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but two hours ago I couldn’t have imagined her like this. Embarrassed. Flustered. Twitterpated.
    “Is this about a guy?” I take a stab and add a jab. “What are you, twelve?”
    Talia rubs two fingertips across her forehead, but doesn’t answer.
    Like I can’t read that body language. “You meet someone in your case files this weekend?”
    “No, no — I — it’s nothing.”
    I was fishing before, but now there’s blood in the water. “So it is a guy. New friend?”
    “Not exactly, not really.” She tries to wave me away. “It’s nothing. Won’t go anywhere.”
    “So one-night stand material?”
    She levels me with a glare to say I know her better than that, and I do. I’m trying to get a rise out of her, and she knows that. And it’s working.
    “You know you’re going to have to tell me sometime.”
    Talia cocks her head, daring me to push her. But when she speaks, the defenses are still high in her voice. “It was just — I don’t know — a little . . . moment.”
    Finally, that thing people are supposed to have — you know, “better judgment” — kicks in, and I see that if I tease her more, she’ll shut down. I slide back into business mode. “Okay, they’ll be expecting us at seven—”
    “‘Us,’ Kemosabe?” The nerves are gone, replaced by an excuse-me eyebrow.
    “Yeah, you and your driver.” I gesture at myself.
    She gives me a riiight look. “Thursday night?”
    “Yep.”
    “Okay.” Talia reaches under her desk and grabs those ever-present case files. “Well, my Turkmen friend is holding a forum on natural gas pipelines this afternoon, and I’d better get down there to support him.”
    “Is that who’s got you all giggly?”
    This time it doesn’t faze her. “I’m not giggly. If I were, it’d have nothing to do with him.”
    “I bet.”
    Talia rolls her eyes and packs up for the day. “I’ll practice after that. See you tomorrow.”
    I nod my goodbye. And yes, I watch her walk away.
    She’s only gone for a minute when it hits me.
    A guy. Someone she’s known. A “moment.” Little, nothing, no future.
    That split second in front of the guards Friday night flashes through my mind again. Tucking her hair behind her ear. The cover in her eyes falling away. The real need, the real protectiveness showing through both our stories. The boa constrictor slowly closing around my ribs feels every bit as real.
    I love Shanna. I do. But she’s been pulling away for a long time, and she’s the one who needed time more than she needed me.
    And I’m a guy. And Talia’s a cute girl. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t had a thing for her. A little thing. A thing I was going to ignore.
    Until she needed me.
    Work just got a whole lot more complicated.
     

     
    After our surveillance detection route Thursday night, we still manage to arrive comfortably early — not just for Talia’s performance, but the whole reception. The Ottawa Convention Centre looks like a glowing glass zeppelin landed in the middle of downtown. Impressive, but the security isn’t nearly as rigorous as we expected. They barely glance at us or the list before they wave us into the garage.
    Maybe we didn’t have to jump through all these hoops, cancelling another act and getting Talia all set up as the designated replacement. But as long as they wave us through to the party that easily, and don’t kick us out once her twenty minutes are up, it’ll all be worthwhile.
    We follow the garage guards’ directions to the greenroom on the second floor, and we don’t recap our objectives. We don’t touch. We don’t make eye contact.
    Okay, my gaze does kind of drift elsewhere. I don’t know much about women’s clothes, but I like Talia’s dress — black, long sleeved, past her knees but not too long to cover most of her calves. I think she spots me looking this time, but she says nothing.
    Then I catch the way she’s biting her lip, the adjustment to her red updo wig. Jitters.
    This is exactly