Page 58 of Love at First Sighting
“Actually, no,” he says, guiding me inside. “Our security cameras are jerry-rigged Ring doorbells.”
“Clever.”
“Thank you, invented it myself.”
“A natural Nikola Tesla,” I laugh.
The inside smells like burnt coffee and printer paper, and I now know where the smell of crisp pages and fresh ink on his clothing comes from.
The office is silent except for the hum of machinery and a rotating ceiling fan. It’s a cool night, but the air in here is stagnant and warm enough to clog my pores on contact. We step into a bullpen full of desks, surrounded by a perimeter of private offices, like something straight out ofAngel City Noir.
“Here are the agents’ desks. A couple of private conference rooms. Marcus’s office in the corner,” Carter explains.
I turn to a locked steel door at the bottom of a set of stairs. “What’s that?”
“Fallout shelter.”
“You…you have a fallout shelter?”
Carter nods. “PIS was started in the forties, right after the birth of the atomic bombs and the Roswell incident. So much UFO paranoia comes from this threat of being hit by an unknowable power from the sky. Government buildings are easy targets. It’s mostly storage now. Storage and impending asthma attacks.”
“Right. That’s charming.”
I turn to Carter. Looking at him makes me feel like I’m slipping into another era, and the indelicate smirk on his lips reminds me of a frame from a black-and-white movie. Something quiet, sexy, that’d break the Hays Code. We approach a corner office with large, frosted windows and the nameMarcus Pearson, Chief Agentstenciled over the glass in gold. Carter flips through keys on his key ring, then slides a silver one into the door.
“You have a key to his office?”
Carter pushes open the door. “He’s always losing his keys or forgetting them at home, so I have a backup.”
“Sneaky.”
“No, I just don’t want to have to go to Home Depot to cut new ones every three weeks.”
Carter lets me step inside first. He holds up a hand to stop me from entering as he turns to what I infer is his desk, where he opens up a small first aid kit and brings us two sets of rubber gloves.
“Verysneaky,” I say.
“It’sso Angel City Noir,” he says with a wink, and snaps his pair of gloves on his hands.
“Make fun of me, why don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t dare tease your new favorite show.”
As we enter, Carter’s gloved hand slips around my waist. It’s a gentle intimacy that makes my chest feel warm and the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Marcus’s office has a wall of glass-doored bookshelves, various histories and biographies lining them, a couple of spooky Everett Hargrove novels. There are folders full of papers haphazardly stacked on the shelves, too. The floors creak beneath my heels, and it feels deafening. I skim Marcus’s desk for signs of what little family I hope Carter has, but it’s empty. There are accolades and awards spread across the desk, a badge scanner in the corner, but no signs of the kid he helped raise. There are no graduation pictures of Carter or photos of them on…I don’t know, fishing trips or some shit.
Carter tightens his fists at his sides, his nose twitching at the harsh scent of smoke in the room. Yet, he doesn’t pop a fresh piece of gum. I eye the ashtray that sits on the corner of Marcus’s desk.
“An indoor smoker,” I say.
Carter nods. “Yep, smokes like a chimney. Growing up, I felt like no matter what I did—no matter how much laundry or how many showers I took—it still lived on my skin. My hair. I could always taste it on me.”
Our eyes meet across the desk. “The gum chewing come from that?”
“Yeah. It’s a turn-off for some people.”
“I don’t care,” I say, sliding a gloved finger under one of his suspenders. “Ithink you taste good.”
