Chapter 33
Wes
This time when I scale the wall outside of Nina’s room, I’m better prepared.
I know which grooves in the bricks to fit my feet into for best balance, and I know to wear pants with some give so I can contort my body as needed.
I’ve also brought a backpack full of supplies to ensure we have a romantic, fun night.
I don’t want Nina to think I’m only coming to visit her because I expect something to happen between us physically—although, if I’m being honest, I’ve definitely been daydreaming about all of the possibilities.
But if she wants to take things slow, which is totally fine, I’ve packed supplies for a fun date night: board games, wine, plastic cups, snacks.
Plus I put together a playlist with some of my favorite romantic scores that we can listen to together.
Some heroes wear capes. This one wears a backpack.
When I reach the window, I tap lightly on the pane with my fingertips. “Nina?” I whisper. “It’s me.”
Hopefully I don’t have to elaborate too much on “it’s me”—unless she has a bunch of guys climbing up to her window for nighttime visits . . . in which case, there’s probably a few conversations we’ll need to have.
A moment later, the window opens from the inside. I shimmy off the backpack and drop it into the room before climbing through myself.
This time I don’t squeal like a tiny piglet in distress or land in a heap on the floor, so I’ll count that as a win for my sexy manhood.
Looking up, I see Nina is pacing the small length of the room, chewing on the end of her thumb.
Uh-oh. In an instant, I’m on my feet, forgetting about the backpack o’ fun. “Did something happen?”
Nina’s eyes snap to mine, like she’s only now registering that I’m there. She stops pacing, meeting my gaze. “You bet your bottom dollar something happened.”
It’s such an unexpectedly old-fashioned statement that even though I’m genuinely worried about her, I have to bite back a laugh. “What do you mean?”
“Uncle Aaron caught me in his room.” Alarm must flash across my face, because Nina waves her hand. “It’s fine. I made him think I was there for toilet paper.”
Okay . . . I’m curious about that one, but it really seems like she’s on a roll (no pun intended), and I don’t want to interrupt her. Plus, two sisters, a mom, and four aunts have deeply instilled in me that sometimes a woman just needs you to shut up and listen. So I’m shutting up. I’m listening.
“Then he was rude to me,” she continues. Her voice is low but thrumming with intensity; I can’t quite shake the feeling she’s recounting this all out loud for herself as much as for me. “So I was rude back.”
My eyebrows arch in surprise. Rude is not exactly a word I’d ever use to describe Nina, but I can see this is a big deal for her.
The FBI-agent part of my brain can’t help but worry that this might somehow interfere with the investigation, but the part of me that cares about Nina tells it to shut the hell up, this is important.
“Good,” I tell her, nodding along to show my enthusiasm. “What’d you say to him?”
“He told me that it goes without saying I wouldn’t be coming along to film with the family. So I told him, ‘Then why bother saying it?’” she informs me, unable to hold back the triumphant smile that blossoms across her face.
Oh. I was expecting something a bit more dramatic, like that she’d told him he should go fuck himself—which, for the record, he would totally deserve.
Her response feels very benign in comparison.
But she looks so happy, and I don’t want to do anything to dampen that.
We can work on her trash talk some other time.
“Yeah, you did,” I encourage her, holding my hand up for a high five.
Still grinning, Nina claps my hand. She’s pretty short, so she has to hop up to reach me, which is pretty darn adorable.
“I think I might have found something, too. On Uncle Aaron. I’ll give the flash drive to Morrie tomorrow when I see him on set. It’s password protected, so he’s going to try to find someone who can hack it as soon as possible.”
“Whoa!” This time I don’t have to dial up any enthusiasm. That’s amazing news. “Nina, you’re a badass.”
She grins at me. “I know!” Some of her excitement dims. “They came home unexpectedly, so I didn’t get to look around more. I only had time to add the one file.”
“That’s okay,” I reassure her. “You did great.”
She really did. Most informants never have to do anything as risky as what she did tonight; they just check in with us and report on things they’ve seen or heard.
Nina went out of her way to stick her neck on the line.
But I shouldn’t have expected any less. That’s all part of what makes Nina so amazing; you might write her off because of how quiet and unassuming she can be, but it’s all just an act to cover up how incredible she is.
