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“And I’m supposed to make him behave himself. Did you not see him scatter my mother’s parting gift across I-405?”
Gray ignores me. “If you’re by yourselves, don’t sayanythingbut ‘more water please’ or ‘non parlo italiano’. Assume everyone is a member of the press trying to get a sound bite. And if someone on the street recognizes him, make a prompt and graceful exit. When in doubt, kiss, smile, and get the hell out.”
“Just like that, huh?”
“Is that a problem?”
“Have you ever gotten paid to kiss a stranger?”
“Not since his gigolo days,” Victor croaks, pushing his hood out of his eyes. “He had a monster dick but they fired him because he thought dirty talk was telling someone how to do their taxes.”
Pretending he didn’t hear, Gray takes my phone off my knee and types into it. “That’s our emergency security line. We don’t anticipate many problems in Italy, but we’re always prepared.”
He gets up, giving Victor a warning look and disappearing into the chamber of important people at the back of the plane. Victor yawns and stretches like a little kid, then crawls out of his nest and flops into the seat facing mine. He strokes a long finger along the lines of my notebook. “Good boy doing his job.” There’s a nasty smile in his sleep-thick voice.
On the far side of the cabin, the evening sun burns orange through the windows. It’s time for Mom’s herbal tea. I left instructions for Ana but she can’t call me if she has a question.She’s a caretaker, of course she can make tea.
“You know what?” I pitch the notebook across the cabin, watching the pages flap and scatter. “Who fucking cares. Just leave me alone.” I lean my head against the wall and try to fall asleep.
There’s a pause so long I think he left. “This is about the cookies, isn’t it?” He sounds weirdly proud, like he came up with an insightful observation. He has the emotional intelligence of a piece of tree bark. “They have cookies in Italy, you know.”
“Will you fuckingstop. I don’t give a shit about cookies.” When I open my eyes, I see that he’s propped one of his black and gold sneakers against my seat, directly between my legs.
“Why are you such a loser?” he asks conversationally, bouncing his heel so my whole seat wobbles. “I looked at your dating profile. There isn’t a single interesting thing about you.”
“I don’t have time to be interesting.”
“Why not?” He focuses on picking a loose thread out of his hoodie cuff.
“Some people have to work for a living.” Sick of the jiggling, I grab his shoe and hold his foot still.
He doesn’t look at me, but the corner of his mouth twitches up. “Don’t touch me. Some people have interesting jobs.”
“I was going—”
When I stop, he glances up. “You were going to what?”
“I’m not telling you a single thing about me.”
He stretches the thread tight and bites it off. “If I picked a boyfriend, he wouldn’t be boring. We’d have all kinds of secrets and lies.”
“He sure as hell wouldn’t be with you for your personality.”
He hesitates a split second. “Obviously not, with an ass like mine.” Putting his foot down, he leans forward and grabs a fistful of my hair, using it to turn my face to one side and then the other. “I’ll keep you for now, but you’re going to have to figure out how to entertain me.”
Since I can’t touch him, I just stare at him until he lets go. “Are you really him?” I ask, studying this manspreading puddle of athleisure in front of me. “Are you reallytheVictor Lang?”
His eyes look so tired. “I ask myself that all the time.”
Victor
I guess I doze off in the seat across from Ethan, which is weird because I can never fall asleep unless I feel safe. When I jolt awake out of a bad dream, he’s still across from me, watching a movie on the fold-out TV. I don’t want him to look at me, so I pull my hood down over my face and curl up in my seat, folding the hem of my shirt around my fingers again and again, threading my finger through a small hole, making it larger.
“Supper, gentlemen?”
Ethan’s eyes widen when the stewardess offers him a crab salad; I think he expected cardboard trays of sludge. I shake my head when she tries to serve me.
When she offers drinks, Ethan asks for a rum and coke. He should be careful drowning his sorrows on a plane. He still looks pale and queasy.
