7. Let the Record Show I Am Not Flirting
LET THE RECORD SHOW: I AM NOT FLIRTING
CHARLIE
I had a crazy dream about needing to hack into the International Space Station’s climate control system because someone smuggled a vintage violin aboard, and the wrong humidity would ruin its tone.
Which isn’t even remotely plausible. I mean, they run proprietary encryption that auto-bricks your system if you even sneeze near the login screen.
But it has made ideas of ways to code a program to cloak agent heat signatures from motion sensors run through my head all morning.
I’m almost ready for work and am just coming down the stairs to get breakfast when there’s a knock at my front door.
The electrician is here already? I answer the door to see a man in his fifties who’s wearing a tool belt and holding a clipboard in one hand and a toolbox in the other.
There’s a truck parked out front. It’s not one of the box trucks, like the plumber and the restoration guys have—it’s a white work truck with a tool chest in the bed and a Bolt & Beacon Electric logo on the door.
“Hi. I’m here to fix some electrical issues in your kitchen caused by a leaky pipe.”
I still can’t believe that I’m letting a worker in here again when I’m not going to be home.
I may have freaked out that the plan had changed from plumbers at Lord of the Leaks to Demo Daydreams while I wasn’t even home and without getting a chance to vet them first. At least I got a chance to thoroughly vet this one.
Both the man and the company he works for.
He’s clean. I guess going without a wall is enough to help me let down my defenses a bit.
And I am pretty proud of myself for making all the progress I have on being okay with workers being here. Jace wouldn’t have let them in at all.
Of course, if it were happening to my mom, the CSA would’ve lined up their own people from the start. They can’t have their director being targeted by anyone with a fake company truck and a convincing uniform.
“Come in,” I say. It’ll be fine. I’ll get Reese to do a thorough check with me when we get home, and then I’ll sweep for bugs when she’s gone.
I lead the electrician into the kitchen, and he sets down his toolbox without taking his eyes off the plastic draped and stapled to my wall frame. “They took down all the Sheetrock, huh?”
“Yep,” I say as Reese comes down the stairs, looking adorable in red tights and a bright yellow cardigan over a navy blue dress with a pattern of illustrated books. And, of course, she’s wearing matching bright red glasses, too.
“This sheeting is all that separates you and your neighbor?” He looks at me. “And you’re okay with that?”
No. No, I am not. Instead of voicing that, though, I say with a shrug. “I wasn’t at first, but…It’s not so bad.”
“Only because our neighbor is cute and Charlie is crushing on him,” Reese says.
I turn to her and hiss, “Shh! Owen can hear!”
Okay, I might be crushing on Owen. But only because he’s adorable in every way, and it’d be hard not to.
And it’s true about the wall not being so bad.
I’ve learned way more about Owen than I ever could have by going through his garbage, like Zoe once suggested.
You can hear a lot through this wall, and with the fuzzy shape of him that I can see as he moves around—at least when he’s within about ten feet of the fake wall—I’ve got a pretty clear picture of how his day goes.
I know what time he wakes up and goes to bed, how many times he reheats his dinner in the microwave because he forgot about it, that he mutters when he is puzzling through work plans, and that he always stops at 9 p.m. to make a cup of hot cocoa.
I also know that every morning, he sings his to-do list. And he doesn’t simply read his list in a sing-song voice.
He picks a random tune but makes up his own words.
Like yesterday, he sang about removing plaster and decorative features on balcony boxes to the tune of Queen’s We Will Rock You .
And this morning, he was singing about checking on some insulation to the tune of Hey Jude by the Beatles.
A few days ago, he was a little further away and harder to hear, but I’m pretty sure I heard him singing about double-checking that a ceiling fan wasn’t haunted to the tune of Uptown Funk .
But last night, after realizing how much I know about Owen, a stab of panic hit me. Because if I know way more than I should know about Owen, then he knows way more about me than what I’m willing to share.
