But look again. He was actually rather handsome, if you took a moment to really notice. Sharp, hard jawline. Piercing, intelligent eyes. And his arms stretched out the sleeves of that polo, not to mention the pull of the fabric across his shoulders. In fact, the more I looked at him, the more I realized he was actually pretty damn hot. It was almost as if he had some kind of ability to will himself into the background, will you to not quite notice him. But now that he was in front of me…yummy.
“Why are you staring at me?” He took a sip of his espresso, a slight smirk on his lips, his eyes betraying a faint humor.
“Nothing. I just…nothing.”
“You cannot offend me. What is it?”
“I just always thought of you as…unremarkable looking. Like, you blend in, no matter where you go. Just kind of fade into the background. Even with the other guys in a room, we all sort of forget you’re there until you speak. But now I’m sort of realizing that you’re not unremarkable at all.”
“No? Then what am I, would you say?”
“Kinda hot, actually. I just had to actually look to see it.”
“A kind sentiment,Frau. In my life, in my training, it was always better to be unremarkable, to go unnoticed. It is a habit I will always have.”
“What is your training?”
Almost imperceptibly, he moved his head side to side. “Many and much.”
“Well, no shit, Sherlock. Like where? For who?”
“It would only bore you if I told you. Lots of boring days doing boring things for boring people.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re not very good at evading direct questions, Anselm.”
“I haven’t told you anything of a specific nature.”
“No, but you’re being very obvious about it.” I grinned. “Would you tell me if I were to torture you?”
Anselm did not return my smile. “That isn’t funny.” He leaned forward on his forearms, then rolled one arm over so the inside of his forearm was face up. The skin was…I don’t even have a word for what it looked like. As if it had been ripped away, and then healed over. “They peeled my skin off in strips. Hot needles under my fingernails. Other things even less pleasant. And no, I did not tell them what they wished to know.”
“Fuck me running, Anslem. I’m sorry, I had no idea.” Talk about awkward. But then, when you’re surrounded by super-soldiers and ex-spies, I guess jokes about torture might not be funny.
But then he grinned at me and snickered. “I am teasing with you. That was from a motorcycle accident.”
I laughed it off, but there was a hardness to his gaze, a faraway look to the way he stared into the dregs of his espresso. Motorcycle accident? I don’t think so. Methinks the spy doth protest too much.
“The truth is I am not at liberty to disclose many of the things I did, or for whom. What I can say is that I specialize in the gathering of information and the…acquisition, shall we say, of personnel who may possess such useful information.”
“I see. So you watch people, and sometimes make them disappear.”
“Essentially, yes.”
“And do you kill them?”
“Not if I can help it. A dead person cannot tell you their secrets, after all, and there is always a way to pry a secret from someone.”
“And what way is that for you?”
He shook his head from side to side again. “Good espresso.”
I snorted at that. “A likely story.”
Anselm rose. “Dankefor the espresso,FrauCampari. Now, shall we go?”
“Go where?”
He gestured at the street. “Shopping? Unless you are finished?”
