sex bots 04 - one night steined (13 page)

“I don’t think of you like that, Kur. You know I think of you as—”

“Your child?”

The sentiment flayed him to the bone. “No.”

“’Cuz you know that’s even creepier, Frank.”

“I said I
didn’t
think of you as my kid.”

She was silent for a long moment, enough time for Frank to wonder if maybe she was right. Then Kuri said, “Regardless. You’re not my boss, or my father, or my maker.” Her words were so similar to what Q-ter had said a few months back that Frank couldn’t help but feel defensive. But as much as he wanted to tell her she was wrong, he wanted to see her more.

Then she said something that stole his breath, so Frank couldn’t have talked if he wanted. “But you are a man that I like. And I want to see you again.”

Frank dropped his head, his chin touching his chest. The tears came then, thick and fast behind his eyes. They didn’t fall though, just filled him with the force of his emotion until he could hardly choke out the words, “I want to see you too, Kur.” He wasn’t sure if it would spook her if he said what was bursting from his lungs, but he couldn’t hold back the words. “I’ve missed you.”
Oh hell, I’ve missed you so much.

The tiniest whisper met his ear as Kuri said, “I miss you too.”

* * * * *

Kuri pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot. The streets were slick and cold, and the winter rain threatened to freeze and turn the roads to icy sheets. She would have expected the place to be crowded with lifers trying to drown their holiday sorrows in the restaurant’s bar. However, only a few cars littered the lot. None of them she associated with the ZU, which meant that Frank had probably walked.

She had to force herself to haul open the restaurant’s door rather than just getting in her hatchback and driving away. Approaching Frank felt like walking into a trap. As she navigated between rows of booth tables, she half expected him to have brought the entire ZU team for some kind of intervention. But when the waitress pointed out Frank’s table, it was just him, sitting alone.

Frank’s hair was shorter than she remembered, his iron-colored curls cropped close enough to his head to look more like tight waves. He wore gloves at the end of his crisp, white shirtsleeves. He stood when she approached, his chin raised and his shoulders back. He seemed to have gotten bigger while she’d been gone—no doubt because he’d been hitting the weights with even more maniacal fervor since he was so pissed at her. But Kuri had to admit that the definition she could see even through his clothes made her mouth water.

“Heya, Kuri.” He smiled.

Even though Kuri knew he was mad as hell, she couldn’t help but smile back. “Hey, Frank.” She took the hand he offered, stepping forward when he drew her in to kiss her cheek. His body hovered near hers, inviting her to get closer. Kuri went on tiptoe to peck his cheek and then went to her seat.

Frank swung around behind her to push her in. “How was your trip?”

Kuri wondered if somehow he managed to track down where she lived. It wouldn’t have been easy. She swore Q to secrecy when he fabricated the alias she used to apply for her job. Of course, Q might have caved. “Fine. I’m living in Spokane now.”

“Oh.” Frank’s look of surprise said he hadn’t actually found out where she lived. Maybe he’d just gotten so used to pretending he knew everything that he came off that way all the time. “That’s nice.”

“Well, it’s sunnier than here, which I like.” She searched Frank’s eyes, looking for censure.

He only unfolded his napkin and put it on his lap. “I know how much you like it here in summer. Remember that time you, Barb and Shani went to the beach in Alki for Fourth of July and your car broke down on the way back?” Frank chuckled at the memory.

“Oh my God, yeah. That old sedan was so rundown and we didn’t have another car.” Kuri giggled. That had been years ago—before Q-ter joined their team. Back then Frank had called Kuri, Shani and Barb his “Angels”. Kuri’d never gotten around to watching the old movie. “You took four buses to come get us.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged, trying to be modest. “I’m pretty sure the folks on the last one thought I was gonna knife them. It was three in the morning by then and I didn’t want to take off my face mask.”

Kuri couldn’t believe how easy it was to talk to Frank once they got going. He grinned easily, and after the waitress took their order, he reached across the table with his glove-covered hand. He turned his palm up in invitation. But she didn’t know if she could touch him—even with the leather covering. “Frank, I…”

Frank pulled his arm under the table, color rising on his cheeks. “Sorry, doll. I didn’t mean to make you nervous.”

