After Sasha returns to the museum—looking down at the ground her entire way, so she never even notices me—I wait under the eaves of the building for her to come back out. But after a while I get cold and antsy, so I slip inside and take a seat on a bench near the stairs so I can catch her coming down.
Two hours later, I’ve done all the crap I can think of on social media, watched a few YouTube videos, and I’m just about sick of looking for new music to buy when she finally makes an appearance. I stand, smiling, waiting for her to notice me. But she’s got her hands full with a box and her head is still down.
She walks right by, tipping her hip into the door to make it open, and then disappears into the dark evening with a swoosh.
Hmmm.
I follow her out¸ surprised to find she is already at the stoplight. I jog over to her and reach for the box in her hands. She drops it, whirls around, and delivers a chop to my neck that almost has me choking.
“It’s me,” I say, half laughing, half gasping for air. “Whoa, calm down, killer.”
“Dammit! Don’t sneak up on me.” And then she looks down at her overturned box and lets out a groan. “Now look,” she says, picking up some broken piece of pottery. “The only real thing I had up there is broken.” She takes a deep breath and leans down to pick her things back up, but I beat her to it.
“Sorry about your”—I squint at the pottery—”damaged Chia Pet.”
She laughs a little, but only a little. “I’m not going to dinner with you, OK? That kiss was out of bounds and I’m an in-bounds kind of girl. So you screwed up.” The light has changed so she grabs the box out of my hand and starts walking across the street. I follow her, grabbing her umbrella out of the box, and since she doesn’t have an extra hand to hold it up herself, I push it open and hold it over her head.
“What the hell are you doing? I said go away.”
“Hey, no man would leave a lady to carry a box in the freezing rain. So you can let me carry the box and you can hold the umbrella, or you can carry the box and let me hold the umbrella. Choose, Sasha Cherlin.”
“It’s Aston, OK? And I just want to be left alone. So fuck off.”
I smile, still walking with the umbrella over her head, and then I laugh at her outburst. “OK. We’re making progress, Miss Aston. You are letting me in on your feelings. Which means you’re softening to my wily techniques.”
She rolls her eyes but I catch a slight grin.
I put a hand on her shoulder, asking her to stop. She does. But she looks at the ground. “Please, Agent Jax. Just leave me alone.” And then she looks up and I realize she’s on the verge of tears. “I’ve had enough and I just want to go home.”
“OK.” I nod, my face somber like hers. “OK. But I’m still gonna walk you there. So one more choice today, killer, and then you can put this day to bed. Box? Or umbrella?”
She stares down into her box and doesn’t answer. So I do the only thing I can. I take the box in one arm, the umbrella in another, and slip that arm around her shoulder so it can keep her covered while we walk.
Her body tenses up when we make contact, but she lets out a sigh and accepts my offer to walk her home in the rain, leaning into me a little as we start on our way.
“Bad day?”
She says nothing, so I take the hint. We stay like this all the way to her house a few blocks away. It only takes a few minutes—much too fast for my liking—and then we are climbing the steps to her front porch.
I set the box on a small table off to the side of the door, and then fold the umbrella away as she unlocks her fortress. I even have a moment of hope that she will invite me inside. But instead she opens her door with a shove of her hip and then reaches for the box without looking at me. “Thank you,” she says in a small voice that tells me this is no ordinary bad day. “I appreciate the help.”
I nod as she sets the box down inside and makes to close the door. But I stop her with the folded umbrella. “Hey,” I say. She looks up at me with blurry blue eyes. “I’m happy to listen if you need to talk.”
But all I get is a shake of her head, and then she grabs the umbrella and closes the door before I can say anything else.
I wait there for a second, maybe hoping she’s peeking through the peephole, still thinking about the man on her porch. But I hear the beeping of her alarm and then footsteps as she walks away.
There’s a lot on her mind tonight. But it isn’t me.
So I jog down her steps and walk back to my car. Madrid is in there. We’re a team again, it seems. She knows this can be a career-making case, she’s in for the teamwork.
I open the driver’s side door and slip into the rental car.
“Damn, boy. You’re wet!” She scoots away from my dripping coat and presses herself against the passenger door. “Anything?”
“Nope,” I sigh. “You wanna eat?”
“Eat?” she says, scrunching up her face in a way that makes her upturned nose crinkle. “We are on a deadline. We ain’t eatin’. We’re gonna work.” Her thick Southern accent comes out when she’s annoyed. And it clashes with her fake, trashy persona. She comes off as half streetwalker and half gang member, but over the past few months I’ve gotten to know her a little better. Madrid Marano usually talks like she came straight out of Brooklyn, but she is from Savannah, Georgia. A real Southern belle from a family that has been in the Agency for three generations.
Which is funny if you compare us. I’m actually from Brooklyn, but lost the accent when I took my first assignment down south in Miami.
“She’s having a bad day, Madrid. It’s not a good time to move this forward.”
“We don’t have time for good times,” Madrid says, her voice rising a little. “You’re a man. A somewhat attractive man. If you like blue eyes and blond hair. Which I don’t,” she says, her hand on her chest like she needs to clear this up right now. “I like them dark, understand. So don’t be all accusing me of inappropriate conduct when I have to turn you down ’cause you’re hot for me.”
I just shake my head. She’s always on this kick about how desirable she is and how I secretly lust after her.
“So get your move on, boy. You need a plan to seduce this girl into helping us. We have no time for pansy-ass, pouting girls and pussyfooting, ’fraidy-cat men who don’t know how to get a job done. Get your game on, Jax.” She opens her door, steps out, and then leans back in, dripping water everywhere. “I’m going back to the apartment to check footage. You wrap this shit up tonight and we’ll reconvene in the AM. Madrid out.”
And then she slams the door and walks away.
Fucking women. I sigh as I start up my car.
Moves. I have moves, but Sasha Cherlin doesn’t look like she takes kindly to moves. Plus she had a bad day. I need to make sure I don’t add to it, or it will set us back further.
“Well,” I huff, pulling away from the curb. “Just take a play out of yesteryear, Jax. Treat her nice and let the chips fall where they may.”