Page 22 of Riggs
She leans into her seat and looks at our hands like she can still feel it. “Maybe sounds like a yes.”
I give her a half-smile. “Maybe once or twice I’ve thought about what it would be like to be yours.”
Her breath catches, and her cheeks tinge pink. “Oh,” she says all sorts of breathless. “Maybe I’ve thought about it too.”
Pride swims through me at a rapid pace, and I smile, trying my best to think about the mission and nothing else.
But it’s nearly impossible with the most beautiful woman in the world sitting in the back of this SUV with me.
There’s moredrizzle at the airport. Does it ever stop raining? We take the staff lane to ticketing, cut behind a wall of advertising that sells things nobody needs, and hit PreCheck like ghosts with boarding passes. Handholding reads like entitlement in an airport, which buys you a different kind of respect. It also keeps people from stepping into your soft spots.
Rae: Lounge is quiet. Gate C5 has two long lenses. Gate C3 has one kid filming for clout.
Jaxson: Sent decoy posts to a burner that “you” forgot to delete. Enjoy the chaos.
My phone buzzes again.
Dean: Use the cover. Keep tight circles. Send me a plate if you see that white van’s cousin.
Copy.
We sit in a corner of the lounge with our backs to a wall disguised as Scandinavian wood. She peels her sunglasses up into her hair, and orders a ginger ale. I take coffee. A barista drops two cups on our low table with a smile too big for this hour. I tip well enough that she’ll remember that and not my face.
Vanessa wraps both hands around her cup. Something in her shoulders drops a notch. “I forgot what boring felt like,” she says, almost to herself.
“Boring is underrated,” I tell her. “Boring gets you home.”
“And home is the point,” she says, eyes on mine. The space between us shortens without either of us moving. I let it. For a second.
She pulls the coffee sleeve down to check the logo and goes still. That hairline shift you learn to read if you live in rooms that can tilt. She doesn’t bolt. She slides the cup toward me with two fingers.
The sleeve has been cut and re-glued so clean most eyes wouldn’t see it. Underneath: a strip of paper with block letters glued on.WINDOW LEFT, GINGER ALE. SEE YOU OVER THE ROCKIES.
My body goes quiet in the good/bad way. I hold it up and snap a picture, and then slide off the sleeve to bag it. Vanessa’s voice is steady when she says, “Only one person calls me Ginger Ale.”
“Kellan?” I ask. She nods, not looking away from the table.
“Kellan Stevens,” she says, and the way she says the last name is like she’s trying to forget everything about him. “Photographer. Ex. On and off too long. Charming until he wasn’t. All the ways. He liked that I was ‘on’ all the time because he could live in the light without earning it.”
“How long ago?”
“Three months,” she says. “Final-final. I blocked him. He sent flowers to my building and left a playlist on my car. I moved my car to a garage. He…went quiet.” She swallows. “He knows I drink ginger ale if I’m anxious. He knows I like to sit in the window seats and count clouds.”
I’ve heard this story with different names and fewer syllables in places where playlists were the last nice thing a man did. I key my mic. “Rae, spin up a full on Kellan Stevens. Former photog. Ties to brands. Pull travel, socials, purchases, associates, devices. Look for overlap with Caleb, our sponsor rep. Run him against yesterday’s Pine Street craft store pulls.”
Rae doesn’t ask why. “On it,” she says. “Name’s familiar. Give me five.”
I watch Vanessa watch the cup. She’s not trembling. She’s not breathing right either. “Four by four,” I say, and we do it in silence. In, hold, out, hold. Four times. The buzz in my blood drops to a hum again. Hers does too.
“You okay?” I ask.
She nods. “I’m angry.”
“Good,” I say. “Anger we can work with.”
She nods again, jaw tight, then softens enough to give me a sideways look. “Are you jealous?” she asks, a thread of wicked in it.
“I’m focused,” I say. “Jealousy is a waste of a hand.” I lift mine. She threads her fingers through anyway. My focus tilts and finds new balance. “But if he’s our guy, he’s about to learn something about lines.”
