenched into fists, trembling with white knuckles. A man in a suit walked forward from where he’d been standing beside the blonde woman, and stood beside Lacey. He rested one hand on her shoulder.

  “Like Miss Myer said, the family would greatly appreciate any information Austin residents might have to help with this case. They also respectfully request privacy during this difficult time,” the man said.

  “Must be the lawyer,” I whispered.

  Colin nodded. “The entire family is kind of unlikable. They should just let the lawyer do the talking.”

  | Four

  Colin wasn’t the kind of man who openly admitted to being nervous. Instead, he just got quiet. While we waited on the bank of Lady Bird Lake, he barely spoke at all.

  When I had told Colin that I wanted to take a standup paddling lesson and write about it for a sidebar on Assignment Austin, he thought it was a great idea. But when I asked him to come out on the water with me, his enthusiasm cooled.

  “Can you swim?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, in a pool, where there’s no fish and alligators and stuff,” he said.

  “Oh yeah, those Texas alligators are pretty scary. And of course there’s the sharks,” I teased him.

  He didn’t laugh at my joke. I squinted out over the water and tried to think of something reassuring, okay, maybe apologetic, to say to him.

  “I really should go out on the water. It’s the only way I can get good pictures anyway. If I stay on the shore and use my telephoto lens, the pictures will come out looking flat. I just don’t want to go swimming in, you know, fish poop,” he said.

  “You don’t have to. Maybe you can get some good shots from that bridge over there.”

  “Nah. I’ll be fine. I’ve been looking for an excuse to use this waterproof camera,” he said. “It’s even supposed to float.”

  “Do you think the water’s cold?” I asked.

  My fingers wandered toward the short row of sutures on my left knee—a memento from Las Vegas, where I’d taken an involuntary plunge into an indoor salt water lagoon, injuring my knee in the process. I’d need to find a clinic in a few days to have the sutures removed.

  “Let’s see,” Colin said. He stood up from the grassy slope where we were sitting. He pulled off his shoes and walked the few steps to the edge of the water. Bending one knee, he dipped a foot in.

  “It’s really warm, like bathwater,” he said.

  “I thought you had a fish poop phobia?”

  He shrugged. “I just realized, if you’re brave enough to do this after what you’ve been through, I need to suck it up.”

  I stepped out of my shoes and joined him beside the water. The grass was soft and warm under my feet, which felt tender—totally unaccustomed to going without shoes.

  “We’ll have fun,” I said.

  “Yeah we will!” said a man’s voice from behind us.

  I turned to see a man with a dishwater-blond beard hanging in a thick braid halfway down his abdomen. He carried a paddle board—a composite plastic surfboard-shaped craft—under each arm. He was smiling.

  “Toby? Hi, I’m Jae. This is Colin,” I said, stepping forward to help him with one of the boards.

  “That’s me. Careful with the fins,” he said. “Let’s leave these here. I’ll get the paddles and the other board off my truck.”

  I’d done all the research I could, reading how-to articles and watching tutorial videos about stand-up paddling. I knew it couldn’t be as easy as it looked.

  I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt over my swimsuit. Before we started, Toby suggested we wear swimsuits only.

  “Most newbs get wet,” he said cheerfully.

  Colin immediately pulled his T-shirt over his head. I knew I needed to be just as unceremonious—to pull my clothes off with no fuss, no embarrassment.

  I turned my back to the lake and the men I was with. I took off my shirt. Next, I dropped and stepped out of my shorts in one quick move. I left my clothes crumpled in the grass, hoping they would still be there when we got back.

  My swimsuit was a black utilitarian two-piece with a racerback top. It was designed for reduced drag when swimming laps. And for comfort. It wasn’t flashy, but this was Lady Bird Lake, not the French Riviera.

  I told myself I was here to work. Then I engaged my most confident-yet-indifferent strut as I waded into the water and stood beside my board.

  Colin’s gaze was fixed on the water, then on Toby, then on the city skyline in front of us. He seemed fascinated with everything except me.

  I wasn’t as good as Colin was at faking discretion. As soon as I realized he wouldn’t be looking my way, I peeked.

  I expected him to have the body of a slender photographer with a work schedule that didn’t allow time for a healthy diet or much exercise. But that’s not what I saw.

