“Because I wanted you to see my face when I promise you that I’m not letting this bastard touch you.”
Both women study him long enough to make sweat bead along his hairline. They have that effect on people separately; together they can be overwhelming.
Then Priya lets out a huff of air that might be laughter. “He needed to see our faces, Mum. We’re family; he wants to make sure we’re okay.”
Deshani’s snickering isn’t what brings the blood rushing to his face, but it doesn’t help.
He can’t say she’s wrong.
The next morning, Eddison brings fresh donuts and sits on the couch with a stack of paperwork while I Skype with my tutor in France. Despite everything else going on, I’m actually on top of my assignments, and the tutor is confident I’ll be able to fold into a normal classroom without too much difficulty come fall.
Mum and I discussed trying to graduate early, here in the States, and starting university in the fall, but that felt a little like cliff-diving: exhilarating in theory, maybe not the most sensible way to live your life. The school my tutor is partnered with has a lot of international students, so they have a good support system in place for kids struggling with the transition to all French, all the time.
When I’ve gotten in enough work to feel virtuous—and Eddison has drunk half his body weight in nonhotel coffee—we bundle up to head out to chess.
“You walk this every day?” he asks.
I shake my head, waiting for the light to change at the intersection. “I average out to three times a week. Just whenever I feel like it.”
“Any pattern?”
“I tend to skip Tuesdays; they’re popular for doctor appointments.”
Eddison nods, silently repeating the words, and it’s like I can almost see him writing it down in his little mental notebook. As much as he lives out of the Moleskine in his back pocket, he really does try not to whip it out as a part of normal conversation, even when it involves a case.
It’s warm enough today that my heavy coat isn’t necessary, cold enough that the hoodie over a long-sleeve tee isn’t quite doing the trick. I still have my scarf wrapped around my throat and tucked down under the zipper, with gloves and hat and boots in place. But it’s mid-March in Colorado, and it’s finally starting to feel a little like spring.
He has the photos that I took from chess, but he wants to get a feel for the men themselves. Specifically, though he hasn’t said it, he wants to get a feel for Landon.
Happy hails me from halfway across the parking lot. “Blue Girl! Come play me! I’ve been losing!”
Eddison snorts softly beside me.
Shaking my head, I walk up onto the grassy island and greet everyone. Gunny is asleep, the sides of his face covered by the flaps of a hat I’m pretty sure I saw Hannah knitting last week. Landon is down at the opposite end, where he tends to hover. Gunny doesn’t quite trust him, I think, but won’t tell him to leave. “This is my friend Eddison,” I announce. “He’s in town for a couple of days.”
Eddison nods, looking a bit menacing in his long tan coat. Somehow, the neon-green scarf isn’t quite enough to ruin the look.
Pierce scratches at his nose, looking Eddison up and down. “Cop?” he asks finally.
“More or less.”
Several of the men nod, and that’s about as far as introductions go. The photos I emailed had captions with names so far as I knew them, and while names like Yelp and Corgi and Happy aren’t especially helpful, they were something to start on.
I sit down across from Happy so I can hear the conversations start back up. Eddison prowls around the tables, looking down at the games in progress. I guess cop (more or less) is enough like veteran to establish rapport. No one looks at him twice, really.
Except Landon.
Landon fidgets, more than usual. His eyes dart around as if to see how everyone else is taking the intrusion, and he drops almost every piece as he tries to move it. One of the rooks drops so hard it leaves a dent in the board, despite the felt padding on the bottom.
As Eddison settles onto the very end of the bench next to Landon, he strikes up an easy, comfortable conversation with the other men. It’s interesting to see the agent side of Eddison, when he isn’t tap-dancing around a child’s sensibilities.
They talk about neighborhoods and safety, and I don’t think they even realize how much they’re telling him about where they live and what’s going on around them. He invites introductions from them, garnering last names without any apparent effort, and makes them all laugh with stories from physical training at the FBI academy, which they try to top with boot camp escapades.
Landon is again the exception. He doesn’t offer his name—not even his first one, though it’s already been said by one of the others—and he doesn’t look away from the board the entire time they’re talking neighborhoods. Eddison takes note of whenever Landon flinches, and I’m willing to bet he has a map of Huntington ready to mark up with possible areas for Landon’s residence.
Without any overt intimidation, Eddison has Landon absolutely terrified.
It’s a little worrisome, actually, because yes, Landon is a creep, but he shouldn’t be this scared unless he’s a creep with something to hide. It’s also kind of hilarious, because Eddison and Mum have more in common than I thought. I’m pretty sure he’d be offended if I told him.
I’ll save it for a special occasion.
Generally—by which I mean every single time I’ve been here—Landon doesn’t leave the pavilion until I do, so he can follow me into the market. This time, he barely makes it an hour before he mumbles a goodbye and walks very quickly away.
Steven, one of the Desert Storm vets, looks after him, glances at Eddison’s thoughtful smirk, then turns to me. “You should have said if he was bothering you.”
“Didn’t want to disrupt the dynamic.”
“Safety’s more important.”
But they’re old soldiers, and sometimes there are different views of what is or is not appropriate behavior between males and females. I like the vets, and their awkward chivalry, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to assume we hold the same views.
“Eddison is in town for a work thing,” I say instead. “Being able to assess whether or not I’m paranoid was just a perk.”
Steven turns back to Eddison, who’s settling himself comfortably into the abandoned camp chair. “So is she?”
“Paranoid?” At Steven’s nod, he shrugs. “No. Man doesn’t run like that unless he knows he’s thinking wrong thoughts.”
“Going to do anything about it?”
“Can’t arrest a man for thinking, but he’s less likely to act if he’s got the fear of God in him.”
And they all nod, because the man took care of business, and if it weren’t so entertaining, I’d probably be offended.
Sea level and mountains have very different kinds of cold, even if the temperature is theoretically the same, so Eddison doesn’t even make it another hour before his teeth start chattering in spite of the heaters. I kiss Gunny on the cheek, making the others catcall and chortle, and lead Eddison into the store.
He scowls at the Starbucks logo. He has something against fancy coffee, so any place that charges him more than a dollar for a big-ass cup of black coffee has his eternal enmity. When we lived in D.C., Mercedes’s favorite form of entertainment was Eddison and Mum getting coffee together.
While he’s trying to set the sign on fire with his glare, I see Joshua get up from his table, a peacoat draped over his arm. He seems to like fisherman sweaters; at the least, he seems to have an endless supply of them. This one is a sort of faded heather that works well with his greying auburn hair. He sees me and smiles, lifting his cup of tea in a kind of salute, but doesn’t stop to chat on his way out the door.
Drinks in hand, Eddison and I walk back to the house in comfortable silence. We both stop and look at the empty doorstep.
“I’m not sure if I wanted flowers to be there or not,” he says after a minute.