alone to an ex’s wedding.”
“Right?” I wanted to change the topic, so I asked, “Tell me about the missing drones? Have you heard from your contact in Mexico?”
Several minutes of drone footage had given us confirmation that a well-known cartel used kidnapping and extortion to attain forced labor to manufacture cocaine. The victims were mostly the children of peripheral associates. Some had been as young as twelve.
“My contact is safe, but she said the area is impossible to infiltrate now. After the drones were discovered, they doubled the number of guards and added booby traps in the area. But the original footage has generated a great deal of interest from law enforcement and government officials.”
“That’s good to know.”
“A nine-year-old girl disappeared in northern Minnesota, but it’s likely a custody dispute between parents. It’s doubtful the case relates to the ones you’ve been working on there.”
“I’ll look into it.”
“That’s about all I can think of right now. You’ll find the rest of the updates on our watch list. We’ll scrum at ten.”
“I’ll be there.”
She smiled, revealing her dimples. “Good to have you back. I’ve missed you.”
“I missed you too.” I took my coffee with me when I left.
It took all day to catch myself up on all the different tangents I’d been following in the weeks before my vacation. It was frankly sad to see how little things had changed. I measured progress in microscopically small units, and still, barely anything had happened that I could call progress while I was gone.
It only took a few hours for the real challenge of my job to subsume me. I saw a crime being committed—actual drone footage of a forced labor camp—yet there was nothing I could do about it but pass that information along and go back to gathering more.
For all my frustration, day turned quickly into night as I researched each tiny detail, each tidbit of information, in order to glean the next and the next.
I left when the cleaners came to vacuum my office and walked through the darkened building to my car alone.
On the way home, I got takeout from a Chinese place that stayed open late and ate it over my kitchen sink.
I realized that, in spite of everything I’d said and done while I was away with Epic, nothing had changed. Yet everything was different.
I had changed.
What I’d seen as a choice—to work because my work was the most important thing in my life—now seemed more like a hole in which I’d buried myself and all the hope I’d once had for a balanced, happy life.
Why couldn’t I have that?
Why shouldn’t I?
From the goddamned hole, it felt too dark to find my way out. I needed clarity. I needed help and nurturing and maybe a little tough love. I needed all the things Epic had offered me and probably a lot more that he hadn’t. Those, I knew—in the depths of my ridiculous heart—he’d be willing to give if I only asked.
There was nothing new in my inbox from Epic that night. I hadn’t answered his last email, and I could see why he’d waited for a reply. He had basically laid everything on the line, and I had to make the next move.
But blunt Epic—frighteningly brazen Epic—I was not.
I was more of a follower than a leader. He had to know that. He had to know that men who hide away in their lairs to analyze data are not the light cavalry of the modern day.
What was he really saying when he’d signed off, “Yours?”
…what I want is to live in St. Nacho’s, dedicate my skills to the work you do, and pursue you, even into hell if I have to.
Tell me now if the answer is no.
The rest is details.
Yours? You are [still] mine.
Epic
I thought about how to answer for a long time. I thought about how it would feel to put my heart out there and fail. I thought about how I’d feel if we only ended up prolonging the heartache. We’d spent so little time together. There were so many hurdles between us. Yet I saw him when I closed my eyes at night. I reached for him when I woke.
Nothing could have prepared me for these feelings—longing, and wonder, and hope.
In the end, I went with my gut.
Epic,
God yes. I want that too. It took only one single day at work for me to realize I’m not likely to get what I want unless I ask someone like you to step in