Chapter 25 #2
Thankfully, his hand wrapped around her upper arm, steadying it before her hot chocolate ended up all over his shirt.
She gasped at the suddenness of the collision and also at the shock of seeing him in an environment she never thought he would be in.
Her mind went blank as she stared into the golden depths of his soul, except for the acute awareness that her hands were shaking and her heart tried to reverse directions in her chest.
Frankie, oblivious to the electric firestorm of tension and hormonal hurricane her brother’s appearance had just thrown Poppy’s body into, threw her arms around AJ. “AJ! I left you a voicemail but didn’t actually expect you to come! I mean, this is literally your worst nightmare!”
He dropped his hands from Poppy’s forearms, but his gaze never left her as he hugged his sister back. The intensity in his stare had her entire body on edge. She felt his presence spread through her.
She could tell he wasn’t relaxed. He was tense. It was tiny tells. His breathing was a slight bit shallower than it usually was. His jaw was set in a slightly different way.
“Are you coming to Zee’s party?” Frankie asked when she stepped back.
“Yes.”
“Yay!” She clapped. “Best wedding gift ever!”
The group continued on, swept by the current of the festival, but Poppy found herself hanging in the back with AJ. “You came,” she said finally, her voice embarrassingly soft, as if she were confessing something.
“For you.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Yes, I did.”
He said it like it was a simple fact, like gravity, daylight, or the measured way he always called her ‘Poppy’ instead of the trillion nicknames her sisters had invented. There was no drama in his voice, but the sincerity made her eyes sting.
“You hate crowds,” she said, needing to acknowledge it for both their sakes.
He nodded. “I like you more.”
The words hit her with a force she hadn’t expected. If that was true, if he liked her more than crowds, then that meant…something. It had to.
AJ stood in the corner of Zion’s living space at the front of his glass and concrete mid-century modern home perched above the sloping gold-leaf maples overlooking Hope Falls’ Main Street and was surprisingly relaxed.
The only overstimulation he faced was the volume of the music, which he solved by popping in his earplugs.
Besides that, the environment was optimal.
Zion Ash, beyond being a world-renowned photographer, was a minimalist with deep allegiance to the tenets of feng shui. People often dismiss it as a scam, superstition, or pseudoscience, but AJ found value in the ancient system of practical design for environmental harmony and wellness.
In his way of thinking, if all matter was made up of subatomic particles, i.e., protons, neutrons, and electrons which are considered atoms that then combine to form molecules, in turn making it energy, why wouldn’t the blockage or continuous flow of that energy make a difference?
The Halloween party was packed with guests, but Zion was a master-level festivity conductor.
He had several different areas for people to congregate.
An outdoor deck with heated lamps, several board games, and hookah pipes.
A lounge area with card tables, a stripper pole, and a karaoke stage.
A lower level with vintage pinball machines, a two-lane bowling alley, and classic ’80s arcade games.
Every snack station glowed with its own theme, a sushi spread, a vegan charcuterie, and a candy “bar” with enough sour worms to induce cardiac arrest in a small child.
And the great room, which had floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the downtown area, had a dance floor in the center. Poppy, Frankie, Talia, the yoga master, and Jenna, the beauty store owner, had been on the dance floor all night. They’d performed the Monster Mash and Thriller twice.
AJ was happy to see Poppy feeling better.
The past few days she hadn’t seemed as tired or nauseous.
They still hadn’t really spoken about the baby.
He hadn’t wanted to bring anything up and upset her.
Once they had the twelve-week checkup, then he’d talk to her.
Hopefully, by then, she’d feel comfortable letting her friends and family in on the news.
“I always wonder what you’re thinking, but most of the time I’m scared to ask,” Zion teased as he stepped beside AJ then changed the subject. “So how are you liking small-town living?”
“It’s fine.” Zion followed Frankie from New York to Hope Falls. As far as AJ knew, he had always lived in big cities. He was born in London but traveled the world and lived in Rome, Moscow, and Beijing. “Do you like it?
