Henn takes the phone, his cheeks rising with color. “Well, this isn’t awks or anything,” he says into the phone. “Hello, Hannah Millikin. I’m Peter Hennessey—but everyone just calls me Henn.” He pauses to let Hannah talk and then chuckles. “Yeah, shedidkinda make it sound like your idea, actually.” He laughs again. “She’s a sneaky one, for sure.” He pauses. “Um, you know, just working... I’m a computer specialist—a freelance programmer.” He clears his throat and listens for a moment. “L.A., New York, Toronto, Denver—I go wherever the job takes me, and I can work from anywhere, so I travel a lot, but I mostly live in L.A. in a crappy-ass apartment. Where are you? Oh, yeah, duh. Kat just said she works with you. Yeah, sure, I get up there sometimes—I love it there. Good salmon.” He pauses. “Me, too,” he finally says. “Indubitably.” He grins broadly at something Hannah’s saying. “Yeah, I hope so. Thanks.” He blushes and hands the phone back to Kat. “Here you go.”
“Not so awks after all, huh?” Kat says playfully.
Henn flashes a shy smile. “Not nearly as awks as it could have been,” he agrees. “She made it easy.”
Kat grins and grabs the phone. “Hey, girl. Isn’t he the cutest? I know, right? Sure, I’ll send you a picture.” She lowers her voice. “Word on the street is he’s aphenomenalkisser, too.” She beams a smile at Henn and giggles. “Yeah, I will. Okay, bye, Banana. Thanks again.”
Kat puts her phone down, grins devilishly, and steeples her fingers like a cartoon villain. “Oh, my darling Henny, I have afeeling.”
“About what?”
“Aboutyouand my dear friend Hannah Banana Montana Millikin.What’s your sign?”
“Mysign? Sagittarius.”
Kat’s face lights up. “Ah, the explorer. Well, that makes perfect sense. And super-duper perfect with Leo.”
“Hannah’s a Leo?” I ask.
Kat nods. “And Sag-Leo is a fabulous combo. Maybe when we’re done saving the world all four of us can go out to dinner some time?”
“I’d be up for that,” I say.
Henn shrugs and makes a face like he’s got nothing to lose. “Um. Sure.”
Kat scrolls through the photos on her phone for a moment. When she finds what she’s looking for, she hands her phone to Henn. “That’s Hannah,” she says.
Henn looks at the phone. “Wow. She’s super cute.” He blushes. “Yeah, I’d totally be up for dinner. Sounds great.”
“Awesome.” Kat’s eyes are positively sparkling. She plops her phone onto the bed next to her. “Okay, boys. I’m gonna brush my teeth and wash my face and then,voila,I’ll be Oksana Belenko for as long needed.”
With that, she hops out of bed in her itty-bitty G-string and barely-there tank top and sashays to the bathroom on her long, toned legs, her blonde hair falling down her back—completely unaware of, or not giving a shit about, the male shrapnel she’s leaving behind in her glorious wake.
11
KAT
I’m practically peeing myself with laughter.
Josh, Henn, and Reed are telling the story of how Josh wound up with “YOLO” inked onto his ass, and Will, Carmen, and I are laughing so hard, we can barely keep ourselves upright at the table.
As it turned out, Josh, Henn and I weren’t called upon to make the money transfers today. At around four o’ clock our time, Sarah and Jonas called to tell us we were free until eight tomorrow morning, at which time they wanted us to station ourselves outside the first bank on our agenda, ready to go at their signal. Which meant that after Josh, Henn, and I did a little shopping for clothes befitting the wealthy pimpstress Oksana Belenko, we decided to let off a little steam and have a great meal together.
“Let’s call Reed,” Josh suggested. “Get the band back together.”
As it turned out, Reed was on his way to the airport with Will and Carmen when Josh called, but at his friend’s invitation to dinner, he turned his car around. And now Josh, Henn, Reed, Will, Carmen and I are sitting together in a five-star restaurant, half-way through our amazing meal, laughing ’til tears pour down our faces.
“YouknewI had the quote wrong the whole time?” Josh shouts at Reed, incredulous. “After ten years, this is the first time I’m hearing this part of the story.”
Reed is laughing so hard, he’s crying. “Of course, I knew. You were dead in the water, bro. Everyone knew it. It wasn’t even close.”
“Then why the hell did you goad me on like that?”
“And miss watching you to get ‘YOLO’ tattooed onto your ass?”
Josh can’t believe his ears. “For all these years, I thought you didn’t know. I thought you were being fair and impartial.”
Reed shakes his head, laughing. “Hell no. I was Team Henn all the way. It served you right, bro.You were being a total dick about it.”