She’s brave and selfless and smart. My woman has layers.
I catch myself a moment later, still grinning at her like a cheeseball.
Luckily Nina seems too distracted to notice.
She’s chewing on the end of her thumb again, her eyes distant like she’s trying to remember something.
“If you want, I can tell you the names of some of the other files I saw, in case you want me to go back and look at them another time.”
Check her out—she’s gone spying one time and now she’s Sydney Bristow. “Sure,” I tell her. “Maybe write everything down while it’s still fresh in your memory . . .”
I search the room for something she can write in. Finding nothing, I remember that I have my notebook in my backpack. I pull it out quickly, flipping through the pages to find a blank one.
Nina reaches out, stopping my hand. “What’s that?”
I’ve inadvertently stopped on one of my sketches of Ryko, an original character I invented.
He’s a fantasy/steampunk hybrid—a conman, a gambler, a swordfighter, a martial arts master, and an expert shot.
Oh, and he may or may not bear a striking resemblance to yours truly if I walked around in a really cool tunic and duster and Indiana Jones–inspired hat.
Feeling myself begin to flush, I try to hurriedly flip past it. “Uh, whoops. That’s nothing, just some doodling—”
Nina takes the notebook from me before I can fully turn away. “It’s amazing,” she says quietly, holding the book in her lap so she can study the page. “I love the chain mail.”
I run an embarrassed hand through my hair, watching her expression as she looks at the drawing more closely.
“I don’t think I got the shading quite right on that one,” I can’t help but tell her, because it’s always so awkward to have someone look at my work.
I instinctively feel the need to apologize for it.
Nina gives me a look, like she’s on to me and my self-deprecating ways, before turning her concentration back to the page. “He carries a sword and a gun?”
I run another sweep of my hand through my hair, letting out a nervous laugh.
This is excruciatingly awkward—having to talk about the drawings I’ve never shown to anybody before.
I feel more exposed than when I was in the tiny red underwear a few days ago.
“I know that might seem anachronistic, but he’s a time traveler.
So he’s an expert on several forms of deadly combat, throughout various time periods and cultures. ”
Nina considers this for a moment. “Kind of like a warrior Doctor Who?”
I think I just fell even more in love with her. A grin stretches across my face, unencumbered now by any awkwardness. “Yeah. Exactly. A warrior Doctor Who.”
Nina beams at me, then looks back down at the drawing. “Do you have any more?”
Before I can stop her, she begins flipping the pages—backward, toward my other drawings, instead of forward toward the blank pages. I resist the strong, instinctive urge to snatch the book out of her hands, because Nina is smiling again, and who am I to stand in the way of that?
“This character goes on all kinds of adventures,” she observes as she moves through the pages. She peers up at me through her long dark lashes. “He looks familiar.”
“Yeeaaah.” I draw out the word, trying to gather up my courage before I decide to bite the bullet. “His name is Ryko. He’s sorta based on me.”
Nina pretends to be surprised. “You don’t say.”
I shake my head before continuing, half wincing through my mortification.
“Sometimes I daydream about turning GeekOut into more of an original show. Like, not just replicating the action sequences from other movies and TV shows, but writing my own character and stories.” Seeing the way she nods along, clearly interested, I find myself continuing.
“It would still be a show where people could workout with the character in fun, nerdy-inspired ways. But there would be a plot. Side stories. Maybe even a choose-your-own adventure element, where there would be different follow-up videos based on the outcomes the audience chose.”
Even though these ideas have been percolating in my imagination for years, I haven’t told them to anyone before.
I’ve never even hinted at them as a possibility.
Too late, I realize how much it would crush me if Nina doesn’t like them.
Laughing awkwardly, I try to backpedal. “I mean, they’re just dumb daydreams . . .”
Nina doesn’t look like she hates the idea, though. She’s nodding thoughtfully. “What other characters would be in the show?”
Oof. That’s a whole other can of worms. “Um . . .” I try to stall as she begins flipping through the pages again.
I know the exact moment she reaches that page. “Oh,” she says quietly.
Most of the other images have been different ideas for Ryko—adventures he can go on, battles he can fight, costumes he can wear. Most of the images in my sketch pad are pure fantasy, not drawn from anything in real life.
But Princess Annais definitely drew on some familiar inspiration.