Finding Kyle(21)

“No idea,” I say.

“Seriously, your movie knowledge completely sucks,” she says with a huff. “We’ll have to rectify that.”

“What movie was that?” I ask, because I’ve been silently committing these movies I don’t recognize to memory to give them a try. Not even sure the last time I’ve seen a movie, as it wasn’t a generally popular activity to do in a biker gang.

“Finding Nemo,” she answers. “2003.”

Hmmm. That was definitely before I went deep undercover, but it still doesn’t ring a bell.

“What’s it about?” I ask, because while Jane has indeed been quoting lines, it’s led into other conversation, and that’s been… well, nice.

Definitely comfortable since the conversation isn’t exactly personal.

“Oh, it’s awesome. It’s about this fish, Nemo, who gets caught by a diver and put in a fish tank, and then his dad sets off to find him along with this really nutty fish named Dory that was voiced by Ellen DeGeneres. It’s absolutely hilarious—”

“Wait,” I interrupt her, my brush coming to rest against the picket. “Is this a cartoon?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, it’s animated.”

“I don’t do cartoon movies,” I tell her seriously.

She rolls her eyes at me. “Yeah, I kind of got that from you when the only movie line you’ve recognized in the last hour was ‘Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker.”

I snort. “Die Hard.”

“1988,” she adds as a reminder to me.

And I remember that movie well because it’s one of my last great memories of my sister Andrea. She’d just graduated from the FBI Academy, and I went to visit her. Rather than go out to celebrate, we stayed in at her apartment and rented Die Hard. We did this because we hadn’t seen each other in forever and with both of our parents gone, we’d only had each other and valued the little bit of time we had together. I’d already moved out to Wyoming to start the hard task of infiltrating Mayhem’s Mission. In order to do that, I had to separate myself from Andrea a bit. She had no clue I worked ATF in special operations undertaking an undercover mission with the highest of stakes and the most extreme danger.

The trip to see Andrea for her FBI graduation was something I had to do, though, because she should have had a family member there to support her. I also needed to see her, because the chances were great that once I was in deep, I might not be coming out again.

We both loved that fucking movie, and that line has been tossed back and forth between my sister and me whenever we’d talk to each other on the phone.

It’s a nice memory.

With just a few more dips of the brushes into the paint, some quick strokes on the last pickets, and we are done with the painting. I push up from where I was squatting and look down the length of the fence. It’s shiny and white and looks pretty fantastic.

I turn back to look at Jane across the fence as she’s also stood up. She arches her back a little in a stretch, and I know she’ll probably be really sore tomorrow. “We did good work,” she says with a firm nod of her head.

“That we did,” I say as I take her in. She’s got paint on her right cheek and above her left eyebrow, with a little bit in the end of her ponytail. Not even sure how that happened. “I really appreciate your help.”

She beams back at me. “I was hoping you’d be appreciative. You owe me dinner.”

“I can’t cook,” I tell her flatly, my walls immediately going up, blocking her out and pushing her away.

It’s for her own good.

“Even better,” she returns with an even bigger smile. “You can take me out.”

“Jane,” I say in a low, warning voice, intent on telling her that it is not going to happen, because as much as I’ve enjoyed this day with her and the ease with which it played out, dinner out together is an entirely different matter. It’s too fucking personal. It’s a date for Christ sake. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

She just rolls her eyes at me and says, “Wait for it… frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. Gone with the Wind. 1939.”

“You did not just—”

“Pull out the most awesome movie quote ever?” she suggests as her eyes twinkle with triumph. “Sure as hell did. Pick me up in an hour.”

With that, she turns and starts flouncing back toward her house.

At least, I think it’s flouncing. Isn’t that the way Scarlett O’Hara moved in Gone with the Wind?

I’ll call it flouncing, because her ponytail swings back and forth as she crosses back over Cranberry Lane and marches into her house. Only after her door closes do I start to clean up the paint.

An hour is plenty of time to get ready. In fact, I’ll need about five minutes in the shower and I’ll be ready to go.

I think about Jane and that smile, those perfect breasts that stared at me through the picket fence all afternoon, and… maybe fifteen minutes in the shower.





CHAPTER 10




Kyle


“You clean up nice,” Jane says as we meander down the sidewalk, heading southwest from her house and through a section of Misty Harbor I’d not seen yet. I drove my pickup truck to her house, but she advised me we’d be walking to dinner instead.