Page 29 of Love at First Sighting

Carter

It’s really hard to look at my desk the same way again.

Of course, now it’s cleaned up and disinfected, and the only thing that truly remains is the little message El wrote on one of my Post-its for me to find later.

Get back to work

I keep it tucked in one of my drawers so I can look at it and blush a few times a day. Like right now.

“Would you say this is in-town transportation?” Toby asks, drawing me back into our lesson. Today we’re learning expenses. We’re currently working on Marcus’s parking receipts for meetings and events. “Or out-of-town?”

I furrow my brows. “Was it in LA?”

“Yeah.”

“So what does that tell you?” I ask.

“I don’t know.”

Hopeless . This is hopeless .

“In-town, buddy. We’re in LA.”

Toby happily nods and plugs the categories into the online form.

It’s a Wednesday, which means most of the senior agents—Marcus included—head to the dive bar down the road for what Brad likes to call Humpy Hour.

I gather it’s supposed to be a play on Hump Day and Happy Hour, but instead, he makes me wish I was never born.

I pass on it every week, to the point where they hardly bother inviting me anymore.

I don’t see much appeal in a bunch of middle-aged men smoking and complaining.

I imagine the conversations revolve around things like cars, football, or erectile dysfunction, which I don’t want to get into.

This week, though, I have some undercover work to do.

Since Saturday, I’ve been trying to come up with ways to get answers out of Marcus, or find out what he’s got up his sleeve. We still have some time before his meet-up with Ian, but it doesn’t mean the investigation has to stall. If I can cross him off the suspect list, it could save us time.

“Quittin’ time!” Brad whoops as he stands up. He stretches and his back cracks four times. Then he cracks his knuckles. Then his neck. Once he’s dislocated all his joints, he rounds his desk and raps on the corner of mine. I just really hate Brad.

“Little Tobes, you coming with us tonight?” he bellows.

Toby, like most sane people, seems afraid of his brother-in-law. I imagine the kind of Thanksgiving dinners they must have, which leads me to remembering Brad is married. Someone married Brad. Like, possibly willingly. “I don’t know. I don’t want to ruin your fun.”

“Nah, we gotta show you the ropes, man. Everybody has to play me at darts at least once,” Brad continues. “I beat blondie so badly that he won’t come out with us again.”

While Brad is not exactly wrong, I don’t think about losing that single game of darts nearly as much as he does.

“Actually, Brad ,” I say, rising from my chair and slipping my jacket on, “I am joining you tonight.”

As I make my bold assertion of the day, Marcus’s office door swings open.

Ever since I saw the gift he sent Ian and the note in his calendar, I’ve feared the person who raised me for half my life isn’t who I think he is.

It’s a churning in my gut, and I feel like I should follow the instinct, but doing that leaves me with nothing. It leaves me with no one.

Not like I’m writing home to tell everyone how loving and tender Marcus is, but at least there’s something .

“Marc, your boy’s coming with us tonight,” Brad informs him as the regular old guard closes up shop for the day.

I divert my eyes and rub the back of my neck.

“Really?” Marcus says. “Carter hasn’t come with us since—”

“I beat him at darts,” Brad interjects.

“I legitimately don’t think about darts nearly as much as you do, Brad,” I argue.

“I was going to say since he first started,” Marcus follows up.

“No need to get defensive, blondie,” Brad grunts.

“I don’t think about the darts that often, either,” Marcus adds, locking up his office.

“Sorry, boss.” Brad shrugs his jacket on with a hefty grunt and the agents begin to file their way out.

I dismiss Toby, shut down the computer, and end up walking side by side with Marcus as we exit.

He lights a fresh cigarette once we’re outside.

I was never averse to the smell of smoke.

It was the smell that came with each summer barbecue, sitting out by the deck with my dad and Marcus.

I’d savor my breaths of fresh air after the fact.

Then, when I moved in with him, it was as present as oxygen.

I pop a fresh piece of gum.

“What made you change your mind?” Marcus asks.

I shrug. “Figured I should get out more.”

“Really? That’s all?” he says with a laugh.

A shiver runs up my spine. I know I’m no master of subterfuge, but I figured I could manage something as simple as getting drinks at the bar without blowing my cover.

I was never good at it when I was young, either.

If I came home inebriated, I could never convince him I wasn’t.

Usually, he’d toss me a bottle of water and a box of crackers and tell me to get some rest.

