Gabby fell back in her chair, speechless. Her coffee sloshed over the rim onto her pants.
Valentina handed her a towel. “Get it together, Greene. It’s just pretend. No need to sign a prenup.”
Role-playing a fight had already been hard enough this morning.
“Why?” Markus asked, looking no more excited than she was.
While Gabby mopped up coffee, Valentina continued. “Inner-G is hosting its Power Couples Retreat this weekend.”
Markus snickered, and Valentina said, “I know.”
“What’s so funny?” Gabby asked, glancing between them.
“It’s based on his moviePower Couple.”
“It’s genius,” Markus said, “turning his classic movie into a cult.”
“Wasn’t that an action movie?”
Valentina sighed. “I don’t know if it’s genius, but it starts on Saturday morning. Markus, you make the arrangements. Genesis is going to be thrilled you’re finally signing up.”
Gabby’s head was spinning. She and Markus were in the middle of trying to figure out workable boundaries in their relationship. They were work wives, which might or might not involve sex but definitely didn’t involve trips to the Azores and marriage.
Valentina explained, “By getting married, you’re jumping straight to the inner circle. It guarantees more time with Genesis and Jasmine. They love when their cult members get married, especially to potential new cult members.”
Markus, with his pecs and his gray sweatpants and a pheromone cocktail that made her woozy and pliable… she wasn’t ready to bring him home yet. What if he didn’t do the dishes? She had kids, and a mortgage, and a Granny who was going to need more help than she offered before long. The stakes for making a bad decision were too high. Gabby was dating without a net.
Valentina cocked her head. Channeling a drill sergeant, she said, “Is this too hard of an assignment for you, Agent Greene?” Gabby half expected to tell her to drop and give her twenty or clean the latrine with a toothbrush.
“I got this,” Gabby said with more volume than confidence.
“You better.” Valentina nodded. “I’ve emailed you our encrypted files on Genesis, Jasmine, and Inner-G. I expect you to have it all memorized by tomorrow. This is not a drill.”
Markus held the door for Gabby, and they walked down the hall away from the office. Before this meeting, the amount of open-ended business between them had felt like a lot. On the way out of the office, with a fake marriage on the calendar for next week, she and Markus barely fit in the hall with all the unspoken business and big feelings between them.
“So, uh, we’re getting married, huh?” she said, if for no other reason than to fill the awkward silence. Work wife wedding bells were ringing. Gabby could almost pretend that didn’t make her actually, really worried she couldn’t do it all. Almost. For a job that required compartmentalizing, the lines were getting very blurry.
1800 hours, late for dinner, Greene household
Gabby drove home in a daze. She had two nights to get everything in order before she left for the Azores. A quick Google search had shown shots of beautiful volcanic islands, velvety green conical mountains, waterfalls, and ocean views—basically, it was the bad guy’s island lair fromThe Incrediblesand a twenty-four-hour trip from LA. Her last mission had turned into an unmitigated disaster, but at least it had been a short commute. This job—international travel, away from her kids twenty-four seven for… had Valentina said a week? She started to sweat more than she had during her twenty-minute workout that Markus had interrupted. In retrospect, had that really been necessary? Markus needed to get a dog. It was just him and his protein shakes and his hot ex-wife.
And Gabby needed to calm down. Spiraling anxiety would do nothing but suck up time.
She hit her blinker and made a slow, controlled turn onto Avocado Avenue. She might be about to go on the work trip from hell. The kids didn’t need to know that. When she walked through the door, she was Mom.
Avocado Avenue was just as she’d left it this morning. The biggest excitement on the block was Shelly’s new privacy fence, erected shortly after their recent conflict. But really, it wasn’t Gabby’s fault that Shelly had gotten arrested. Sure, it wouldn’t have happened if the Russian Mafia hadn’t been staking out Gabby’s house, but still, if she’d stayed out of it, she would have been fine.
The only other change was Justin’s new lawn furniture. Now every time she went over there, he name-dropped the designer of his new chairs and table. “Dinner on the patio. Did you know this table is by Alphonse?” She didn’t have the heart to tell him that the Alphonse de Picnic Table was kind of wobbly. Gabby had the Costco set he’d replaced in her backyard now.
As her Spanish-style home with an orange tile roof and a lemon tree in the front came into view, she couldn’t help but smile. It was warm, welcoming, and filled with everyone she loved. Well, except for Burt, but even he was growing on her.
Tonight, Granny and Burt had picked up the kids and taken care of dinner. Justin was waiting eagerly to do the big reveal on her redecorated bedroom. Maybe she’d only be home for two nights, but at least she could sleep in a bed. A week on the couch had been enough. Hopefully, Justin hadn’t spent a fortune on brand-name nightstands or something ridiculous. When he’d asked for keywords to describe her vision, she had said: “tasteful,” “soft blankets,” “Joanna Gaines.” She had just been saying words. Gabby didn’t have a design aesthetic.
He’d responded with a huffy, “You know I can’t do Joanna Gaines. If I ever bring out shiplap, just make a casket out of it and bury me, because I’ve already died inside.”
“What’s shiplap?” she’d asked.
At least she would have a room that she could maybe,foreseeably, if the stars aligned, bring Markus to. Someday. Really, bringing someone back to her house at her age was trickier than when she’d been fooling around as a teenager.
