He sighs like I should be the one riding the short bus. “Then it’s just a door. But if it’s locked from the outside, no matter what a bad guy does to the person he’s in here with, he’s not going anywhere until one of my team comes to get him. There’s no way he can escape. It’s not just a door; this way, it’s a prison.”
“But why do you think anyone breaking in to the warehouse would want to hang out in your panic room in the first place? Why would someone force himself in here of all places?”
“This is where someone choosing not to fight would come. If someone came into the warehouse searching for that someone, he’d follow.” He shrugs, as if this makes complete sense.
I take a quiet, deep breath in and out to calm myself down. Today will not be the day that I die hard. No, it’s time for me to get the hell out of here and back to a life that doesn’t include any of these Bourbon Street Buffoons. “How long is it going to take before our rescue party arrives?”
“The team has a few things to wrap up outside first. Maybe ten minutes?”
After I think about that for a little while, I decide that I can live with ten minutes. And now that I know everything is mostly okay, my natural curiosity takes over. “So, you have a son, you said?”
He nods. “Yep. He’s five years old and a terror on wheels.”
“Is he as tall as you are?”
Dev gives me a slight grin. “Now that would be something, seeing as how he’s only in preschool right now.” He goes from stern to teasing so quickly it makes my head spin. In a good way, though, like I just took a ride on a smallish roller coaster.
I roll my eyes. “You know what I meant.”
Dev’s smile comes out in full force, and it’s nearly blinding, it’s so big. It makes me go all warm inside. “He is big for his age, but his mother was pretty small, or I should say she is pretty small, so he may end up in the middle somewhere.” Dev’s smile fades a little at the end of his explanation, which only makes me want to know more about what makes him suddenly sad when he’s obviously talking about the apple of his eye.
“Is his mom around?”
He stares at me for a long time, so I start to worry that I’ve stepped over that polite boundary that’s always a little blurry for me. It is maybe a little pushy to ask that question, but we’re stuck in a freaking panic room together, so it seems like normal societal rules should be a little more relaxed. Or maybe it’s the fact that he’s been sweating so much in my presence that makes me think we can ask each other about loves lost. There’s only one place in my life I’ve seen a man that sweaty, and it was in my bedroom.
A few seconds later, I can’t take the silence anymore. “Was that too personal? Sorry, I get a little nosy when I’m nervous.”
He’s back to smiling, so my anxiety lessens just a tiny bit. Maybe I wasn’t being rude after all.
“You don’t have to be nervous,” he says. “I’m here.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
He tilts his head to the side. “I make you nervous?”
I snort. “Yeah. Duh.” Dammit. I’m back to being a teenager again.
He’s smiling. “Why would I make you nervous? I’m one of the good guys.”
I shrug. “So you say. But I’m on my first day of a freelance job here, my sister is nowhere to be seen, and I’m sitting in a panic room with a guy I just met, who talks about being some sort of commando karate chop person who takes bad dudes out and relieves them of their weapons and locks them up in this prison. I don’t know how that’s supposed to calm my nerves. It’s kind of doing the opposite, if you want me to be honest.”
“I always want you to be honest,” he says, losing his smile.
The weight of a double meaning is there, but I don’t really know where it’s coming from or what it’s all about, so I don’t play along. I’m tired of looking like a dingbat in front of this guy.
My gaze roams the room again. I’m afraid to continue with the conversation, knowing that my natural curiosity has already gotten away from me once. The way my heart is racing, I’m bound to start asking questions even more personal than the ones I already have; it’s kind of a defense mechanism I have: stun them with disbelief and distract them from my flustered demeanor with a barrage of socially unacceptable interrogations. Not very elegant, but it usually works. Not so much with Dev, though . . .
He surprises me by speaking as if he hadn’t hesitated before. “My son’s name is Jacob. His mother hasn’t been around since the day he was born. She pretty much took off.” He looks down at his hands. “Yeah, so that’s pretty much it. My life in a nutshell. Not much more to say.” He picks at his fingernails, frowning.