by Raine, Meli
I choose Lindsay.
“Lindsay wants to see you,” Silas says, holding up his phone. “Text from Drew. She wants to meet in an hour, but Drew convinced her to move it to one p.m. I have legal stuff scheduled with Kelly and my mom this morning. I can’t go with you. Duff’s on his way to take over.”
I fight disappointment inside, pretending to be joking. “Duff’s taking over?” My eyes roam up and down his nude body. “In what capacity?”
A fierce jealousy fills Silas’s face. “Don’t even joke like that.”
My pulse seems to stop. “I’m sorry. I was just–”
He breathes out, a long line of resigned air. “No, I’m sorry. That was an overreaction.”
I look at him, hard. “It really was a joke. I don’t–Duff’s not–I was just making a stupid–” I reach for his hand and stop myself from babbling. “You’re the only person I want.”
“Good. Because the feeling is mutual.”
“You asked me last night about dating in college. What about you?”
“I didn’t date much.” The lack of elaboration sets off alarm bells in my head.
“But you’ve dated. Had relationships?”
“Yes.”
“And the last one?”
“She died.”
I go numb. “How?”
“In combat.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Right.” He’s closed off, but I can tell he’s ready to say more if I ask.
“Was she someone you were really close to?”
“She was my fiancée.”
“Oh, Silas.” A strange blend of empathy and jealousy plumes through me. “I really am sorry.” I want to ask him why he didn’t tell me before. Part of me is hurt that he hasn’t trusted me with this information until now. Then again, we’re unfolding ourselves to each other slowly, painstakingly.
I’m sure there’s more he hasn’t told me.
I know there’s more I’ve kept from him.
“No need. It’s been three years.”
“You never get over losing someone you love.”
“No. You don’t. But it looks like I’m finding a way with someone new.”
It takes a few beats for me to realize he’s talking about me.
Tap tap tap.
The knock on the front door makes me let out a squeal of surprise. Silas looks at his phone.
“It’s Duff. Here to take over for me.” His eyes dart to my face, looking for me to say something. I remain neutral. It’s hard.
“You have to leave?” I ask as I jump up and find my pajamas, shoving them on so quickly, I catch my hair in the tag.
Silas does the same, throwing on his clothes. “No choice.”
“What do you mean, ‘no choice’?”
“Legal issues.” He closes his eyes and takes a long time to inhale, emotion rippling over his face. He gives me a wry smile as he opens his eyes. “Sorry. Habit.”
“Sorry... for what?”
“I’m not used to talking about anything. I don’t open up. You’re being normal and I’m not used to it.”
“Normal?”
“You’re asking about my day. Questioning when something I say doesn’t add up. Inquiring about how I’m doing. It’s new.” A small laugh escapes him, melting my heart. As his hand covers mine, I turn into a puddle. “It’s nice. More than nice.” The skin around his left eye twitches. “But it’ll take some getting used to. I don’t work that way. So I’ll need to get accustomed to it. Adjustment and adaptation are my strong suit in the field, but apparently not in the bedroom.”
I laugh out of politeness, but his emotional reveal is taking my breath away. “All of this takes time.” I lower my voice, turning from joking lover to confidante. “I’m adjusting, too. Second by second, word by word, kiss by kiss.”
A radiant smile turns his face into a handsome, strong world I could escape to forever. “Kiss by kiss?” He gives me one, leaning in to kiss my forehead, then the tip of my nose.
“Touch by touch,” I add, but before he can match that comment, Duff knocks on the door again, harder.
“Damn,” Silas says through a tight mouth.
“It’s okay. I understand.”
“I’m sorry, Jane. But let’s do dinner? Tonight?”
My heart soars. “Yes!”
He gives me a quick kiss on the lips, the kind of casual kiss you give someone you take for granted. It’s the kiss you give when you’re sure there will be time later. Plenty of time–all of it in the assumed future.
It’s a kiss you give someone you love.
I press my fingers against my lips as he leaves, like I’m holding the kiss in place, never letting it go.
Duff clears his throat, sounding like a motorcycle at full throttle. “You need anything, Jane?”
“A time machine.”
“Can’t submit an expense form to the boss man for that.”
“Then what good are you, Duff? Come on. You can do better.”
He suppresses a smile and gives me a side-eye glance that isn’t part of a conspirator’s look. It’s a strange, detached reaction that confuses me. “What’s on the agenda today, Jane?” he asks, right back to being an emotionless android.
I remind myself that Silas was like this, too, when he started guarding me. What is Duff’s inner life like?
“Before I answer that, I have a question.”
“Yes?”
“Duff can’t be your real name.”
“It is. My parents were cruel.”
I roll my eyes. “Seriously. What’s your name?”
“Seamus McDuff.”
“Wow.”
“See? Cruel.”
“That’s... quite a name.”
“It’s actually Seamus Patrick McDuff. I’m Russian.”
He gets a gimlet look from me.
And laughs.
I cracked his shield. This is progress. Something about Duff is familiar and dangerous at the same time. I can’t put my finger on it.
