Touch Your Nose (The Engen Universe Book 3) by Matthew LeDrew

Author:Matthew LeDrew [LeDrew, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Engen Books
Published: 2018-05-17T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

The sad truth about deep cover is that things are going to get complicated, and the longer it goes on for the more likely that will be. On a long enough timeline, any situation ends in failure. That’s not pessimism; it’s just the truth.

I was pouring the rich black sludge from the bottom of a coffee pot into my cup when I felt something sharp poke me in the back, timed almost perfectly with a deadpan delivery of: “Simon.”

I turned. Maggie was standing behind me.

My mistake hit me at once, as it would have had I not been so colossally drunk when I’d bumped into her at the bar. She’d said that she was “in accounting,” which I had taken to mean, “I am in the profession of accounting...” What she had instead meant was, “I am in the accounting department.”

Maggie worked with me.

Maggie knew me.

I feel as though my brain didn’t function for several moments there, but I know there wasn’t any of that. At least while I’m sober, I can manage to sustain a baseline ruse even on autopilot. “Hey,” I smiled back. Was the smile forced? I’m not certain. I put down the pot of coffee and turned to face her and leaned against the counter of the break-room. I needed to think but there wasn’t any time to think.

“How were you after?” she asked, beaming in a funny sort of way. She reached past me and picked up the pot herself, draining the last of the coffee into her cup. “I mean, clearly you survived.”

I don’t remember what I said. Have you ever had the experience of having someone from one part of your life intrude into another unwelcomed? Like having an ex-girlfriend start working at the same place you’re currently working at, or something along those same levels? This felt like that, but worse. I felt my shoulders fall a little, the way they had that night at the bar. My posture changed, in a way that I was just perceptually aware of, and I had to concentrate to bring it back to the way I’d stood and walked for the last eighteen months. This was why you had to keep the same thoughts, the same demeanor, the same everything at all times when you were deep cover: stepping out of that bubble once made it only too easy to do so again.

Tyler walked by the kitchen, but didn’t step in. Tyler knew Maggie, Maggie knew Tyler, and Maggie had met me. The real me, not the deep cover me.

“I watched Prometheus the other night on Netflix. I don’t know what people were bitching about,” she said. She brushed past me again – making contact and making no effort not to, grazing my arm. This conversation wasn’t about movies; this was about the kiss. She had kissed me, right in the corner of my mouth, little sparks of electric heat between the night and us. That same part of my brain that had pinned

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