“I know,” I said, because I did. Jackson had secrets of his own—we all did—but he understood the weight of the ones I carried. Had never once pushed for information I wasn’t willing to give.
The bathroom was still thick with steam, the mirror fogged except for the clear patch where Jackson had wiped it. Outside, Billings was coming awake—the distant sound of traffic, the occasional shout from the street below, normal Friday morning noises that had nothing to do with the mission waiting for me or the man standing in front of me.
I moved before I could talk myself out of it, stepping into Jackson’s space and fisting my hand in his damp hair. He went still, his eyes on mine, waiting. I tilted his head back until we were looking directly at each other, close enough that I could feel his breath on my face.
“What?” he asked, the word barely more than a breath.
What moved across my face then wasn’t desire, though God knows that was there too—a constant, humming presence whenever Jackson was near. It was something rawer, closer to anger: at the mission, at the timing, at the fact that I was very good at my job and my job required me to walk out of this room in the next ten minutes.
I kissed him hard enough to say all of that without saying it, my free hand coming up to grip his jaw, holding him in place. He made a small, surprised sound against my mouth, then his hands were on my waist, pulling me closer as he kissed me back with equal force.
I could feel him going taut against me, his body responding to mine the way it always did—immediately, completely, like we were tuned to the same frequency. His towel slipped lower, and my hand moved from his jaw to his chest, feeling the rapid rise and fall of his breath, the steady beat of his heart under my palm.
I pulled back before either of us lost the thread entirely, my hand still in his hair, his still on my waist. We were both breathing hard, the small bathroom suddenly too warm, too close, too much.
“I should go,” I said, not moving.
He nodded, his eyes still on mine. “Probably.”
Neither of us moved.
The moment stretched between us, charged with something I wasn’t ready to name. Outside, a car horn honked, the sound oddly distant through the fogged window.
“I’ll be back,” I said finally, the words coming out rougher than I’d intended. “End of the month, probably. Maybe sooner, depending on how things go.”
He nodded again, his expression carefully neutral. “Okay.”
I took a breath, then asked the question that had been sitting in my chest since the night before: “Can I text you? Just to talk. While I’m gone.”
I kept my voice deliberately even, like it didn’t matter what his answer was. Like my lungs weren’t frozen, waiting for his response. Like the thought of two weeks without any contact—without knowing if he was thinking about me, if he missed me, if he was counting the days until I came back—wasn’t making it hard to breathe.
Jackson’s eyes widened slightly, surprise flashing across his face. “Yeah,” he said, the word small and a little surprised, like the question had caught him off guard. “Yeah, of course.”
Something in my chest loosened—relief so sharp it was almost painful. I kissed him again, lighter this time, because I was genuinely delighted and couldn’t help it. His mouth curved under mine, that not-quite-smile becoming a real one as he kissed me back.
When I pulled away, he was looking at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read—something between curiosity and wonder, like he was seeing me for the first time.
“I should go,” I said again, and this time I meant it. I had forty-five minutes to get to the airport, check my bag, get through security. Any longer, and I’d risk missing my flight.
Jackson nodded, stepping back to give me room. “Yeah.”
I moved past him, through the bathroom door and into the main room, where my bag was waiting by the door. I grabbed it, slinging the strap over my shoulder with practiced ease, then turned back to find Jackson watching me from the bathroom doorway, the towel now secured firmly around his waist.
“Be safe,” he said, two words, nothing remarkable.
They followed me out the door, down the hallway, into the elevator. They sat beside me in the taxi to the airport, whisperedin my ear as I handed my ID to the TSA agent, echoed in my head as I made my way to the gate.
Be safe.
As though he cared whether I came back in one piece. As though my safety mattered to him. As though I was something more than a convenient fuck, a weekend distraction, a body to share a hotel bed with when the timing worked out.
I found an empty seat at the far end of the departure terminal, my bag between my feet, and stared out at the tarmac where my plane was being fueled.
In my pocket, my phone weighed nothing and everything, Jackson’s number saved under a contact name that was just his initials—the same way I saved all my operational contacts, as though what we were doing was just another mission.
Maybe it was. Maybe that was the problem.
I thought about the bracelet on Jackson’s wrist, the seeds in the wooden box, the way he’d looked at me when I’d asked if I could text. Thought about the fact that he’d said yes—had seemed almost surprised that I’d wanted to—and wondered if that was enough. If it would ever be enough.