And the truth I try to hide from everyone but am not always successful in doing is that I’m a big, fat, scaredy-cat, and I just want to go hide under the couch and pretend I don’t exist until someone brings snacks.
I don’t want to be seen deeply. I want to be seen surface-ly.
I want to choose what is seen. Being seen deeply feels vulnerable. And vulnerability feels dangerous .
So I’m trying hard to keep things on the surface. Just fun, neighborly flirting. Nothing more. Like leaving notes for each other, ever since I left that sticky note on his side of the plastic two nights ago.
Our notes have mostly said things like I hope your day’s more functional than our kitchen wall , or Thanks for not judging my cleaning playlist last night , or Today’s forecast: 20% chance of rain. Indoors . I’ve kind of been living for it. Just harmless surface banter. Nothing deep.
My reward for keeping things light and neighborly was coming downstairs this morning to find a little gift bag waiting for me at the foot of our makeshift door. The tag said, Because I interrupted your reading with my phone call .
Inside the bag, I found a candle with a label that said, Smells like shared wall .
Then, in smaller print below, (Just kidding.
Smells like brown sugar and vanilla.) There was a colorful bookmark with the words Good fences make good neighbors.
Shared walls make romantic comedies. I think I might’ve laughed even harder than I did when he gave me the wooden plaque.
And there is nothing like starting the day with a good laugh. Soon after, I put a sticky note on his side of the plastic that said, If your goal was to make me belly laugh before breakfast, mission accomplished. (And thank you.)
I keep telling myself that I am thrilled to live next to a fun and neighborly neighbor.
But boy, does my stomach flutter every single time I see a note or a package from him, or hear his voice, or see his fuzzy silhouette, and I’m having a hard time just keeping things neighborly here.
Reese is right. I’m full-on living in Crushville.
Even though I said I wouldn’t. And even though it freaks me out that he can see so much into our lives.
I’m trying to hold back. To put the brakes on things. But also, I got an idea for a little something to leave Owen tonight, and it’s really exciting me. I just need to pick up a few more items on my lunch break.
Okay, maybe my resolve to hold back is weakening. I need to work on that.
I say goodbye to the electrician, ask him to lock up when he leaves, and tell him that if he needs to leave for lunch, to make sure he locks up then, too.
Reese seems to have no problem leaving while someone is in our townhome.
Is she the normal one? Or am I? I grew up in a family of spies. What do I know?
Reese and I leave for work at the same time, each of us pulling out of our driveway and heading in different directions.
All morning, we’ve been going through the info that we downloaded from Aragundi’s servers that relates to the stolen artifacts we’ve been tracing, trying to figure out how to track down who is behind it.
I’ve been working with my brother, Emerson, since he’s the lead analyst, and my brothers Jace and Ledger, since they—along with Miles when he returns from Marseille—will be the ones to run the missions.
Emerson swipes to a heat map on his tablet that shows thefts across Europe and North America.
Red and orange markers blink like angry pinpricks.
“There’s been a rise in high-value thefts from museums, private collections, and archaeological transports.
Mostly small, portable items: coins, scrolls, religious relics.
Entry methods are inconsistent, security footage is conveniently fuzzy, and—fun twist—none of the items have shown up on the black market. ”
Ledger leans back in his chair. “Let me guess. Ghosts? That would explain the fuzzy security footage and the fact that no alarms go off.”
“Nah,” Jace says. “I think it’s more along the lines of time travelers with really niche hobbies.”
“I don’t know,” I say as I scroll through my tablet.
“I’ve been running the timestamps against local calendars.
Weirdly, a lot of these thefts go down during festivals, street fairs, or major city-wide events.
So my guess is a history-major-turned-criminal who only feels truly alive around fireworks and funnel cake. ”
“Not to dismiss any of your theories,” Emerson says, “because those are all…creative, but on a slightly more serious note, one of my analysts flagged a private sale of three fifth-century coins. They were never reported stolen and never listed for auction. Yet somehow, a buyer in Monaco knew to inquire.”
