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I wonder where he’s going.
Maybe home to the lake. He’s a brave little fly, daring to go where no one else dares go…
I tilt my head and look at him, then decide he needs eyebrows.
No, flies don’t have eyebrows, but my fly isn’t a realistic insect, he’s a cute, child-friendly version. He’s adorable, the kind of cute little fly guy you can see going off on big adventures as he grows up in this big, unusual world.
“What’s that you’re drawing?” Calvin asks.
I hold up my notebook to show him. “Isn’t he cute?”
He smiles faintly. “He is.”
I put the notebook back down on my lap. “I think I’ll call him Eli.”
“That’s a nice name.”
I nod. “I’ve always liked it. Maybe if we have a boy we could name him Elias and call him Eli. I could paint a mural on the wall in his bedroom.”
Calvin shakes his head, which surprises me. At first, I think he hates the name Elias, but then he says, “A boy is out of the question. Cutler men are too much trouble.”
I choke on a burst of laughter, but then I realize he’s serious. “Oh. Oh, honey. You do realize you can’t dictate the sex of our baby, right?”
Disinterested in that take on reality, he swipes his phone screen without even looking up. “We’re having a girl, and that’s that.”
I shake my head at him and go back to my sketch. Eli needs flowers to make his area prettier, maybe a bossy little bee friend named Isabelle.
I’m engrossed in my sketching, but I can’t help noticing when I see Calvin reach into his interior suit pocket and pull out a phone.
It wouldn’t be alarming… except his phone is sitting on the seat between his legs.
He has two phones?
Why would he have two phones? It doesn’t make sense that it would be a work phone. He has been doing work—or saying he is—on his regular phone, and to be honest, it doesn’t seem like Calvin has such a buzzing social life that he requires one. He has friendships for when he needs them, but it doesn’t seem like his need to be social extends very far beyond that.
Covertly, I watch him. He’s not on it for long. He waits for the phone to power on before sending a message. He waits for a response, and then sends another. Once he’s finished, he tucks the phone away in his pocket and resumes whatever he was doing on his main phone.
I could pretend I didn’t notice—he probably didn’t expect me to, given I was otherwise occupied—but curiosity compels me, and hedidsay he wanted honesty from me.
“Was that a second phone?”
He glances over at me, surprised I’m paying attention. “Yes,” he answers simply.
“Is it a work phone?”
“Not precisely.” When I just frown at him skeptically, he offers more of an explanation. “It’s a burner phone. When I communicate with certain people who don’t want their cellular activities to be traced, we communicate on burners. I had to wait until we were back in the city though, because even a burner can be traced by approximate location, and since we were out of town today, it would be very easy to deduce I sent the message.”
My frown deepens. “Are you doing something illegal?”
“Constantly.”
My eyes widen. “What?”
He cracks a smile at my panic. “I have a kidnapped fiancée, don’t I?”
I roll my eyes. “You know that’s not what I meant. Why do you have to communicate on a burner phone if you’re not doing anything sketchy?”
“I’m doing something very sketchy, that’s why the details won’t be communicated over a phone at all. Don’t worry about it,” he says, nodding at the notebook he clearly wants me to shift my attention back to. “I’m smart enough not to get caught.”
