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Score one for mission intel. I’d been the one to come up with those details while helping them prep for the op, so I couldn’t help but bask in the glory a little.
The guard’s body relaxed. “Can’t say I disagree. What’s your business here? If you’re visiting the penthouse floor, why are you on floor eleven?”
Elvo blinked. “Well, that’s the problem, see. I decided to take the stairs—you’d be surprised how little time I get for my own workouts when I’m training my clients—but I lost count of what floor I was on. I saw the number one and exited the stairwell, but now I see it’s eleven, not one, and dang if I can’t remember where the stairwell is. This place is like a maze trapped inside an escape room, bro.” He flashed a goofy grin.
“Too much,” I whispered under my breath. Hux nodded. The tension returned to his shoulders.
The guard’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t tell me your business.”
“Personal training. Mrs. H. gets worked out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at seven. Usually she works with Tony, but Tony had a rough night last night after we all went out for our buddy Samir’s birthday. Big three-oh, so we gave him hell, you know? Stayed out way too late, though.” Elvo shook his head and laughed. “Just wait till Samir learns what it’s like when your body can’t handle late nights anymore. Thirty. Fucking baby.”
I grabbed Hux’s arm and squeezed. “The trainer’s name is Tommy! Oh God. The guard is going to kill him!”
Hux hissed the correction through the mic, but Elvo didn’t react. The man was damned good at his job.
Finally, the guard’s face loosened into a small grin. “No shit. Wait till he hits forty. That’s when your warranty runs out.”
The guard kept talking as he led Elvo toward the elevator bank and down to the lobby. Hux and I watched with wide eyes, waiting for the moment the guard would turn on him.
“Do you think he knows that lady’s personal trainer enough to remember his name?” I asked my worry out loud.
“No way to know,” Hux murmured. “But he’s not going to kill him, Kev. You watch too many movies. Apartment building security guards aren’t usually trigger-happy madmen. The most he’ll do is ask him to leave and escort him out. Which is what we want.”
I started to pull my hand away from his arm when I realized I was shaking with nerves. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this kind of high-stakes work.
“Hey,” Hux said with a frown, turning his eyes away from the monitors to glance at me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, of course,” I said, faking a smile of reassurance. From the way Hux’s eyes widened, I must not have done a good job of it.
Elvo’s laughter came over the speakers. “Home free, my dudes. Thanks for the help. That deserves an iced coffee and a giant piece of cake. Driver, take me to Dough!”
Considering his driver was Jordan, I wasn’t surprised to hear a faint “Fuck off” over the speaker before the comms disconnected.
I let out a breath and forced a tiny smile. “Good. It’s all over. Well, until tomorrow.”
Hux swiveled his chair around and took my hands in his. His skin was warm and dry, and his grip was strong. “Your hands are shaking.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled the sandalwood deodorant smell I’d come to associate with him, the scent that sent my heart skittering around like a shiny metal pinball shot into play in an old-fashioned machine. When I was around Hux, sometimes it really did feel like there were chimes and lights, nervous anticipation of some kind of high-stakes payoff. If only the ball stayed on course, if only I could use the paddles to keep it in play a little longer.
Hux’s hands moved to my face.
“Kevin?” he asked softly, his thumbs stroking my cheeks. I could hear the worry in his voice, and I attempted to pry my eyes open. I knew that every second I spent hiding behind my eyelids was more proof I wasn’t up for this challenge, wasn’t cut out to be on the team, and I didn’t want him to think I was weak, but—
“You know, the first time I managed comms on an op like this, I threw up?” he said conversationally. He laughed lightly. “Oh, I was fine while it was going on—running a translation program so my guys in the field could talk to their informant in Dari, monitoring surveillance feeds, the whole nine. And then the team finished their extraction, got back to the plane, went wheels-up… and I spent the next fifteen minutes praying to the porcelain gods. Just blurghhhh. Sometimes adrenaline hits late like that, you know? Totally normal.”
I peeked at him through my lashes. “Yeah?”
“Oh yeah.”
“But you didn’t get overwhelmed while the mission was still happening, did you?”