“I see why you go by a nickname.” Then I realize something. “Your real name isn’t any of that. Not one bit.” I frown. Is Silas’s real name Silas? With military intelligence and special forces, it’s possible they’re not revealing their true identities.
“Caught,” he says, checking his phone while we talk, half his attention on his screen. “My real name is Vladimir Putin.”
“I knew it!”
“It’s hard being famous.”
“It’s even harder being infamous,” I say softly.
My words make his head jerk up. He looks at me, then says slowly, “I’ll bet it is.”
A chill runs up me from my Achilles’ heel to the backs of my ears. Duff isn’t flirting. Not one bit. It’s his very presence that freaks out my nervous system. Something in his voice–a clipped end of a word, the careful way he speaks around consonants... what is it? Why is this man setting off all of my alarm bells?
It’s strange. And it’s creepy. I don’t feel unsafe with Duff, though. I just feel like the world is surreal, and if I can just figure out why he’s making everything tilt a little, I will be fine again.
Silas trusts him. I trust Silas with my life. Therefore, it’s transitive: I should trust Duff. Completely. Fully.
“You being harassed?” he asks, still peering at me oddly.
“When am I not harassed? I don’t even look at social media anymore. I’m a meme. Stories about me circulate like sexual harassment cases against beloved comedians and entertainment executives. Asking me if I’m being harassed is like asking Kate Middleton if she hopes to be queen one day. The answer is the same: duh.”
“I didn’t mean online. I mean, are you being threatened?”
“Nothing new.” I bite my lip, frowning. “Or, if there is, Silas didn’t mention it.”
He opens his mouth as if to say something, then shuts it quickly. Silas’s college sweatshirt is draped casually across the back of one of the kitchen chairs. Duff’s eyes dart over to
it, the movement so swift, you might not notice it.
Unless you’re looking for it.
And I am.
“Reports say the trolls are napping today, Jane. Grab your free time while you can. Where to?”
“The flower shop. It’s on the corner, a few blocks away. Then to The Toast at one p.m. I’m meeting Lindsay.”
“The Thorn Poke?”
“That’s the one.” I wonder how he knows the name of the flower shop, but then again, it’s his job to know things. I only know it because we drove past the place and it sounded like a sweet diversion for me.
“What do you need there?” I am in the middle of grabbing Silas’s sweatshirt to wrap around my waist when I hear him.
“Flowers,” I say slowly. This time, he’s the one who rolls his eyes.
“You like flowers that much?”
I brighten. “I do. There’s something special about the scent of fresh flowers. It’s like you get a reboot on the day. I could use a reboot on the day.”
“Sounds like you could use a reboot on the last year, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“I don’t.” I look down at myself. As I take a step forward, my inner thighs brush against each other. I’m sore, and parts of me ache. Sex with Silas is fun and hot, emotional and enthralling.
It is also messy.
“I need a shower,” I announce, turning away and going straight into the bathroom.
Where I find a tube of antibiotic cream and a note in Silas’s scrawl.
You forgot to do this last night.
S
I blink, reading the words, setting the note down before turning on the shower. Stripping down is fast but getting in the shower is a fearful process. The water stings my skin all over again, thousands of hot knives attacking the spots Silas kissed with his healing attention last night. Too bad kisses can’t really fix boo-boos.
I laugh, but I’m sad at the memory of my mother, fixing scrapes with kisses and Band-Aids. Ah, to be that young again. That naïve.
That trusting in the magic of a kiss.
Normally not fast with showers, I find myself hurrying, doing the basics. As I wash between my legs, a thrill of memory from last night makes me swell with renewed need. There is an entire world of sex out there that I didn’t understand.
As the water rains down on me, both friend and foe, I find the richness of the shampoo, the gloss of light against water, the feeling of purity and renewal in my cells. Sharing so much with Silas last night and being shared with–it’s as if the world righted itself deep in the night.
And all my life I’ve been crooked without knowing it.
As soon as my hair is rinsed, I shut off the water, my skin throbbing. Every scratch is a pulse. Drying off becomes an obstacle course. Removing the water from my skin and out of my hair is a priority, but doing it without opening barely healing wounds is a challenge.
Like life. You do what needs to be done, but it’s never easy, is it?
By the time I’ve dried my hair, put on new clothes, applied antibiotic cream to my worst cuts, and given up on makeup, I find Duff smiling at me as I enter the living room.
Uh oh.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
His look falters. “Wrong? Why would you ask that?”
“Because you’re smiling.”
“You take a person’s smiling face as an omen of bad news?”
“I do now.”
He laughs, the sound deep and free. These men. These protective, defensive, warrior men. Their emotions are origami, folded until they are cryptic, one thing on the outside but completely different when opened up in full.
“I am smiling, Jane, because I have something to show you.”
Silas trusts Duff implicitly. I’m trying.
“You do?”
“It’s in the hallway.”
My brow lowers, his behavior making me curious. “Is it a present?”
“You could say that.”
“Am I going to like it?”
“You’d better,” he says seriously. “It took a lot of pull to make it happen.”
What the hell does that mean?
I walk to the front door and open it, peering out into the hallway. It’s empty.
