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“It wasn’t a date,” I tell her, doing my best not to think of what exactly getting it on with Ham would entail. “There was nothing date-like about it.”
What would it be like?
What would it be like to push Ham against the white-board at the front of the room, pulling him down by the purple tie until he was at my level, and then kiss him until we both run out of air?
Or at least until one of us does—which would be him, because I’ve done considerable underwater training. Still, it would be a pretty long kiss.
I blow out a shaky breath. This is bad. This is very bad. I shouldn’t be thinking about kissing anyone in the middle of a briefing, especially not the agent in charge of making sure the team stays alive. In charge of keeping me alive.
“It definitely wasn’t a date,” I say to Alessia in a low voice.
“So you said. Want to try one more time to convince yourself?”
Maybe, if I were truly friends with Alessia, I could talk to her about the awkward silences with Ham and what to do about them. From what I hear—and yes, the NIIA is ripe with gossip at any given day—Alessia changes her male companions as often as I get new tech from Ida in the lab, which is fairly often.
Not that there is anything wrong with that. There’s not.
It’s just, sometimes, I wish I could attract men as easily as Alessia does.
Or understand why they don’t say a word when you run into them in the elevator, which is what Ham did just this morning. And once again, it looked like he was about to say something…only he didn’t. He only smiled, and my stomach did a traitorously flop.
This is so very bad.
Tyler and Nick—Alessia’s my respective partners—join Perry and Declan grouped with Ham at the front of the room. It’s so easy for men to be friends. If either of them went on a movie-date-that-isn’t-a-date with Ham, not one would be asked about their intentions.
“When’s the last time you’ve been out with a guy?” Alessia presses, not bothering to lower her voice.
Do Nick and Tyler talk about the last man they went out with? Or woman? No, they talk about the Blue Jays and beer and the different scars they have on their body. That sounds a lot more enjoyable than what I’m enduring.
“I know you were with that friend of your brother’s, but that’s over, isn’t it?” she continues.
Luke. My very least favourite subject these days. “Definitely over,” I agree, a little more vehemently than I need to. But Luke and I should never have started, never become Lottie-and-Luke, but what can you do when the guy you’ve had a crush on since you were a kid finally notices you? It was the stuff of romance novels—until it wasn’t.
“Yeah, well that’s what happens when you pick a regular dude,” Alessia says. There’s not an ounce of sympathy in her tone, just matter-of-fact don’t do it. “Because they can’t handle us, you know?”
Yeah. I know.
Being an agent for NIIA is the only thing I’ve ever known. My grandfather, Seamus Dodd, created the organization with Ham’s uncle and Pierre Elliott Trudeau, and he recruited me as soon as I was eighteen. Three of my brothers—Caleb, Declan, and Perry—were already working for them. I started gymnastics when I was three, karate when I was seven, and rock climbing when I was nine. Granddad Seamus took me to the rifle range for my thirteenth birthday. I was encouraged to play sports, enjoy sparring in the five types of martial arts that I was skilled in, and observe as much as I could. Languages came easy for me and by the time I was fifteen, I was fluent in five.
None of this seemed strange to me since my brothers had been through the same thing, but when I said goodbye to my friends after school because I had to run to some extra-curricular activity or another, there was sometimes a moment of regret that I couldn’t hang out at the mall with them.
Because of this, I didn’t meet many guys, regular or otherwise, and not many who I wanted to handle me—except Luke.
And Ham.
I have no clue what I want. He’s my handler, so technically he does handle me, but not in any way that Alessia means, because we’re just friends and also because he’s my handler—
“Charlotte?” I don’t realize the others have taken seats until Ham calls me because I’m still draped over the back of my chair in conversation with Alessia. Or at least deep in thought because of her questions. “Are you ready to begin?”
These meeting rooms feel like classrooms, which doesn’t bring back a lot of good memories, especially when I’m called out for talking by the teacher.
Even when the teacher is Ham.
“Yep,” I tell him, turning away from Alessia. It’s not a hardship watching him at the front of the room. Some men should live in a faded pair of Levi’s, some should stick to a pair of workout shorts to show off their legs; Ham should wear a suit all the time.
I force myself to look at the map on the screen rather than Ham; it shows Russia and the surrounding area, with two countries highlighted.
Two newly created countries, both with nuclear capabilities. It’s a scary thing, and since the UN dragged their feet, we’re being sent in to check things out. It’s what we do. When legal acceptable actions aren’t allowed, in go the agents of NIIA.
