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My heart leaps and all the things I want to say to him surge to my lips. But I stuff the words down and pull myself together.
I’m going to come clean about what I heard…eventually. But not yet. If I fess up too soon, he might not take me to the safe house with him, and I’m not about to run that risk. Not only am I keen to spend the night alone with Matty, I’m also dying to see what a safe house looks like. I’m a sheltered woman who lives with her grandmother and has never had so much as a parking ticket (despite my horrid driving skills). This is likely the closest I’m ever going to come to real life intrigue, and I intend to soak up every moment of it.
“Phone calls go okay?” I ask in a voice that’s remarkably cool considering how exciting all this is.
Matty looks up, turning his phone face down on his thigh as he says, “Yeah. Though I’m still not sure where we’re headed next. The place I was hoping to stay isn’t available.”
Doing my best to hide my disappointment—there goes my chance to see a real live safe house—I ask, “Do you want me to look for a hotel or something?”
He shakes his head. “No, I have a couple irons in the fire. We might just have to be—” He’s cut off by a chirping sound from his cell. “Sorry, I should check on this. I might need to call someone.”
I back toward the counter. “Of course. I’ll wait for our food and meet you outside.”
“Thanks,” he says, standing and starting for the door.
At the counter, I collect sugar packets for the coffee, my thoughts buzzing.
“Big night planned?” the waitress who took my order asks as she unloads the dishwasher, setting squeaky clean glasses in a row on a brown tray.
I smile. “No, not really.”
Her pale blue eyes crinkle at the edges. “Are you sure? You remind me of my kids on Christmas morning.”
I bite my lip, trying to get my smile under control and failing miserably. “I kind of feel like a kid on Christmas morning.”
“Girl, I would too if my boyfriend looked like that,” she says with a laugh.
“Oh, he isn’t my boyfriend,” I say as she turns to collect the to-go boxes the cook just slid into the order-up window.
She turns back to me with a wink. “But he will be. When he first came in, he was super worried until I told him you were in the bathroom. And he’s been watching you through the window for the past few minutes.”
“Yeah?” I ask, my smile widening. “He’s watching right now?”
She nods and slips the boxes into a bag with a rope handle at the top. “Oh yeah. He’s got it bad. Mark my words, you won’t be single much longer. I mean unless you want to be.”
“I’m kind of over being single, actually,” I say. “If I never scroll through another dating app again, it’ll be too soon.”
“Preach, sister.” She pushes the bag across the counter. “I hate those things. I miss the old days, when we got dressed up and flirted with boys at the local watering hole, as nature intended. If I ever break up with the guy I’m dating now, I’m going to make my girlfriends go out on weekends again. Something’s gotta give, you know? The new normal is just too weird to be normal forever.”
She’s so right.
The new normal is garbage in so many ways. And I bet Matty’s “normal” is pretty crappy, too. It must be hard to meet women or form lasting attachments when he’s up to his neck in spy secrets. He clearly isn’t allowed to tell anyone about his job. If he were, Melissa would have had more than suspicions about his real line of work. She’s the family member he’s closest to, and she’s totally in the dark.
That must have been so hard for him.
As I leave the waitress a generous tip and collect our food, a wave of empathy floods through me. Poor Matty. He’s surrounded by a big, loving family, but he must still have felt so alone. So misunderstood.
It makes me want to throw my arms around him for a big hug.
Instead, I come to stand beside him under the awning outside, lifting the food into the air between us. “My mission was successful. How about yours?”
“It’s a mixed bag.” He sighs, his lips pressing tight together for a beat before he adds, “But the good news is we have a place to stay, where no one is going to think to look for us.”
“Okay, that sounds promising,” I say, secretly crossing my fingers that we’re headed to a safe house, even if it’s not the one he prefers. “And the bad news?”
“The bad news is it’s a couples retreat.” Sliding his hand into his jeans pocket, he pulls out his wallet, fishing beneath the carefully folded bills for a moment before pulling out a gorgeous diamond ring. Meeting my gaze again, he adds, “For married couples in crisis.”
“We’re going to have to pretend to be married?” I ask, so delighted it’s becoming hard to play it cool. “And in crisis?”
