“Briefly.”
“Good. Nice lady. She has two cats and pet sits for pretty much everyone in the building. She even bakes homemade cat treats. You can ask her anything. She’d love to help.”
I nodded. A cat whisperer across the hall sounded like exactly what I needed.
“For supplies, you’ll want to go to Sammi’s Grocer, which is three blocks west of here. They’ll have everything you’ll need.”
“Do they allow cats in backpacks? Because I’m pretty sure if I leave Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants here alone, he’ll scream down the building.”
“Maybe.” Gage glanced over my shoulder at the cat. “I’d go to the store for you, but I have to shower, put on a suit, and get across town for a business dinner in an hour.” He looked at me again. “Take him with you. When you get to Sammi’s, ask for Janie. She’ll escort you and help you find everything you need. You can tell her I sent you.”
I wondered about Janie. The name made her sound cute. But the woman he’d been dating up until Thanksgiving weekend was named Melody. And whoever Janie was to him, she wasn’t his date for the “wedding of the season.” And none of it was any of my damn business anyway.
“Janie. Got it. Thank you.” I took a deep breath, just as he’d suggested. I felt calm for the first time since I’d strapped the twenty-pound cat onto my back. Maybe it wasn’t so bad having a good neighbor, after all. “I don’t know why I got so overwhelmed. I’m not usually like that.”
Thank god, because if I were, I would have been long dead by now, given the nerves of steel required by my job.
“Not a problem. You and Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants will be fine, right?”
“Yes. Thanks again,” I said warmly. “And I’m sorry you have to work on a Sunday night.”
“It’s no big deal,” he said. “Roxy Energy is taking me out for a lavish dinner and overpriced drinks in the hopes that we can do business together next year. I just have to eat, drink, and listen to some boring value propositions. It’s not a very tough gig.”
“Oh.” My hands and feet went numb. Fortunately, my years of training kicked in, and I maintained a neutral expression. Not asking. Not interrogating. Laying low. Blending in. “Well, have a good evening.”
“You, too. And if you need anything”—he pointed to his door—“I’m just a knock away.”
I closed my own door, leaned against it, and slid to the floor. I looked at Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants, who was silently smooshing his face against his clear bubble. If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve said he looked concerned. He had good reason to be.
Roxy Energy was a front for some really nasty players on the international stage. I hadn’t gone up against them directly, but I had used my dazzle-and-distract schtick to steal some top-secret data from a Russian oligarch known to associate with them. That made Roxy Energy friends of my enemy, and they were wining and dining my neighbor. The neighbor in the building that X and the agency had approved for me to live in.
Even a covert agent who’s been in the business less than a year knows there are very few coincidences in the world. Old-timers like me know there arenocoincidences. That meant my holiday vacation was BS, and X was setting me up for something. Sometimes that’s just the way the spy game is played, even by your own side.
I pulled out my phone and texted X, who texted back almost immediately.
Roxy Energy + my neighbor???
You are NOT on an active operation. Lie low. Do not engage.
Again with thelie low? And now an addeddo not engage? I couldn’t allow a civilian living right next door to me to naïvely stumble into danger. With or without X’s blessing, I was going to keep an eye on Gage Halifax. It wasn’t such a hardship, given how fun he was to look at.
No. I shook my head. Six A was a possible mark, which made him totally unsuitable for a hookup, no matter how tempting a holiday fling, even though he was so smart and sexy. And kind. He was also kind. God, I imagined he was generous in bed.
“Damn it,” I said out loud, and Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants shrieked. “Okay,” I told the cat. “Okay, we need to take care of you. We’ll go see Janie at Sammi’s Grocer and get all your supplies. Then we’ll come home and get you settled.”
Then, I would find a way to protect my sexy neighbor without engaging.
CHAPTER 3
GAGE
Monday had been a shit day full of long meetings, family emails about the logistics of my mom flying in for Christmas in a couple of weeks, and ribbing texts from my fellow wedding attendants about how I was now considered the groomsman most likely to lose the wedding bet. Then I got caught in a downpour on the ride home, and I had to walk my bike for the last two blocks because the streets were so slippery.
I was soaked to the skin by the time I entered the apartment building through a side entrance. I dragged my dripping-wet bike up the five flights of stairs and across the carpeted hallway, leaving water in my wake. Mrs. Welby would have a fit if she found out, so I hoped it dried quickly. Inside my apartment, I stood on the doormat and peeled off my wet clothes, then carried my bike to the spare bedroom that served as a home office on one end and an in-home gym on the other. I set up my bike in its trainer, then pulled out towels from the guest bath closet, using one to dry myself and a second to wipe down my bike.
By the time I was finished, I was shivering, so I hopped into the guest room shower and stood under the steamy water until I was warm again. I used a third towel to dry off and wrap around my waist since all my dry clothes were in my bedroom at the opposite end of the apartment. I grabbed a fourth towel to gather up my wet clothes from the front mat and transport them to the guest bathroom, where I hung them to dry.
Great, now I’d have to do another load of laundry this week to deal with all the towels I’d amassed. Mondays really could be a bitch.
