RAVEN
The Russian agent came out of nowhere. He had on a suit and tie. A dapper little fuck with the motherland’s flag pinned to his lapel. I pulled the trigger. Missed. He had Roman in a chokehold. They were moving so fast, and I risked shooting Roman instead of the agent, but I had to gamble. I shot. Commie blood splattered everywhere.
“Thank you!” Roman said from next to me.
“I owe you one from the Mauritian Islands mission.” I blasted through a line of guys. “Give me cover, I’m—”
“What’s that smell?”
Beer and farts would have been my answer five minutes before. The basement of the video-game-themed restaurant reeked of men triggering dopamine responses, which I totally empathized with, because there were things I didn’t want to think about right then, either. Space was bought by the hour, not including food. For that you could play whatever video game you wanted either with a friend, a stranger who put their name on the board, or alone without anyone bothering you. The waitresses were specifically instructed to leave the food and go away.
Ours had left a burger, a chicken sandwich, and fries on the table between us, and the smell cut through the stale air.
I snapped my rifle back into the mount. My head was immediately blown off.
“Damn Russians! Take that!” Roman greased the guy who shot me and put his own gun down. “Vengeance is sweet.” He turned his chair to the little table and kissed me. “You should play with Teagan some time. She’s a real assassin.”
“You keep saying stuff like that.”
“Like what?” He bit into his burger as if he didn’t have a single thing on his mind.
“Like, ‘oh, at some future date this or that should happen.’”
“Mm-hm?” He picked up his glass, pushed the straw out of the way, and washed down his burger with his Coke.
“It’s Sunday night.”
“So?” He put his glass down and picked his burger up again. I picked up a fry. My appetite for a shitty chicken sandwich had gotten shot out of frame.
“So we’re in the office tomorrow. Together. And this was a weekend-only deal. Remember?”
He took another bite, which was completely infuriating. One, it delayed his answer while he chewed. Two, how could he eat at a time like this?
“I mean, I guess I should just appreciate it,” I said as much to myself as to him, “but you’ll excuse me if I’m not exactly jumping for joy.”
He grunted around his burger again. I threw down my French fry.
“We’re going to go back to your place,” I continued, “fuck a few times, and then what? You dropping me home tonight or tomorrow morning? And how am I supposed to feel? Well, I know what I’m supposed to feel. I’m supposed to feel nothing. But, duh to no one but me, I couldn’t have spent an entire weekend with you if I felt nothing.” I paused. Roman was looking at me in shock. He’d stopped chewing, but his mouth was still full. I shoved my tray away. “Obviously, you don’t have any feelings about it.”
I walked out. He could pay the fucking bill. I couldn’t look at him.
I didn’t know where my fury came from. Maybe from built-up aggression related to not being able to have a relationship outside work when the only men I ever met were at the office. Maybe it was from serial disappointments over everything. Maybe the fact that this stable forever job was turning out to be unstable in a completely different way.
Maybe I just wanted him to like me as much as I liked him.
I jabbed at my phone, walking fast so I could get as far away from the video game restaurant as possible. I’d have the Lyft driver meet me at the next corner, once I got past all the bars on Santa Clara St.
He was a test. He was a test of my commitment to my goals.
Goal number one. Stability.
Men came and went. Sex could be had for the asking. But a stable job was all I ever wanted and it was all I ever risked.
“Jesus.” Roman’s voice came from behind me. His hands were on his knees and he was out of breath. “You run…so fast…paid bill and…” He pointed back the way we’d come. “Thought you’d…toward Market but…”
I would have run again but the car was meeting me on that corner.
“Roman.”
“Wait.” He straightened up, arms out. “You did all the talking.”
The light across Almaden changed and packs of people crossed, getting between us. We were shoved and separated. I went through to meet him off the corner, in a little patch of empty concrete.
“You’re right,” I said with the intention of doing even more of the talking. “You saved me from a stupid decision. It was a weekend for a reason. I’m sorry. I lost my priorities for a minute. I like you but I’m not losing my job over you.”
A black Kia with a light in the windshield pulled up and rolled down the window.
“Yeah…no.” Roman said. “I had food in my mouth. That’s not what I was trying to say.”
“Raven?” the Kia driver called. She was blocking traffic.
“My Lyft’s here.”
“Do you really think I’m going to turn into a pumpkin at midnight?”
I opened the door. “The chariot turned into a pumpkin, not the prince.”
I got in and closed the door. Roman leapt up and stuck his head in the front window, where the driver had called out.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, and I’ll know what’s under your suit.”
“I’ll know what’s under yours, too. But it won’t matter.”
He winked at me, the little shit. He was wearing a Henley, but that wink was all tailored suit and French cuffs. It was shiny shoes and expensive cologne. That wink was the confidence that I’d see him on Monday and fall into his arms.
Well, he and his stupid ego-holeness were in for a big surprise.