“No, wait—I found a listing I think is related to that sale.” I start searching for the info on my tablet, and my brothers each do the same.
“This?” Emerson asks, tipping his tablet to show me.
“That’s it!”
“There were three listings, and they each used euphemisms like ‘legacy medallions’ and ‘heirloom coins of European persuasion.’” Emerson side-eyes me. “Which I flagged for suspicious language, and you flagged…with fourteen exclamation marks.”
“That’s how I process concern. With punctuation.”
Jace rubs his jaw. “So we’ve got stealth thefts, mystery purchases, and a buyer list we can’t trace.”
“Correct,” Emerson says. “So I’ve been tracing shell companies that have moved jurisdictions recently on the off chance one might be connected.”
I bring up my list. “Three companies pinged this week alone. All recently changed locations. One moved from Florence, Italy, to Alexandria, Virginia. I’m keeping an eye on it.”
Emerson smiles. “Which is code for: she’s already started three background checks and created a shared folder titled ‘sketchy and suspicious.’ ”
“Technically, it’s called ‘Sketch-a-saurus.’”
“Oh hey,” Ledger says, “speaking of suspicious activity. Anything happening between you and your neighbor yet?”
“Okay, that has nothing to do with high-value targets.” Unless we’re talking personal high-value targets that I am finding myself setting my sights on.
Emerson raises an eyebrow. “Yet you’ve still managed to casually bring up Owen four times in this meeting, even when we’re talking about the theft of relics.”
I have? And here I thought I was doing really well.
I swear I’ve gone at least five minutes since relating something to him.
“Alright, then. Has anything been happening between us? Just coexisting in a drywall-free zone and swapping notes through a plastic flap. You know, neighborly stuff.” I’m not lying.
I’m just leaving out the part about what it’s doing to the butterflies flapping around in me.
Jace leans back in his chair, folding his arms. “From what I saw when we did that very professional, not-at-all intrusive stakeout of him at his job site right after he moved in, it seems like things could turn from ‘neighborly’ to ‘unintentionally married’ real fast.”
I laugh. “Okay, I will keep an eye out for accidental vows.”
Our meeting takes hours. But by the time we’re done, we’ve divvied up the biggest red flags: Ledger will pose as event security for a museum gala in Paris that’s a perfect fit for the recent theft pattern.
Miles will head to an archaeological dig site where equipment has been tampered with.
And Jace is heading to Prague to meet a whistleblower who claims someone’s paying off customs agents.
I’ve got a dozen surveillance feeds to set up, some backgrounds to falsify, and some creative firewall cracking in my future.
I do still manage to take off during lunch and pick up the items I need for Owen’s little gift and to print out the tags. But the day is long. I end up having to eat dinner at work, and it’s nearly bedtime when I finally pull back into my driveway.
When I get inside, I empty onto my coffee table the bag of everything I got to make a “Flood Survival Kit” for Owen, including a plastic container with a latching lid to put it all in.
Reese helps me attach the tags to each of the items. I got him an ultra-collapsible umbrella, “For unexpected indoor precipitation,” a pack of waterproof bandages, “For emotional wounds caused by sudden plumbing betrayal,” a rubber duck, “For morale,” a toy boat, “In case evacuation is needed,” comfy socks, “To keep your toes dry,” and a badge-type pin that I got at one of those make-your-own places that says, “Official member of the No Wall, No Problem Club .”
We have a hard time not giggling loudly enough that Owen might hear us the whole time we’re tagging them and placing them into the kit.
As I’m taking it over to our little flimsy door, Reese whispers, “Do you think he’ll see it tonight?”
I shake my head. “I’m sure he went to bed an hour ago.”
I pull a little flap of the plastic aside and slide the container onto his floor, and then I head upstairs to bed and set my alarm for a bit earlier than normal, just to make sure I’m awake when he finds it.