Neighborhood Watch #3
If I ever need information about something in Cloakwood, I’ll be sure to go to these women.
Barbara straightens proudly. “And for the record…” She pats the binder. “…I do categorize it.” Then she squints at me. “You live over on Juniper, right?”
I blink. “…Yes.”
“I told you it was Juniper,” Barbara says to the other two.
“We don’t get over to that part of town often,” Helen says. “But we all think you’re the cutest couple. How long have you been married?”
Reese had been taking a drink of her lemonade and nearly chokes on it. We both manage to say at the same time, “We’re not married.”
“Oh?” Marge says. “Engaged?”
Reese is shaking her head a little too strongly.
“Dating?” Helen asks.
“Friends,” Reese says.
Helen shrugs. “You are just so comfortable together. Like you belong.”
“And you laugh together a lot,” Marge says. “As if you’ve got years' worth of inside jokes built up.”
They’ve got it all wrong. Reese doesn’t want dating or anything beyond. She’s made that abundantly clear.
“That’s because we’re best friends,” Reese says. “We have been for a while now.”
The women are all just looking at us, expectantly, so I elaborate. “We both grew up in Cipher Springs, but I was a year older in school—”
“—so we didn’t really know each other well,” Reese finishes. “It wasn’t until we both went to the same college, and I ran into him at the library three Tuesdays in a row that we became friends.”
I chuckle. “The first week, she just came over, said, ‘Oh, hey, a fellow fox!’”
“That’s Cipher Springs’ school mascot, right?” Marge asks.
I nod. “And the second week she came over, she asked how the test I’d been studying for the week before went. The third Tuesday, she sat down as if it had already been decided that we were BFFs, and that we meet to study in the library on Tuesdays.”
“And we’ve been doing everything together ever since,” Reese says. “I highly recommend repeated accidental proximity as a top-notch method of making friends.”
The part I don’t tell them was how, about a year after that moment, I’d asked Reese to go to the Student Government Association’s Winter Ball with me.
I hadn’t even finished asking the question before a look of horror and fear crossed her face.
Not at going to the Winter Ball—the horror and fear were that I was trying to nudge our friendship toward a relationship.
It had made me feel my own horror and fear. Horror that she didn’t want our relationship becoming anything more, and fear that it was going to make me lose her in my life.
So, I did as anyone who was secretly in love with their best friend would do, and I acted like I hadn’t seen the look on her face as I said, “I was thinking of asking Paige from my organizational communication class, but since you and I are best friends, I thought I should ask you first. You know, in case you’re looking for an excuse to get all dressed up to go somewhere fancy. ”
The look of relief on her face had been immediate and palpable. Then she’d said, “Miles, don’t ever let me stop you from going on dates! Ask Paige. I’m sure she’d love to go.”
That was the moment my “Player” persona was born.
Not too long after, I was recruited into the Clandestine Services Agency—having family members working for the CSA doesn’t actually increase your chances of becoming an intelligence operative—and it has helped me a lot in my job.
I don’t pull out the persona too often around Reese.
Only when I see the fear that I might want more from our relationship flicker in her eyes.
Then I mention a date I went on. Usually, one that only counted as a date if you ignored the surveillance van, the encrypted comms in my ear, and the fact that I spent half the evening trying to get close enough to clone someone’s phone.
Like wooing a woman suspected of brokering illegal weapons sales at a black-tie gala in Vienna.
(Obviously, I leave out the criminal part. And Vienna, if it’s classified.) It always makes the fear in Reese’s eyes disappear.
Every once in a while, I even use it to test the waters. They haven’t changed. Reese’s reaction to the Sidewalk Sisters thinking we’re married tells me that much.
“But you’ve never…?” Marge says, gesturing between Reese and me.
“No,” Reese says with a little too much force. “No.”
Which, honestly, is probably for the best. No way am I telling Reese I love her while my life depends on secrets I can’t share.
If she ever learns what I really do, she’ll feel manipulated.
Betrayed. And honestly, she’d have every right to.
Relationships are built on trust. My career is built on making people believe things that aren’t true.
Barbara opens the binder, licks her thumb, and starts flipping through pages. She stops on one, pulls a pen from her purse, writes something down, and says, “Not romantically involved. Noted.” Then she closes the binder.
Loving Reese has always felt like standing outside the safest house I know with a match in my hand. I’m not about to light it.