  Colin had muscles. They weren’t inflated, meathead, gym rat muscles. They were tri
m and defined—the type of muscles people get from doing actual physical work—not just pushing weights around. I wondered if he’d been doing burpees in his hotel room every morning.

  And there was a tattoo on his chest. It was a blue compass with stylized flourishes. I wondered how old Colin was when he got that tattoo. And who was he with? A friend or brother? A girlfriend? There was so much I didn’t know about him.

  “Jae?” Toby asked. “Did you hear me?”

  “What? Sorry.”

  He chuckled. “Stay with me, sister. I said, if you fall in, just pat the top of your head, like this, so I know you’re okay.”

  I nodded. Colin still wasn’t looking my way.

  Toby instructed us in climbing onto the boards, straddling them first, then kneeling on the squishy padded center. From there, we could sit on our feet and paddle away from the shore.

  Even though there were tall buildings all around us, I didn’t feel like we were in the city anymore. We were simply on the water, floating. The small metropolis surrounding us, the million people, were incidental at best.

  Then it was time to stand up. First, Toby had us get in a hands-and-knees position. He told us to move our legs so the soles of our feet were on the board. I was too focused on the instructions and on keeping my balance to be very concerned about the awkward nature of this pose.

  “Good. Now keep your hands on your paddle and stand up,” Toby said, as if standing on water was really that simple.

  My abs were burning and my hamstrings felt like stretched-out bungee cords. So I didn’t think about how to stand up. I just did it.

  An icy flash of panic overtook me for a fraction of a second when my balance wobbled and my feet rocked the board from side to side. I was sure I was going into the water, but then, with no conscious input from me, my body figured out what to do. I was standing up.

  I looked over at Colin in time to see him do the same thing I did—wobble, throw his arms out to his sides, then find his balance.

  “Hey! All right!” Toby said, flashing us a bright smile.

  He talked us through paddling, giving us tips on form and reminding us frequently, “Don’t look at the water. Watch the horizon.”

  It was good advice. If I looked down when I felt unsteady, my balance only got worse. But when I looked forward at the shoreline or at anything on land, I recovered.

  It felt a lot like riding a bicycle. The muscles in my legs and feet and torso constantly tensed and released to compensate for the shifts in the board as it rocked with the chop.

  The three of us stayed close together and to the right when we crossed beneath a bridge. Toby was ahead of us. He had slowed his constant stream of advice and instruction, now only glancing back at Colin and me occasionally to make sure we were still upright.

  When we were beneath the bridge, the air felt cooler. In between the noise of the vehicles rumbling above us, we could hear echoes of water splashing against the stone supports, and drips from the ends of our paddles as we shifted them from side to side.

  I could hear Colin paddling behind me but I felt too unsteady to twist my body to look back at him. Finally, though, I got the courage. I made a slightly dramatic bobble when I turned to see him.

  Colin was holding his paddle under one arm while he pointed the camera in my direction. I’d forgotten to feel naked and self-conscious in my swimsuit. I smiled at him.

  Eventually, Toby told us we were doing fine and he was going to let us explore on our own. He gave us a couple more safety tips, then asked us to have the boards back to him in an hour.

  I tried not to cringe when he said hour. I was having fun, but every muscle in my body was starting to feel tired and rubbery. My neck ached, too.

  I kept paddling, though, trying to remember every sensation and to think about the words I would use to describe this experience for my story.

  A woman and an adolescent boy, probably her son, waved as they paddled past Colin and me in their kayaks.

  Behind me, I heard Colin mutter. I looked back to see if he was okay.

  “How are you still doing this?” he asked, frustrated. “My shoulders and feet are killing me.”

  I was ready to stop, too, but I didn’t feel like admitting it. So instead, I whipped my paddle blade across the top inch of water, sending a splash in his direction. When I looked back to see if I’d hit my intended target, I saw Colin straddling his board with both legs in the water from the knees down.

  He was grinning, with his paddle poised to splash me. I flinched, then lost my balance. I threw my arms out and somehow managed to stay on the board. He never did splash me.

  Colin laughed. “I would have felt bad if you fell in.”

  “Yeah you would,” I said. “’Cause I would have killed you.”

  I carefully dropped to my knees and grabbed the sides of the board, allowing the paddle to float half on the board and half on the water.

  There was a soft splashing sound as Colin paddled up beside me.

  “Doing okay?” he asked. “Does your knee hurt?”

  “It doesn’t hurt. It’s just itchy. How about you?”

