The trivia contest is a mistake for everyone involved except me.
We sit at small tables scattered across the terrace, the afternoon sun beating down on expensive white linens and sweating water glasses. Each couple receives a whiteboard and marker. The questions are projected onto a screen:How well do you know your partner?
I know nothing factual about Colletta. I have known her for approximately thirty-six hours. This should be a catastrophic failure.
Except I have been watching her. I watch everything. It is what kept me alive in the fighting pits, what kept my squad intact during border raids. Observation. Pattern recognition. Threat assessment.
And Colletta is not a threat, but she is the mission, which means I have catalogued every detail.
"Question one," the coordinator announces cheerfully, a young human woman with clipboard and desperation in her smile. "What is your partner's favorite food?"
Colletta chews her lip, marker hovering. She glances at me, panicked.
I write without hesitation:Coffee ice cream. She ate it last night when she thought I was asleep.
She stares at my board, her mouth falling open. "How did you..."
"You hid the container under the bathroom sink," I say quietly. "Poor tactical choice. The condensation left marks on the cabinet floor."
"You're insane," she whispers, but she's smiling, and she writes the same answer on her own board.
We reveal our answers together, turning the boards simultaneously.
Match.
Across the table, Derek and his girlfriend flip their boards with considerably less coordination. They do not match. She has guessed sushi, the word written in careful, hopeful letters. He has scrawled pizza in thick black marker, not even looking at her as he does it. The girlfriend's smile falters, just slightly, a crack in the porcelain.
Question two arrives like incoming fire: "What is your partner's biggest fear?"
Colletta freezes completely. The marker goes still in her hand, hovering above the whiteboard like a bird that forgot how to land. Her breathing changes—shorter, shallower. I recognize the pattern. Stress response. Fight or flight triggering, though there is no physical threat present.
But I already know the answer.
I write without hesitation, the marker squeaking slightly against the laminated surface:Being laughed at.
It is obvious. Every time Derek mocked her, every stumble, every moment of public awkwardness, her shoulders became rigid, her breathing changed. She fears humiliation more thanphysical harm. It is why she hired me. Not for protection from violence, but from shame.
She stares at my response for a long moment. Her own board stays blank. Then, slowly, she writes:Being alone.
We reveal.
Do not match, but something passes between us, heavy and uncomfortable and true. Her eyes glisten. I want to eliminate whatever made her feel that way. I want to find it and break it into pieces.
"Close enough!" the coordinator says, too bright, and marks us down for a point anyway.
We won the trivia contest by a landslide. Derek stops trying halfway through. His girlfriend looks miserable.
Colletta leans into my side, her shoulder pressing against my ribs, warm and solid and real. "You're weirdly good at this," she murmurs.
"I am good at everything," I reply, which is not arrogance, merely fact.
She laughs, the sound bubbling helpless and genuine.
The final event is a final round of freaking egg toss.
We line up across from each other on the lawn, couples facing each other in two rows that stretch across the immaculate grass. Monica stands to the side with a basket of eggs, her expression hovering somewhere between hopeful and resigned. The rules are simple: throw the egg to your partner, take a step back, repeat until only one couple remains unbroken.
I do not understand the purpose of this exercise. It seems designed to create mess and failure. But Colletta is smiling, so I participate.
