AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dess did as I asked and sank back into her chair, watching me type with open curiosity. “This’ll work like your facial recognition searches?”
“Exactly. Although it’ll probably take a lot longer for the app to complete the search since it has to check every kind of image it can dig up, not just ones it recognizes as containing faces. But I can leave it running in the background for however long it takes.” I finished the last commands and sat back. No trouble at all.
We sat there for several minutes, both of us braced in case an immediate result came up. When nothing happened, I glanced at Dess with an apologetic twist of my mouth. “Like I said, it could take a while. It’s obviously not a very common symbol if we haven’t found anything right away, but I guess we already could have guessed that.”
She let out a discontented hum, her forehead furrowed. Watching her, the constricting sensation came back into my chest.
I couldn’t imagine what she was going through with so many unanswered questions and so few leads left. I couldn’t think of a single way to ensure we got the answers she longed for or to fix the trust the people in her past had damaged so thoroughly.
But maybe that wasn’t up to me. Maybe she could just use a chance to let some of those emotions out.
“How are you doing?” I asked, nudging the computer aside. It’d notify me if anything popped up, and watching wouldn’t make the search run any faster.
Dess’s gaze jerked up to meet mine. “Me?”
A gentle smile stretched across my face. “Yes, you. You’ve had your whole world upended in the last week. How are you hanging in there? I can’t even imagine how tough it is, even for someone as tough as you.”
The corner of her mouth twitched at the compliment. Then she sighed. “I don’t know. How I am feels like such a complicated question now. I hardly know who I am.”
She paused, and I didn’t rush her. When she spoke again, the words came out in a rush. “I do know that I’m grateful for everything that you and the rest of the crew have done for me. Nobody has ever been here for me the way that you guys have. You’ve welcomed me into your home and done everything you can to help me find answers. It’s just even with all that, the sense of how much of my life is still a mystery won’t stop gnawing at me. I don’t like having all these questions hanging over me with no way to answer them.”
“That makes sense,” I said. I didn’t have any way to hold the gnawing at bay either, though. I made a face at my laptop as if that would encourage it to spew out some results.
But there was one thing I’d been able to offer Dess before that might help now—if not in a concrete way, then at least to allow the time to pass more comfortably.
I stood up again. “It’s hard to focus and come up with ideas when you’re all tense about the situation. There’s nothing else we can do to dig into the problem right now. Why don’t you unwind a little?”
She raised an eyebrow at me. “Like how?”
I grinned. “I happen to know a TV show you’re very fond of.”
Dess couldn’t suppress the eager spark that glinted in her eyes, even though she made a show of muttering, “Oh, all right,” as she got up. I ushered her over to the sofa and motioned for her to sit down. Then I hustled over to my main computer setup to start the next episode streaming to the TV. I’d already downloaded the entire three seasons that’d aired, as well as a long-lost Christmas special I’d managed to dig up.
There wasn’t much that made Dess really happy, and she deserved all the joy I could provide.
By the time I’d returned to the sofa to the theme song of Spy Times, Dess had relaxed right into the cushions. She stared at the TV avidly, a little smile playing with her lips.
I’d meant to watch the show with her, but the truth was, I wanted to watch her more. My gaze kept sliding back to her no matter how hard I tried to concentrate on the goofy storyline.
It wasn’t really her looks. Yes, she was beautiful, from the dark locks of hair that tumbled down her back to the toned muscles and curves of her body honed by years of training. Even her slender but strong hands, capable of ending a life in an instant, fascinated me. But none of those things were what drew me in the most.
There was a stillness to her that I’d never been able to reach myself, a sense of inner certainty and confidence even in the middle of the storm her life had become that called to me like a beacon. I admired the same qualities in Julius, but somehow Dess exuded them even more than our commander.
Just sitting next to her, I absorbed a little of that calm. Her presence grounded me more than anyone I’d ever known. My knee didn’t bounce and my foot didn’t jiggle with the urge to stay in motion as I studied her. I could slow down and sink into the moment in a way that so often eluded me.
And here in this space, it was hard to imagine that anything but the woman sitting across from me mattered at all.
That last thought hit me squarely in the heart. I hesitated, feeling it out.
I didn’t just admire her. I was falling for her.
But what difference did it make if I was? I’d made a few flirty gestures in the past, and she’d demonstrated very emphatically that she wasn’t open to those kind of overtures… from me, anyway. I could still vividly remember the clamp of her hand around my throat. I didn’t want to push her into feeling she had to defend herself from me ever again.
A laugh burst out of Dess at a particularly comical scene, and she glanced over at me to share the amusement. I chuckled too, though I wasn’t totally sure what the joke had been because my attention had been so much on her. But she didn’t appear to notice my distraction. Still smiling, she turned back to the TV.
A swell of resolve rose up inside me. Being her friend might be the closest I’d ever get to her, and that meant it’d just have to be enough.