“Surprisingly, I like it a lot.” He took a sip of his drink. “So what’s the deal with you and Popsi-Cola?”
“The deal?”
“Are you two…hanging out?”
“We have hung out.” We’ve hung out every day because she’s pregnant with my child.
“Okayyyy. And what’s the deal with her boss? Deacon St. Claire. I heard he showed up tonight at the festival.”
Poppy invited Deacon and Tabitha because they were new to town.
AJ could admit part of the reason he’d ended up going was because he knew they were.
He was glad that he’d gone. If he hadn’t, he would have missed the expression on Poppy’s face when she turned around and he was there.
It was shock and also happiness. Then when he told her he was there for her, he could see it meant something to her.
“Hi!” A woman with unusually large brown eyes and short blonde hair who looked vaguely familiar was suddenly standing in front of them. Her gaze ping-ponged between Zion and AJ before it landed on AJ, and she pointed at him. “Is this…?”
“Oh, right, yes. Desiree, this is AJ Costas. AJ, this is Desiree Dove.”
AJ’s chin dipped. “Nice to meet you.”
Desiree and Zion exchanged a look before Zion continued, “Des just got cast in a new pilot as a CIA operative who is highly intelligent and neurodivergent, she was wondering if she could pick your brain.”
“No,” AJ replied.
Desiree’s eyes widened, causing them to take up most of the real estate of her face.
Zion did not react at all, just calmly asked, “Why not?”
“I can’t discuss any classified information, and even with similar or exact diagnoses, neurodivergent men and women present very differently.”
“Oh, I just had a few very general questions, nothing classified,” Desiree quickly clarified.
“And I’m just trying to get a sense of what the day-in and day-out challenges or advantages would be for someone neurodivergent in that field.
But I totally understand if that is not something you feel comfortable with. ”
AJ had been doing a lot of things he wasn’t comfortable with lately, none of them had killed him yet. “Okay,” he agreed.
“I will leave you two to it.” Zion wiggled his fingers in a wave as he backed away from them, like Homer Simpson in the bush.
“Should we get a drink?” Desiree suggested.
“No.”
“Oh, okay.” Desiree began asking him basic questions about what his day-to-day duties were.
How he handled being deployed and in situations that were so unpredictable, when he thrived on routine.
He explained that as cyber intelligence, even when deployed, he was rarely out in the field.
If he was, he had different tools and ways he’d learned to cope.
He told her the truth, or at least the sanitized version of it.
“Most of my day is analysis, sifting through data, flagging anomalies, and writing reports. If there’s a deployment, I handle systems in the field, but I’m rarely boots-on-the-ground.
” He left out the parts about the boredom, the isolation, the impossibility of switching off, and how, in the rare moments he was forced into face-to-face field-work, he felt like a tourist in his own body.
There was always something to interpret, an expression, a tone, the unsaid.
Sometimes he missed the dull, honest predictability of code.
Desiree pressed on, undeterred. “And when you do have to operate out of routine, like, say, if you’re called up suddenly and have to drop everything, how do you cope?
Is it something you’ve trained for, or is it always a struggle?
” She said it almost apologetically, as if the question itself were an insult, but AJ had fielded worse.
He considered his answer. “Experience helps,” he replied.
“You can’t train for unpredictability except by being exposed to it over and over.
The first few years were hard. I learned to make routines out of the unpredictable such as packing lists, rituals, breathing exercises.
I don’t like surprises, but I can manage them if I see the edge before I hit it. ”
They talked more about how he navigated relationships within his squad, with commanding officers, and even in his off-duty life.
He explained as he had to Melinda how he studied the way people laugh, the cadence of their speech, etc.
, and how he did that on a broader scale in group settings to pick up social cues accordingly.
Desiree smiled, relief evident. “That’s actually really helpful. A lot of what you’re describing tracks with what I’ve read about masking, but you don’t seem to resent it.”
“I don’t.”
She nodded, then asked, “How do you process emotions, your own or other people’s? Especially in a high-tension situation. Do you compartmentalize, or is it all just…one big noise?”