She shook her head. “No.” Kuri ducked to meet his downcast eyes. “No, you didn’t.”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, leaning back in his seat. Then he asked the question she’d been dreading. “So, um, how have you been doing?”

Kuri knew he was asking about her psychological well-being, not something mundane like her life or her job. She wasn’t sure, though, whether she was comfortable talking to Frank about her mental health. Not when he’d been way too involved in her life before. “I’m better. Not
glitching
anymore.” She folded her napkin, fussing to place it at a perfect angle. “I mean—my doctor says that on some level I’ll always be struggling.” She kept her eyes on the table, not wanting to see Frank’s look of surprise that she was seeing a doctor other than him. “But for now, yeah—I’m a lot better than I was.”

“Oh.” Frank pushed back so far from the table, Kuri was pretty sure he was balancing on the back legs of his chair.

“You’re gonna topple over if you tip any farther.” She gave him a little twist of a smile.

Frank thunked back to the floor. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. Your doctor doesn’t suspect?”

She knew he wasn’t bothered so much that she’d be found out as a stein as that she was relying on someone other than him, but Kuri played along. “She’s a counselor, but she referred me to a low-cost clinic as well.” Kuri was lucky the clinic hadn’t insisted on any blood work before prescribing her medication. She’d been able to ride through on the forged medical records she’d planted in the nationwide database.

Kuri suspected she could have battled her PTSD without the antidepressants that buffered her moods, but it wouldn’t have been easy. “Nope. You always did say that I could pass better than any stein you’ve known.”

Frank raised his eyebrows. “No kidding. Better than I thought. Hell, I could send you…” He trailed off, eyes widening as if Frank knew he’d traveled into taboo territory.

“You know I can’t work for you anymore, right?” Kuri asked it as kindly as she could. She understood the ZU’s mission, and loved what they did for steins like her, but unless she went to work for another branch in another city, Kuri couldn’t see a way to continue with the Underground.

“Yeah.” Frank drank the last of his beer and then fiddled with the glass. He stared at the foam ring around the top for so long that Kuri might have thought he was done talking. But the set of his jaw told her that Frank was just mulling over how to phrase how he felt. “I don’t want you to work for me anymore either.”

Kuri knew her mouth was hanging open. Frank never gave anyone up willingly. Sure, they’d saved steins who didn’t stick around, but those were the folks who never started working for Frank. The ones he didn’t have a relationship with.

“I miss you. I really do.” Frank was scrubbing at the back of his neck as if he could rub off their awkwardness. “But…I miss
you
. Not the job you do.” He looked up at her, meeting her eyes. His expression was so wide open that it made her heart feel like it softened inside her chest like an overripe fruit.

“I know.”

“I miss you yelling at me, and calling me out on my shit. I miss how you always say you’re going to get hamburger or fish, but end up eating liver.” He rubbed his face, chuckling. “Hell, I even miss those plastic shoes you used to wear. I swear, I can still hear them knocking on the floors sometimes.”

Kuri’s bottom lip trembled. When Frank gently, slowly placed his hand on the table again, she laid her palm on top of his and tangled their fingers. “I miss you too, Frank. I just can’t—”

“You don’t have to.” He stroked his thumb over her palm. He studied her wrist like he was mapping the course of her veins. “You don’t have to come work for us, or even move back to Seattle.” He smiled at their clasped hands. Then he whispered, “Just call me sometimes. Let me know when you’re gonna visit again.”

His quiet request brought tears to her eyes. Kuri swiped a finger under each of her eyelids before the drops could fall. “Sure, Frank.” Kuri wished they were standing, because then she could have climbed into his arms for a hug. But she was glad in a way that they were still waiting for their meals. If she touched him so soon, it might break their careful truce. “Of course I’ll give you a call.”

Chapter Eleven

Frank stopped watching the phone after three days. Still, he couldn’t help but stare at his calendar, wondering whether Kuri was taking off the whole week between Christmas and New Year’s. He’d stopped shutting off his schedule and left it open in the corner of his screen, counting down the days until 2074.

He stalked away from his computer and lay back on his weight bench. Q-ter had teased him about having a combination office/gym, but a lot of the time, work was frustrating enough that Frank wanted to burn off his energy between phone calls and reports.