“Is this a joke?”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a single key on a purple carabiner clip. “No joke.”
“What’s that?”
“Come.” He leads the way and walks next door, to the right. Duff hands me the key. “Here.”
“Won’t the neighbor mind?”
“Jane,” he says softly, patiently. “You are the neighbor now.”
Maybe it’s the stress of everything that’s happened. Maybe it’s the afterglow from sleeping with Silas last night. Maybe it’s the fact that no one gives me what I want anymore, but I don’t understand him.
“Spell it out for me, Duff.”
“Drew and Silas got you your own apartment,” he enunciates, the words clipped at the end, his smile loose. “Open the door.”
“My own–oh!” Duff gently takes the key from me, puts it in the lock, and opens it. The apartment is an identical layout to Silas’s, and decorated in much the same way, the paintings and throw pillows slightly different.
“It’s furnished!” I gasp.
“Of course it is. All except the bedroom. For some reason, they don’t have a bed for you. Not a real one.” I’ve never heard Duff say so many words at once.
“I can sleep on the couch.”
“There’s a camping cot in there, instead. A new bed’s been ordered.”
“It’s really mine?”
“Yes, ma’am. Just cleared it all while you were in the shower.”
“Is that where Silas had to go this morning? Why he was in a rush?”
The open, friendly Duff powers down into closed-off robot mode. “I can’t say.”
The combination of my growing elation at having my own place and Duff’s sudden reticence about Silas makes my stomach drop and my breathing pick up. Ignoring Duff, I walk into the apartment. It’s bare, but mine.
All mine.
“I want to go shopping,” I say to him in a voice that makes it clear there’s no argument.
Duff stretches his arm toward the door in a gentlemanly gesture. I know it’s not driven by courtesy. He does it to make sure he can see out the door and scan the hallway for threats while simultaneously being the last to look in my apartment and make sure all is well. Nevertheless, it’s a nice, polite act and I appreciate it.
I tuck my new apartment key in my pocket with a delicious sense of ownership.
I have a place.
Silas and Drew gave me a place.
“Still want flowers?” Duff asks.
“Yes.”
“Then the plan is clear. The Thorn Poke now, then The Toast at one p.m. Plenty of time.”
“Plenty of time?” I ask as we take the stairs down, bypassing the elevator.
“Plenty of time to make your appointments,” he says smoothly, guiding me to a black SUV. Duff holds the door open and as I move past him, I smell spices, the kind cologne makers blend carefully to create custom scents.
Before I can ask him if that’s cardamom I smell, he closes the door. I’m entombed.
And then I realize we’re not walking.
“Wait!” I call out. “We can walk to the flower shop. That’s the whole point!”
Duff ignores me and starts the engine, catching my eyes in the rear-view mirror. “No, Jane. The point is to keep you alive and safe. And that means driving you.”
“But it’s only four blocks away! This is ridiculous!”
“Car bombings, shootings on the senator’s private land–those are ridiculous. Protecting you isn’t.”
“Is this an order? Did Silas make you do this?”
“I don’t officially report to Gentian.”
“Officially. You don’t officially report to him. Weasel words, Duff. Come on. Is Silas making you do this?
” One hand giveth, one hand taketh away.
Silence.
“But, Duff–” It’s useless to argue. Duff puts on his mirrored shades and pretends I don’t exist in the backseat.
Sigh.
Back to being an object.
No one says I have to be a silent object.
“Why do you seem so familiar, Duff?” I ask, overriding my body’s weird reaction to him. This isn’t attraction. Not one drop of it. And yet my arms and legs, my ears and skin, it’s all on edge.
“People say that a lot. I guess I have a face that got recycled in the great DNA dump of life.”
His answer is too smooth. Practiced. Like he knew this was coming and prepared for it.
“Where are you from?”
“Philly.”
“I roomed in college with someone from Philly. Your accent isn’t like hers.”
“Lots of accents around Philly. Besides, my parents weren’t from there.”
“Where were they from?”
“Boston.”
“You don’t have a Boston accent, either.”
“Well, Jane, you were raised by a Russian immigrant in Southern California and you don’t have a Russian accent or a SoCal accent. What’s your point?” He turns the car to the right like we’re moving on greased rails, but his eyes scan the horizon constantly.
And then it hits me.
“Do you... can you do an Irish accent?”
“Only when I’m starring in cereal commercials as a leprechaun,” he says dryly. “With a face like this, I have a moral obligation to work in Hollywood.” He points to his scar.
I don’t take the bait. “You sound an awful lot like someone I know. Only you’re using an American accent.”
It can’t be, right? There is no way Duff is my informant. Absolutely no way. All the blood rushes out of my head and right back into it, like someone picked up the car and turned me upside down, then right side up again. My neck starts to throb, the ache making me feel like my tongue is being ripped out of my throat.
I’m losing it.
I’m totally losing it.
“You said I looked familiar. Now I sound like someone you know. Which is it?”
“I’ve never met this person. Just listened to him,” I falter.
“On the radio?”
“Something like that.”
“I never talked to you before the day your car was bombed, Jane. I have no idea who you think I am, but it’s not me you’re looking for.”