“What the hell, Quinn? This suit is Italian wool,” he said, stumbling in after her. She pressed him behind her, placed the palm of her hand against his mouth and looked back toward the patio.
Julian’s hand circled her wrist and pulled her palm away from his mouth. But at least this time he whispered. “Is this a stakeout? Are you on a job?”
The brick wall behind him meant they had little space to maneuver, and when he pressed closer to peer over her shoulder, the space shrunk even further. “Are those people terrorists?”
“Yes,” she lied. He needed to shut up so she could hear what her parents were saying. “They’re dangerous terrorists, so if you don’t want to get blown up, you’ll be quiet.”
Her mom stood and stared down at her dad tensely. Her dad held his hands up in a placating gesture like he was calming down a snarling animal.
Oh, this did not look good. Their voices raised, but she still couldn’t make out what they were saying. Oh yeah, the bug! With Julian’s interruption she’d completely forgotten to turn it on. She pressed the spot behind her ear which held the listening device she’d attached that morning. Their voices came in clearly. But then, Julian shifted behind her, and his hand settled at her waist. It was late fall, but the chill in the air suddenly disappeared and his nearness nearly broke her concentration.
“Lehi, move aside. I want a better look.”
His voice sounded a little shaky, but that might have been her imagination. He smelled like heaven, and his hand scorched hot through her light jacket.
“This is my investigation, Julian. You don’t need a better look.” There. That came out perfectly normal. “And stop touching me,” she hissed.
“You touched me first,” he said. “Wait, isn’t that your mother?”
Quinn let out a heavy sigh and ignored him.
“Are you following me?” her mother demanded.
“What? No! Of course not. I’ve done exactly what you asked. I’ve stayed away. From you and from Quinn.”
Her mother crossed her arms. “I know she called you, six years ago.”
Quinn blinked in surprise. She’d never said anything.
Her dad’s voice didn’t waver. “Well, then you should know we didn’t talk long, and I told her we couldn’t speak again.”
Karyn cleared her throat but didn’t challenge him on the call. “Even so, why are you here?”
“I have a meeting. It’s just business.”
Julian leaned down to whisper in her ear, “I always knew your mom was sketchy.”
She snapped around, how dare he—
But his grin was gently teasing and a little smug at having gotten to her.
“What? You said she was a terrorist. If that’s not sketchy I don’t know what is.” His shoulders shook with repressed laughter.
“I just wanted you to shut up,” she retorted, wiping the smugness from his face. “I still do.” Quinn turned back to her parents. Oh, no. Since his potential “business partner” hadn’t shown, he looked more and more guilty of following her mom, and her mom pointed that out as she eyed him with distrust.
Julian refused to be ignored. “A lot of women would be quite happy to have me whispering salacious things to them in a dark secluded space.” Her breath caught as his thumb circled at her waist and his breath tickled her ear.
“You aren’t saying salacious things. You’re saying ridiculous things.” She meant to sound stern, but her words came out less steady than planned.
“Disappointed?” he whispered.
Her parents both stood, breaking her out of the foggy embrace. For a minute she’d forgotten he was just messing with her head.
“Julian! You need to get in there and talk to my dad.”
“Talk to him? What about?”
“Business stuff. She’s going to leave suspicious if no one shows!”
“You mean just make stuff up?”
Before she could shove him out, she realized she’d missed her opportunity. Her parents left the café in awkward silence, the sound of their footsteps quickly growing faint as they left the proximity of the bug she’d planted. Poking her head out to see the street better, she saw them separate in opposite directions. Her mom looked back—once—then strode off more purposefully until she was out of sight. Well. That was that.
She turned to glare at Julian. “You almost ruined my entire investigation. As it is, I missed several parts of their conversation.”
“Are you actually investigating your mom? What’s she done?” he asked, propping his back against the wall and crossing his legs. How did he manage to look like he was lording over an executive board meeting while standing in a bunch of shrubbery? A leaf clung to the arm of his coat, and his hair was slightly disheveled. He’d never looked better.
“She hasn’t done anything.”
“Then why are you spying on her? Come on, Lehi, you know you want to tell me. Confide in your old friend.”
Quinn groaned, running a frustrated hand through her hair. What did it matter if she told him? He was right. She wanted someone to talk to, and she’d not been completely comfortable discussing this with her best friend, Riya. Riya was also an agent, one who worked directly under her mother. Knowing what Quinn was up to would put Riya in an uncomfortable position with her boss.
Quinn relented and told him all about her efforts to get her parents talking again. She left out some of the grayer aspects of her digging, like use of UNID resources, and ended with the meeting today.
Julian listened without interruption and without laughing at her naïveté. She knew it was a child’s dream to want her parents to be happy and together. But she wanted a happy ending for her mother. She wanted a whole family.
“I get it.” The soft expression on his face was usually reserved for Serah. “When my parents divorced, I thought about nearly every conceivable way to try and convince them to get back together. First, I tried the perfect son approach: straight As, all-American rowing team, the whole nine yards. When that didn’t work, I was bad. I got into fights at school, figuring if they had to go to parent-teacher conferences, at least they would be there together. But”—Julian rested his hands on her shoulders—“I had to learn the hard way that them being together wasn’t going to be fixed by me. They had to want it for themselves. And they didn’t.”
Quinn swallowed hard, trying to ignore what he was saying. She looked away from his intense gaze.
“Lehi…Quinn,” he said, bringing her gaze back to his with a gentle nudge under her chin, “you have to let them figure this out on their own. You can’t manufacture love.”
His warm hand brushed against her face, and she wanted to snap back that she could do whatever she set her mind to do. What did Julian know about love? But she also liked the way he was looking at her right now, and the way his hand felt against her skin. Then an image of his perfect, runway model of a girlfriend popped into her fantasy and she took a quick step out of reach.
Julian looked unsure of where to put his hands, and that more than anything was enough to fully snap her out of her daze. Julian didn’t look uncertain. Ever.
She pushed her way out of the bushes with Julian close behind her. He had collected a few more leaves so she set to plucking them off. He picked at one that had landed on her shoulder and then snagged one from her hair. The moment grew quiet. Neither of them wanted to broach the tense conversation they’d just left.