  “I feel like jelly,” he said. “This is fun though. I used to kayak with my brother and my dad, but this is a lot harder. Kayaks feel way more stable than this.”

  “Did you get good pictures?”

  He smiled and nodded. His eyes were twinkling.

  “Silhouettes,” he said. “Of you. When you paddle, your posture and your form make you look like you’ve been doing this all your life.”

  My cheeks became hot. I used my finger to push a bead of water around on my board.

  “You’re beautiful,” Colin said.

  That’s when I couldn’t avoid his gaze anymore. I looked up. He was smiling at me—his content, serene smile I’d seen only a couple times before.

  He reached for my hand and pulled me toward him. He leaned toward me and kissed me on the cheek.

  It should have been awkward, with both of us floating and balancing, but it wasn’t. It was graceful, like a dance.

  After he kissed my cheek, he placed a palm on my other cheek and turned my face toward his. He leaned close again, and kissed my lips.

  We both sat back on our boards, smiling and, as usual, remaining content with the silence.

  I gazed at the water, the green shoreline, and the ambitious Austin skyline. I was still smiling.

  Colin had his head bowed over his camera.

  “This is the one,” he said, holding the screen so I could see the image of myself on the stand-up paddle board. “It’s perfect.”

  I didn’t see perfection in that photo, but something in Colin’s voice told me he really meant it.

  We cruised around the lake a little longer, returned the boards, and got in the car to go back to the Bluestem Inn.

  While we drove, neither of us mentioned the kiss. And neither of us felt the need to launch into a discussion about the nature of our relationship. Colin wasn’t like that.

  And I guess I wasn’t either. But my relationship history was so sparse, I didn’t really know how I should feel or act in this situation. I knew I should be careful, because this was my job. But I also knew I could trust Colin.

  “Hey, food trucks!” Colin said with more enthusiasm in his voice than usual. “Are you hungry?”

  “I am,” I said. “And it would be good for my story.”

  “I know. Look at the colors.”

  He parked and began checking the settings on his camera while we walked toward the trucks. They were parked in a large rectangle formation with picnic tables at the center. There weren’t just food trucks. There were trailers, carts, and even a few tents.

  The food was varied and imaginative—from gourmet grilled cheese to vegan southwest, all-natural ice cream, and pork fusion.

  “I’m thinking barbecue,” Colin said.

  I was eyeing a vegetarian wrap stand. “I’m going over there,” I said.

  “Eat first, then work?”
/>   “Definitely.”

  The sun was intense by the time we finished eating, so I did the bare minimum, interviewing two patrons and two chefs about what makes mobile dining so appealing. Colin was across the park at a smoothie stand, taking pictures of a worker sorting colorful fruit.

  I found a shady spot, dug my phone out of my bag and sat down. I wanted to text Quinn, my best friend who works at the headquarters of Alt News America. She works as a fact-checker, but usually employs some quasi-legal hacking skills in the process.

  In my message to Quinn, I typed, “We kissed.”

  Less than three seconds passed before her half-baked texts started streaming in.

  The messages came in too fast for me to reply to each one.

  “Wut?”

  “Really? Colin, right?”

  “What kind of kiss?”

  “Is it true love? It’s true love, right?????”

  I grinned down at my phone and replied.

  “Of course, Colin,” I wrote.

  I added, “True love? Not sure. Not yet, I guess.”

  Quinn wrote back, “EEEEEEeeeeeeek.”

  “We’re so mature,” I replied.

  “Tell. Me. Everything. Can you call?”

  “Can’t call now,” I said before I began texting the whole story of the paddle board kiss to her.

  “Sounds perfect,” she said when I was done. “Does this mean you’re official? An actual relationship?”

  I told her that I didn’t know and that, for now, I was okay with not knowing.

  “You’re right. You’re traveling together and working together. Just let things play out naturally,” Quinn wrote.

  “I like him,” I replied.

  “I know,” she said. “I’m happy for you.”

  | Five

  I’d left my cottage door standing wide open for Colin, but he knocked anyway.

  “Come on in,” I yelled from the small breakfast bar where I was working on my laptop.

  Colin stepped inside hesitantly, but smiled when he saw me.

  “You ready for this?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I pre-medicated with some ibuprofen,” I said. “I don’t even know what I was thinking when I set up the stand-up paddling for the same day as a roller derby lesson.”