Frank wrapped his hands around the bar over his head, braced his feet on the floor on either side of the bench and pressed straight upward. He grunted, wanting to wash away all his thoughts in a rush of endorphins, in the burn of muscle tissue tearing and rebuilding.

Bane and Shani didn’t understand how hard it was for Frank, to be always trapped behind a computer in the office when the others got to work in the field. Then, as he exhaled on the flex of his arms, he considered what Kuri would have said.

She’d tell Frank to stop being such a martyr and get out and do field work if he wanted to so badly. Frank pressed through a set and then grabbed a towel off the floor. Kuri—even the version of her in his brain—was right. Q-ter managed most of the recon. The main reason Frank was around was to oversee the younger stein. But Q-ter was more than equipped to handle more responsibility. He only relied on Frank because Frank let him.

Lying down again, Frank lifted the weights into a straight-armed press. He lowered the bar to his chest, and right when he was about to press upward, his phone rang. Tucking his knees up to keep tension in his core, he listened to his answering machine pick up his call.

Then he heard Kuri’s voice. “Hi, Frank. I’m working this week, but I was thinking of coming back into town for New Year’s.”

He wrenched his arms upward, his grip failing at the last moment so the weights landed in the rack with a clang. Not hearing what Kuri said next, Frank dove across his desk to the phone. “Hello?” He clutched the receiver in his sweating hand, hoping she hadn’t hung up.

“Oh, hey. I didn’t think you were there.”

Frank thought about quipping, “Where else would I be?” but he didn’t want to make Kuri think he’d been waiting for her call. Trying to sound as disinterested as he could, he asked, “You’re coming to town?”

“Yeah.” Her voice was bright and happy. “I told Shani I’d come to her party on New Year’s Eve, but I’m going to drive up in the morning. We could have coffee.”

It was less than he wanted. “Yeah. Coffee’s fine.” He ran through places he could invite her and then manipulate their coffee into at least a lunch. “How about Irascible Joe?”

“The one in Capitol Hill or over by the park?”

“By the park.” That location was less crowded. Frank wondered if he could talk Kuri into driving over to the party together. He could argue that they should take a cab to avoid driving drunk.

“Great. See you then.”

The next four days dragged so slowly. Frank wondered if the circuitry dictating his circadian rhythm might have been corrupted. Most of the team was taking time off to buy Christmas presents, and even if he’d had everyone on hand, there was not much else to do. The companies and organizations they spied on were all running on bare-bones staffs. Hence, there wasn’t much information passing hands for Q-ter to monitor. One year, Frank decided, he’d plan a large-scale rescue during the holidays. However, not having organized any such thing for that year, Frank had nothing to do but think about his upcoming date with Kuri.

He shaved that day, swerving the razor nimbly past his network of scars, and wore a brand-new shirt he’d bought for the occasion. Frank had found it at a consignment shop, though Royce had assured him it was made by some fancy designer. He made sure to wear tight-fitting boxer-briefs to make it less obvious if he threw wood. He even wore leather shoes.

Kuri was standing in front of the coffee shop as he pulled up. She looked gorgeous in a cream-colored coat with a sparkly pink scarf around her neck. Heck, the stein stood like a heroine in an old movie, so damn pretty Frank could hardly look at her. When he parked, it took him a few minutes to work up the courage to get out of the car.

It had been easier when Kuri was broken. Then, Frank could imagine a reason why she’d want to be with him. But now? The beautiful, confident woman waiting for him on a corner was out of Frank’s league. If she’d ever been in it.

“Frank?” She knocked on his window, jolting Frank out of his reverie.

“Uh, yeah.” He rushed to open the car door and climbed out. When he got to standing, Kuri folded into his arms for a hug. He was so shocked at first that he froze. Even with the boxer-briefs, she must have felt how hard he instantly got. He patted her back, though he tucked his hips away. “Hey, Kuri. Did you have a good trip?”

“Yeah, I did.” They started walking, and she wove her fingers with his. “The traffic was better than I expected.”

He wasn’t sure what they talked about, not even when they stood at the counter and ordered their drinks. All Frank could think about was how Kuri smiled at him. They spoke as if they were friends, and maybe even lovers. When they sat at a small booth across from each other with hands cupped around their respective mugs, Kuri crossed her legs with his under the table.