“Yeah…”

Marcus raises his brows, and waits for me to come up with something different. Brad interjects, calling his name and urging him to the front of the crowd. Marcus taps me on the shoulder and pushes past me and the rest of the gang.

Bender’s Beer and Billiards can best be described one way: sticky. The floors, the tables, the bar. There’s a single popcorn machine in the back corner for customers to sober up with, along with several pool tables and, of course, Brad’s favorite: the darts.

I listen to the other employees grumble about how they hate their wives and can’t get laid.

They recommend hair regrowth shampoos for one another, and Brad tells them he has no problem growing hair, which I don’t want to hear.

Marcus, however, doesn’t partake. Instead, he’s a casual observer. He orders his go-to: a neat scotch.

Marcus has always been hard to read. I never knew if his momentary absent stares were disappointment or disinterest. After a couple of years on the job, I’ve learned his quietness is a tactic. He sees everything, keeps his cards close to his vest, and is unknowable, even to me.

I shed my jacket and find a seat at the bar, not sure where I’m going to fit in with this conversation. My phone buzzes in my pocket and I look down at El’s message.

El (6:23 pm): Oh good, Lea is trying to bring back #Kony2012 this week.

“What are you smirking at, kid?” Marcus asks, peering over my shoulder.

I don’t know what he saw, but I hope he didn’t notice the name of the person I’m texting.

I’ve kept her case open and pending until I have more concrete proof—something that doesn’t incriminate both of us—so I hope he doesn’t remember her name.

“Uh…” I stutter. “A meme.”

“What’s a meme?”

“It’s like an internet joke. Usually there’s a picture attached to it.”

“I see a lot of those Minion posts on Facebook. Is that a meme?”

“Uh…no idea, honestly.”

Marcus leans back on the bar and orders me a drink—the same as him.

Marcus was never oblivious to the fact that I was getting up to all kinds of teen debauchery, so by the time I was eighteen, he’d let me have drinks in the house while supervised.

Since I had no clue what good or bad alcohol was, I let him decide.

Now, six years later, he thinks my intention to impress him is a demonstration of my own tastes.

I shoot a text back to El.

Carter (6:24 pm): Thank god she’s on the job.

Carter (6:24 pm): Doing some undercover work tn. Call you later.

Even knowing there’s a conversation with El in the future makes whatever bullshit I have to deal with far more worth it.

I don’t know what to call us. I don’t think having illicit sex in the workplace or in the back of my car when I dropped her off really counts as a relationship.

I can’t stop thinking about the feeling of her nestled on my chest, promising she wasn’t going to leave.

On the days I don’t see her, we text most of the day.

I usually call her on my drive home or once I get back to the apartment.

She tells me about her day, who she had to shoot content for, what her followers are saying about her this week.

It seems like her sponsorships have stopped dropping her drastically, but she’s still trying to shake off the rumors and chatter about her UFO sighting.

“Cheers,” Marcus says, passing me my drink. This scotch tastes like wood chips but is still a lot better than Ian’s vodka. “Are you working on that case? The model girl?”

I nod. “Yeah. A little slow going, but—”

“It’s been a couple of weeks.”

I swallow. Some agents wrap up a case in a couple of days. Sometimes less. Cases are fluid, since it can take time to tell if a subject has quieted or not.

“Training Toby has been a lot, too, so I haven’t had the same kind of time. The Keurig broke three times this week. So…”

Marcus glances over at me, with a chuckle. “Do we have to upgrade to a Nespresso?”

“No,” I say, “because then I’d have to fix the Nespresso three times a week. I’m still digging on the case. Trying to figure out what this girl saw.”

“You might never know.” His voice has become frigid.

“I’d like to try. I know my last job didn’t go so well, and I want to prove myself. To you. To the rest of PIS. To my dad.”

At the mention of my dad, Marcus shifts and takes another sip of his drink. He only talks about my dad when he has to. Maybe it’s too painful. Sometimes talking about my parents feels like peeling off a freshly healed scab.

He clears his throat finally. “What I’m trying to say is sometimes you don’t get answers. I’ve got a handful of jobs in my back pocket that were never fully resolved. Jobs that circle back every now and then.”

“With her, it’s also hard to tell,” I continue. “You know how influencers are.”

“Not really.”

Okay, fair. “Well, sometimes they have elaborate posting schedules because of sponsorships and stuff, so maybe she has an alien post queued up. I’m not letting the ball drop, I promise.”