Page 29 of Watching Ames

“And that’s what you were hired to do. About me.”

“Yes.”

“Peter.” It wasn’t a question, her eyes burning with the same barely-restrained rage running through me at the mere mention of his name.

“His father,” I corrected, “though Peter was aware of it.” I had double-checked that fact pretty damn quickly once I’d set my eyes on Ames, wondering if the spineless fuck would bother sticking up for his girlfriend. He hadn’t, though I didn’t bother mentioning that point, not wanting to hurt Ames any further.

“Why?”

I sighed as I finally handed Ames her coffee, setting the sugar and oat milk on the counter but making sure to follow her movements as she added both. While I could track what she purchased, I had never seen her make her own coffee, the angles of the kitchen cameras not allowing for a good enough view to recreate it, but I was determined to know how she liked it for next time. After she finished, I pulled a few things out of the fridge, holding up eggs and the milk. “Pancakes?”

She nodded, and I started measuring out ingredients as I answered her question. “It’s a pretty common thing for high-powered men to do. When relationships get serious and they start thinking about marriage.” I cracked the egg too hard against the side of the bowl as I said the word, imagining Ames walking down the aisle toward Peter, but contained myself as I threw the egg away and cracked another with more restraint.

“They want to make sure that the woman isn’t a ‘gold-digger.’ That she doesn’t have any secrets she could be hiding that might affect the man’s status. Especially true if she’s dating a senator’s son, who also happens to be an aspiring senator. We don’t usually take petty jobs like those, but the Senator is a powerful man, and we figured it would be smart to have a business connection with him.”

Ames watched as I poured the batter onto the small, built-in griddle on the gas range. I was suddenly thankful for choosing to install the range into the island, allowing me to watch Ames as I cooked for her. So I could watch her impatience grow stronger as I flipped a few pancakes, until she finally broke.

“So you found me at the coffee shop.” She made a motion with her hands, urging me to pick up my story where I left off. I thought back to that day, lips curving against my will as I remembered meeting her eyes for the first time.

“Dev had something else to do that day, I don’t remember what. I just remember I was annoyed because I had to do field work. Dev had devised the money-dropping trick, figuring if you were only in it for the money you might keep the money or make a move on me, in my designer suit and watch.” I watched her eyebrows raise in disbelief and held my hands up to defend myself, “I know it sounds crazy, but you’d be surprised at how often that works. Cuts our work down by quite a bit.”

“But it didn’t work on me,” she reminded me with a haughty raise of her brows, coffee held tightly between her palms as she brought it to her lips for a sip.

I shook my head, trying to focus on anything but her tongue as it darted out to clean a drop of coffee stuck to her lower lip. “No, it didn’t. So we had to go deeper. I delved into your personal history and social media. Of course, nothing came up except for Bex, and Peter was already aware of that. We had thought that would be enough to appease Peter and his father, but he insisted on cameras in your apartment, to make sure you weren’t cheating or hiding anything shady. Or it might’ve just been a power play, flexing his power by forcing us to do unnecessary work. It happens sometimes with these types of men.”

“And?” I flipped a few pancakes onto a plate, passing them to her across the wide island countertop before making my own plate and sitting down next to her.

“And you know the rest. I met you that first day, and you were…interesting. You were beautiful and funny and ordered me that drink, but you were taken. I did all the basic searches for abnormal money exchanges or secret debt and found nothing and thought the job would be over and I’d never see you again. But then they insisted on the cameras…and I started watching you. At first, it was just for work, checking in between jobs to look for anything suspicious. I do this kind of stuff all the time, and it never phases me. Butyoudid. I couldn’t get you out of my mind. The job finished but I couldn’t stop watching you, checking in on you. Everything I told you was true. You got so sad after your fight with him, and no one was there to celebrate your success, and that just wasn’t right to me. And then once I sent those flowers, I just couldn’t stop.”

“And meeting me at the concert?”

“I actually went with Wren. She heard I had gotten you tickets and was jealous. She took so long getting ready, we were almost late. Walked right in just as the opener started.” I rolled my eyes and let out a chuckle at the memory, recalling her shrill voice when she found out I had sent tickets for Ames and Bex to go seeThe Living Dead. I ended up buying two more tickets as repayment for all the help Wren had given me with Ames’s bouquets and the gift basket. “Plus, I wanted to watch you enjoy the concert. I honestly hadn’t planned on talking to you again until I saw you walk back up into the venue. I was worried, so I followed you, finding you almost crawling around on the floor looking for your phone. After that, all bets were off. I wanted to be near you, spend time with you. I couldn’t give you up.”

“So you bought me a house.” Her voice was subtly unnerved, almost as if she were trying not to laugh at the absurdness of this situation. She dragged another piece of pancake through the syrup puddled on her plate, stuffing it into her mouth as she waited for my answer.

I shrugged, not sure quite how she wanted me to respond. Yes, I had bought her a house,ourhouse. I had bought it months before, already planning on buying a house for myself and then immediately bidding on this property once I saw it. It had been everything that reminded me of Ames: modern and earthy and just dark enough to pique her interest. Renovations had finished weeks ago, save for the few minor things I’d felt compelled to add after our conversation about her dream house. Luckily I had already met most of the criteria; a rainfall shower and some garden beds easy to install after the fact.

“I just wanted you to see all your options before moving in with him.”

Her lips twisted as her eyes narrowed, as if she were trying to see into my soul and read my intentions. It would be hard to do, since I had a pretty impressive poker face, which was what got me into business with shady characters in the first place, but also because I was telling her the truth.

Finished inspecting my face, Ames hopped up from her stool, rounding the island as she began washing her dishes. She held one up in her hand as she asked, “And these?”

I smirked, watching as she inspected the set of custom plates I ordered from her weeks ago, eyes flicking up to mine when I responded, “I needed plates for the house.”

She just rolled her eyes and gestured for my plate, washing it quickly and setting them both on a dish towel to dry.

“You need a drying rack,” she noted absentmindedly, before coming back around the island to settle back next to me. “You still have cameras in my apartment, right? Let me see.”

With some reluctance, I pulled out my phone, showing her the field of security camera footage that mapped out her small apartment. She pointed to the one in her bedroom, still showing the aftermath of her fight with Peter, paint congealing in clumps on the sheet she’d laid down to protect the carpet, the roller sitting feet away from its tray. “Disable that one.”

I made a few clicks on my phone, the bedroom camera blinking and fading to black as I disabled it. “It’s disabled, but I can always re-enable it. If you want to take it out, it’s hidden in your ceiling fan.”

“Okay, then I’m going to head home.” She got up from the table, looking around for her keys as if our conversation hadn’t phased her at all.

“Home?” I asked numbly, not following. She didn’t cry or yell or hit me, didn’t make any claims that she would never speak to me again. She hadn’t even requested I disable every camera in her apartment, just the one in her bedroom.

“Yeah, home. Peter is gone, as we saw from the cameras, and it’s time for me to go home and figure out what the fuck I’m going to do with my life.”

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