Page 46 of The Angel and the Agent

“Sold into slavery,” she finished the sentence for him. “Is there any scenario on this entire continent where that’s not your imagined worst possible ending for me?”

“There is one more that keeps me up at night. I do all the hard work of getting you safely to the embassy, and then your boyfriend shows up with a ring and sweeps you off to a wedding.”

“Piedmont doesn’t like the idea of flying over the ocean,” she said.

“Why? In first class they’ll give him another fluffy robe,” he said.

“You have to let the robe thing go.”

“I’ve never worn a robe in my life. There are robe men, and then there are not. I am not,” he said.

“You barely wear pants, Becket. If it were up to you, you’d wear boxers everywhere.”

“No, I very much wouldn’t. I would be al fresco, as God intended.”

She groaned and put her hands over her ears. “That’s way, way too much information for our level of friendship.”

“You’d better get used to it because eventually these clothes are going to come off in your presence, and you’ll be lucky if I ever put them back on again,” he warned.

“Don’t let my mother hear you talk like that. She has explicit ideas about how ladies and gentlemen should talk, especially in mixed company.”

“When am I going to meet your mother?” he asked.

“Didn’t you meet her at the wedding?”

“Yes, but that was in my capacity as Ridge’s groomsman. I need to re-meet her in my capacity as your special friend, wink, wink.”

“You don’t say wink, wink.”

“I just did,” he said.

“No, I mean you’re supposed to wink, wink.”

“That’s what I did. Amelia, look.” He pointed to his eye and winked. “Wink, wink.”

“Ethan, look.” She pointed to her eye and winked twice. “See, the words aren’t necessary. You don’t have to narrate everything your body does. No one says ‘breathe, breathe,’ or ‘swallow, swallow,’ or ‘walk, walk.’”

“What else can you teach me about life, smart girl?” he asked, leaning against the tree and smiling at her.

“So many things. I don’t know where to begin,” she said.

“You might as well start now. This is going to be a long day of waiting,” he noted.

“I’m guessing you’ve had more than your share of those,” she said. When he nodded, she continued. “What did you guys do to pass the time, back in the day?”

“We talked.”

“About what?”

“Women mostly,” he said. “But also other random things. We shared stories, opened up, spilled our guts.”

“Let’s do that,” she said.

“You can’t plan to do it. It happens naturally.”

“That’s because you’re a man.”

“Thank you for noticing; I’ve been working hard at it,” he said.

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