Genesis had been right. It had been a purge. A toxic purge of everything they were holding inside. Weirdly, Gabby felt lighter.
And they’d learned something. Genesis wasn’t necessarily selling secrets. Tricking people into telling secrets and playing them for group consumption was kind of creepy, but it wasn’t the same as selling them to the media. Theoretically, he could still sell the really juicy ones and save most for ceremonies, but it seemed like he was collecting them for this.
Like after a yoga class, Genesis said, “Wiggle your fingers, wiggle your toes. Open your eyes.” It didn’t sound right coming from his booming voice.
“Your secrets are no longer yours. You’ve released the burden. That is the first step to intimacy. You cannot be a power couple if you aren’t honest with one another.”
He had a point, but also, you probably had to confide in your partner more than once a year when you whispered secrets into a conch shell in the Azores. But she agreed with the honesty thing. She and Phil hadn’t been, and look where they’d ended up.
“Now it is time for me to share the deepest part of myself with you. To share my truth and secrets.”
Gabby waited with bated breath for Genesis to share a truth, maybe something that would matter to the investigation, but no.Power Couplecame up on the screen.
For fuck’s sake.
Big G shut his eyes and bowed his head. “Before this movie, I thought I could do it alone. I thought I was enough. I didn’t realize that I needed my better half to accomplish big things. That’s really what this movie is about.
“When you are doing big things, making big moves, your partner has your back, and you have theirs. It’s not just you against the world, it’s you and your other half against the world.”
Why was the world against them?
“When you become a power couple, you can do anything.”
It was 9:00 p.m. and Gabby was trying to fight sleep. This job might have provided her an opportunity for a satisfying love life for the first time in forever, but it was really just a big tease.
Markus pushed up the armrest on the chair between them, put his arm around her, and pulled her in tight.
Maybe they were undercover being indoctrinated by a megalomaniac cult leader, but they were also out for their first movie. She snuggled into the crook of his arm and rested her head on his chest. The position was a little awkward, but she wasn’t going to move. The heat they were generating between them was enough to power a small appliance, a toaster maybe. They were a power couple, at least for tonight.
2300 hours, the beach, on the way back to the honeymoon cottage
After the movie at Genesis and Jasmine’s, Markus and Gabby walked down the beach in silence. Gabby wrapped the refined loungewear sweater tighter around herself to block the chill in the air. The breaking and entering part of the evening had been simple in comparison to the rest of the night. It was more like leaving a couples’ therapy session than a dinner party.
“Good job with the mission,” he said.
“Thanks.” She still had the USB drive tucked in her pocket. The plan was to upload it and send it back to EOD headquarters for review.
“While I was downloading, a couple came into the office.” She tried to recall their conversation, but it was fuzzy. “It was kind of hard to hear from the closet. Besides making out, they talked about us. More like they mentioned us,” she amended.
“Oh?” he said, his voice pitching up in curiosity.
“They were suspicious. And then one of them said, ‘I moan’ something something. I don’t know what she was talking about, but it struck me because it was odd.”
“Could you tell who was talking?”
“No, two women. As far as I know, there wasn’t a lesbian couple at the party tonight. They might have been staff or…” She had no clue who they were. “Mostly, I was glad that they didn’t find me hiding in the closet.”
For a few paces, they didn’t say anything. In the theater, things had felt cozy, but on the beach, talking about the mission, the uncertainty was back. Gabby was walking separately from Markus, her arms across her chest.
“So you have cold feet?” he asked.
“Oh, that.” She laughed off her conch confession. When he didn’t seem to buy her dismissal, she said, “How could I have cold feet for a pretend wedding? It was just something I said.”
It wasn’t. Their cult wedding might be fake, but it was a dress rehearsal for real life. They passed by the still partially collapsed yoga tent, gleaming white in the moonlight, evidence of her complete lack of balance. Gabby had seen a team of people trying to put it back up earlier and had overheard something about ordering new tent poles. If she wasn’t careful, her whole life would become that yoga tent, collapsed around her.
Markus stopped in the path, unfortunately right in front of the metaphor for her life, which he didn’t seem to notice. It’s like he couldn’t see her flaws when they were as big as a collapsed British Bake Off tent.
The moon was full and shining over the water. His expression was earnest. “Gabby, there is no one on this earth I would rather pretend to marry.”
