She raised her eyebrows. “In the middle of the day? How daring of you!” she added with a laugh. “That’s my old Bren. You’ve been much too serious lately.” She reached across the table and placed her hand over his. “What was so interesting and positive?”
Her touch sucked the anger right out of him and he actually relaxed. “Big breakthrough on the DORKA front.”
“Ah, the geeks. What have they invented now?”
“It’s a secret.”
She pulled her hand back. “I’m not fond of celebrating something that I don’t know.”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you, cut your head off, and stuff it in a safe.” He said it with a smile on his face and an edge in his voice.
Debbie, in turn, pointed at the two Secret Service agents. “I don’t think they’d take that as a joke.” She picked up her fork as a waiter deposited a salad in front of Brennan. “I know you don’t mind. I ordered when you weren’t here on time. Last time you never showed and I never ate. I’m learning boundaries. At least my shrink says I am.”
Brennan got the waiter’s attention. “Champagne. Your best.”
The waiter scurried off, probably trying to figure out if they even had champagne in this dump, Brennan thought.
Debbie put the fork down. “I’m sorry, Bren. I’ve had a difficult morning and I don’t mean to take it out on you. My mother is all atwitter about their last Christmas in the House. She wants it to be extra special so people remember it. Like, who’s going to remember? And the secret thing bothers me because that’s the way my dad is all the time. Drives my mother crazy too. It’s hard to be understanding when you don’t have the information to understand, if you follow?”
Brennan nodded, but he noticed that one of the Secret Service agents was looking at his cell phone. Wasn’t he supposed to be watching the area?
Debbie’s phone next to the breadbasket vibrated.
“Who’s that?” Brennan asked before even the second vibrate.
“I don’t know.” Debbie hit Ignore without even looking at the screen.
“No. Who was it?”
Debbie sighed. “You have got to stop this jealous thing, Bren. It’s getting old.”
He snatched the phone off the table. “Who the hell is Daniel? And why does he have your number?”
“Daniel? I don’t know a Daniel.”
He looked closer and grimaced. “Okay. Danielle. Who’s that?”
“She’s in my spinning class. What is wrong with you? You’re acting crazier than usual.”
“How usual crazy am I? What did Danielle want?” he asked, trying to pretend he wasn’t being a complete fool.
She grabbed the phone from him and read the text. “She says Daniel is going to be on a bike in front of me tomorrow morning and he has buns of steel and what a lucky girl I am.”
“Very funny,” Brennan muttered.
“I try.” She reached across the table once more. “I do try.”
Brennan noticed that one of the Secret Service agents was smirking and Brennan felt a surge of anger that the man was listening and judging him.
“That agent seems too involved in your life,” Brennan said in a low, taut voice. “Shouldn’t they be standing near the door and pretending to be statues or something?”
Debbie laughed. “Oh, he’s just acting weird because I blew him in the car on the way over. Happy?” She waited for him to laugh, but when he didn’t, she shook her head with more than a hint of disgust. “I’m going to the ladies’ room. Here, knock yourself out.” She handed him her phone.
He didn’t even wait until she was out of sight. He scrolled through her call record, thinking she was acting way too open, just like someone with something to hide. Then he noticed that the one Secret Service guy (and did they ever think about the fact that their initials were SS?) was staring at him with an odd look on his face.
Yes, there was something in that stare.
Riggs might be paranoid about the Russians and the Chinese, Brennan thought, but he knew the real danger was people. Couldn’t trust ’em. Especially women. His mother had gone out of the house when he was eight, not for the proverbial pack of cigarettes, but for tampons at the PX. Or so she said, and never came back.
Debbie was cheating on him. He was certain of it. They had finally settled on a date, the first weekend in April, when the cherry trees should be blossoming in DC, and with that thought, he giggled, sensing the irony.
They had a history and it wasn’t all written in large, beautiful scrolling letters. There were some dark chapters. Maybe she was getting in some last bangs before the big day. It was a thought that had occurred to him more than once. He checked her text messages.
The waiter, a bit out of breath, came up with a bottle of not-too-bad champagne. It never occurred to Brennan that the man had run down the street to a liquor store and bought it.
Exasperated, Brennan tossed her phone back onto the table next to her glass of bubbly.
Debbie came back and saw the full glass and mustered a smile. “Bren, you’ve known me forever. Why do you think I’m doing something? Don’t you trust me?”
“I trusted you,” Brennan said, “but how can I trust you in this new reality?”
“What new reality?”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Brennan didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s all going to end. Do you have any idea what’s really going on? Not just the treaty. But the experiments. The things those scientists are working on? And how just plain fucking-ass stupid some of them are? The Rifts? The Fireflies!”
“What Rifts?” Debbie asked. “Fireflies?”
He didn’t hear her. “The clock is ticking. It’s just a matter of time before it’s all over. And then there’s the general. Fucking Pinnacle. Stupid idea that should have gone away a long time ago. If he had his way, we’d all be blown back into the Stone Age, speaking of blowing.”
Debbie picked up her glass. “I think the only clock that’s ticking is the one until April and you’re having cold feet.”
He snorted. “Just because you’re the president’s daughter doesn’t mean you get to know everything. In fact, what you don’t know is far outweighed by what I do know.” He stared at the Secret Service agent, uncertain if the man was staring back because of those damn sunglasses they always wore.
Debbie followed his gaze and put her flute of champagne down. “Not that again. We’ve been engaged for three years and dating since high school. Why do you make a big deal out of nothing?”
“How do I know it’s nothing? Five years ago your father wasn’t president and you didn’t have all this.”
“You think because Daddy got elected my love for you went out the window? And remember, your father was always so much more important for all those years and I never thought anything different about you.”
“He was in your hotel room in Chicago.”
Debbie blinked. “What? Who?”
“That agent. I remember him. I came in and you just had a towel wrapped around you and he was in the room.”
“Fully dressed. I told you, I was taking a shower and something fell and he was checking.”
“Right. Nice story. Very convenient.”
Debbie rolled her eyes once more. “This is like the quarterback in high school, isn’t it? The one who wouldn’t give me the time of day except when he asked to cheat off me on the algebra final and you were convinced that cheating meant cheating. I don’t even remember his name.”
“You remember he was the quarterback.”
“We ended up not going to the prom because of that. You only get one prom, Bren. And you caused us to miss it.”
“Oh geez. Not the prom thing again. You bring that up every time we fight.”
“I bring it up,” Debbie said, “every time you get jealous for no reason. Don’t blame me. You trigger it. I don’t cheat and I don’t lie, Bren. Accept that.” She pointed at the agent. “You planted that seed, not me.”