Page 11 of Riggs
Vanessa
Seattle does this thing where the rain is more of a whisper than a storm, like the sky is confiding in you. By the time we drop our bags in the room and regroup, the drizzle has turned the city lights into watercolor. The hotel lounge glows with amber lamps, velvet booths, a little stage with a trio tuning up, and a dance floor that looks like trouble for two people pretending to date.
Riggs does a slow scan before we even cross the threshold. It’s subtle: a shift of his shoulders, eyes taking in exits, sight lines, the couple necking in the corner booth, the bartender polishing a glass without looking down. He’s in a charcoal button-down now, sleeves rolled, beard trimmed to temptation, earpiece a small black dot that means he’s still working no matter how soft the lighting is.
I tug at the cuff of my blouse as if that will steady my pulse. “So.” I aim for light and land somewhere breathless. “We’re doing this?”
He tips his chin at the hostess, already moving me with a hand at the small of my back. “We’re doing this,” he says, voice low and calm.
Our table’s near the dance floor, far enough to see the room, close enough that the band’s stand-up bass thumps through my bones in a slow, confident heartbeat. The hostess leaves two menus; the bartender catches my eye and nearly drops a shaker. Recognition travels like a wave—subtle, then not.
I slide into the booth. Riggs takes the outside seat like he always does, body angled to keep the room in frame and me inside the curve of his arm. The move is practiced, protective…and it reads intimate. I feel heat climb my throat. We’re supposed to be the couple everyone’s whispering about. The internet already decided we are. All we have to do now is make it convincing.
“Ground rules,” he says, not looking away from the room.
“You and your rules,” I tease, grateful for the familiar script.
“Saved your life so far,” he says. Then the edge softens. “One: we sit with good sight lines. Two: if a fan approaches, I’m the boyfriend unless we need to pivot. Three: you eat real food.”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
“You live on adrenaline and iced coffee. Not tonight.” He flips his menu without reading it. “Protein.”
“That’s bossy,” I say. It comes out warmer than it should.
“It’s protective.” He finally cuts me a side look. “I can be both.”
An ache curls low in my stomach. The server appears before I can answer, and I order a whiskey sour because it sounds likesomething a woman pretending not to be nervous would drink. Riggs orders coffee, black. Of course.
When the server leaves, I lean in, my voice dropping to that just-for-us register. “Are we going to talk about the fact that I told a stranger you’re my boyfriend? Or the fact that you kissed me in an airport because it was the only way to get me out alive?”
His jaw ticks. “Which part do you want to talk about?”
“All of it,” I say. “Some of it. The part where you didn’t exactly hate it.”
That gets me half a smile, quick and dangerous. “We’re using the cover,” he says. “Dean’s call.”
“That’s not a denial.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.”
My drink arrives. I take a sip for courage and nearly moan because it’s perfect—lemon bright, bourbon warm, the froth sweet on my tongue. Riggs watches my mouth like he’s memorizing. Heat crawls up my neck.
“Tell me something true,” I say, because deflection is my favorite game and because I want to know him outside commands and corridors. “Not about security. About you.”
He takes his time answering. “I like early mornings,” he says. “Before the city has opinions.”
“That’s poetic.”
“Don’t tell anyone.” He takes his coffee like a challenge and sets it down. “Truth for truth. Your turn.”
“I wear ridiculous socks on travel days,” I confess, lifting my cuff to show teal with tiny croissants. “For luck.”
His mouth twitches. “You think luck wears cotton.”
“I think luck likes being invited.”
He shakes his head as if I’m an unsolvable equation he likes doing anyway. The band eases into something sultry. A couple slides onto the floor, bodies tucked close enough that the air between them disappears.
