“All right, so let’s just walk through this one more time.” Maddox dropped his voice. “We’re taking this all the way through to Brest, then we cross the border into Poland and we take the train to Warsaw.”
“And when we get to Warsaw, we burn the second passports.” I sighed and leaned back. “Why is this so elaborate? Why couldn’t we just get someone to come get us with the plane?”
“Wouldn’t have been able to get clearance. Not even Nelson Powers could have done that. We also had two women who were walking out of a Moscow jail with questionable papers as it was. Just a little bit of deception goes a very long way.” Maddox looked out the window as lights of the train station started to roll by. “They don’t check the passports at the train border nearly as well or thoroughly as they do at the airport. It’s easier for us to sneak out this way, without having to pay for and register for an airline ticket. There’s a lot more that goes into faking those.”
I nodded. “I can understand that.”
The train jerked, and started to speed up.
“We’ll pull into Brest at about ten in the morning or so.”
“Still shouldn’t check our phones, right?”
“Mine is off,” he said. “It’s been killing me not to check until we reach Poland, but they can track them. I thought that once the women were on the plane…”
“No, that’s not smart, because we’re still lying about who we are.”
It was quiet a moment, then I spoke up again, “They’re bringing food at eleven?”
“Late evening snack, whatever that is.”
“We should fill out the breakfast requests, shouldn’t we. Is it all included?”
He chuckled. “You’ll get used to having money eventually.”
Oh. I forgot. I was now lightly wealthy. The money in the bank account had grown with each tour stop and I found myself gaping at it on my phone before all this happened.
Maddox leaned back on the headrest with his eyes closed. I thought he was going to take a nap or what not, but he spoke without moving. “I’m unbelievably glad you answered that stupid ad, Aaron. So freakin’ glad.”
“Me too,” I answered, earnestly. “I do want to get my PhD in chemistry someday, but I’ll hang on as long as you have me here.”
He nodded. “Da, rwyt ti’n dda i ni.”
“Welsh?”
“Ie.”
I leaned my head back and watched the dark country outside of Moscow start to really race by as we picked up speed.
Two months ago, I was pinching pennies and trying to make sure that we had a rotisserie chicken to cut up into the ramen Mel and I bought by the pallet. Now, I was sitting on a Russian Railway train, as the drummer of Robot Servant, on a mission to get two of the members of the GaGaGirls trio out of the country, safely.
And.
Maddox had kissed me.
I’d had stage kisses before. Hundreds, really. Ones that were just for show. I’d had real kisses too, hundreds of those.
Not a single one of them had felt like the one he’d given me standing on the edge of that stage, in front of God, His angels, and 50,000 Muscovites.
I’d pushed it aside because I had to. I knew we had to get those women out, and our plan had to go forward.
He’d kissed me.
It had been so fucking real.
It was probably just the wishful thinking of a fanboy.
Maddox
