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The book had been open on the table behind the couch in Penelope’s London flat. Gordon’s spending the weekend, the way he’s been spending a lot of weekends lately. Penny’s old fashioned, keeps a real pen and paper day planner.
He’s not snooping in it. It was wide open on the table, and brightly coloured, of course he’d pick it up and had a look. Besides, there’s one engagement–just one–that he really, desperately needs to know the date and time of. It’s not that he’s forgotten their first anniversary. He knows it’s coming up, and really, that should be enough to count. The actual date and time and the particulars of whatever Penelope has planned, that’s all he wants to know.
Her calendar is coded in more colours than Gordon was actually aware existed. But even if there are three different shades of green, even if there’s a shade of pink that makes him think of her lips, he’s starting to see the patterns.
Virgil’s the sort of guy who’d tease her about it, but Gordon’s too in love with her handwriting, with the idea that she’s touched pen to paper, left these smooth, arcing lines of coloured ink. Slim on the upstrokes, broad on the downstrokes, calligraphic, lovely. Half of it’s in code and the other half is boring, but he still likes reading it. It feels intimate, personal.
Especially that little blue heart that keeps cropping up, week after week. Never the same day twice. Nothing else, just a little blue heart. Sometimes hollow, sometimes coloured in. He keeps coming back to that little blue heart, up in the corner of the square of whichever day it falls on. As far as he can tell, it’s nothing to do with him. It’s a little spot of love for something that he’s not familiar with, going back for months.
It’s starting to drive him a little bit crazy.
Gordon firmly believes that when it comes to Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward, nothing is without meaning. She’s always preaching about Power, Practice, and Purpose. The words are carved into her damn wall at the London estate… or is it the Abbey in Ireland? Maybe it’s the mansion in California – doesn’t matter. The words are just as much carved into her as they are any of her homes, so he knows that those little hearts mean something and Gordon’s spent a solid hour and a half trying to crack the code.
Because that’s what it is. It’s a code. When you’re dating a spy, everything’s a code – the kisses and the laughs. The banter and the wit. The first time she’d ever said I love you had been through a set of hand-written sticky notes and a rather extensive scavenger hunt, so yeah. Codes. Always. Gordon just hopes that he’s not going to step on the feet of anyone in the British Government by trying to crack this particular one. He’s pretty sure he’s safe. The Prime Minister wouldn’t use little blue hearts to send messages – except wait. Would he? What if this was some conspiracy? What if Penny’s getting involved with problems that she shouldn’t be involved with?
He wholeheartedly believes that she can handle herself. She’s capable and smart and, honestly, she’s got about fifty IQ points on him, he’s sure. Penny doesn’t need protecting, but the fact is, he’s a Tracy. It’s in his blood to make sure people make it home at the end of the day.
He looks back to the planner. It’s exactly where she had left it – not a page out of place, wide open with the current week on display.
There’s a little blue heart in two days. It’s just an outline – an empty heart. If he asks her about it, then she’ll know he was snooping, and she’ll know that he was looking in her planner, and then she’s going to ask why. Gordon doesn’t see much point in starting up the awkward I-wasn’t-quite-sure-when-our-anniversary-was-but-I-kind-of-did-and-that-still-counts argument when it can so easily be avoided.
So it’s settled. She’s only the best spy that London has to offer. How hard can it be to tail her, really?
It’s not that he’s jealous.
It’s just that he’s managed to follow her to a hotel and parked out front, he can’t imagine why she’d be at a hotel. She’s got a flat. She’s got a gorgeous London flat where he’s been loafing around all weekend, waiting for her to get done with her spy stuff. He doesn’t begrudge her the spy stuff, oh no, not in the least. Sometimes it’s even fun.
They’d walked around Hyde Park for an hour and she’d watched, laughing, while he and Sherbet chased each other in circles. She’d been covering for the fact that she’d tuned in some listening device, eavesdropping on gossiping members of the House of Lords. This hadn’t turned up anything of interest and by way of apology they’d gone to a private little tea room, where he’d been free to consume what felt like half his body weight in pastry.
That had been fun. That had been before he’d been driven crazy by that damn little blue heart.
Penelope’s a class act. She wouldn’t be cheating on him, it’s just not her style. If she’d…if she’d gotten bored, or if they weren’t working out, she’d have called it off. For sure. He’s definitely got nothing to be jealous of.
He definitely hasn’t ’s invented someone with blue eyes and dark hair and a career in international espionage. Someone taller than he is, because damn it, ever since Alan shot up three inches in height, it seems like everybody is. There’s definitely no tall, blue-eyed spy signified in Penelope’s diary by a hollow blue heart.
Oh, no.
Whoever this guy is, she’s gotta be playing him. Probably she’s been leading him along for months, probably she’s squeezing out every last iota of classified data from whatever sophisticated, European government he works for. Maybe he’s dangerous. The bastard. That bastard.
So Gordon’s a little impulsive. So Gordon’s followed FAB1 to the heart of London, to a beautiful old hotel. So he’s seen Penelope go into the broad double doors of a beautiful old hotel with a garment bag over her shoulder. So he’s got muddy brown eyes and dusty blond hair and he’s not a world-class secret agent or even six feet tall, so what.
It’s probably a bad idea to go barging in the front doors to confront her and her secret Eurasian superspy lover. Probably he should at least try and sneak in the back.
Okay, so, yeah. He probably should have known that going in the back entrance was a bad idea, but he firmly believes that he didn’t deserve to be Tasered and sicking the dogs on him for a solid three city blocks seemed just a little bit excessive. Sure, the guards had just been doing their jobs, but how was he supposed to know that the President of the United States would be in town this weekend? Penny certainly hadn’t put that in the planner, unless – no. The hearts?
No. No, that’s crazy. Sure, the President’s gorgeous – that’s not the question here – but the hearts show up in her planner every week and surely the President isn’t making the flight out that often.
Phew. Okay. Gordon just needs to appreciate that for a second. Thank god he’s not competing with a president.
Secret Service doesn’t notice him the second time around, which could have something to do with the fact that he went through the front entrance, but Gordon thinks it’s far more likely that he’s just a master of disguise. Seriously – he swears he’s a genius. With nothing more than the contents of his glove compartment, he has crafted the best disguise that the world has ever seen. It’s so good that it’s even got the Secret Service fooled.
It’s not until he reaches the front desk and the attendant gives him the most unamused look there ever was, that Gordon realizes maybe he looks just a little ridiculous with Grandma Tracy’s scarf over his head and Alan’s bright red sunglasses. “I’m umm” – he clears his throat and makes an attempt at disguising his voice a little better than he’s disguised the rest of him – “I’m meeting a friend here?”
It sounds like a question, which doesn’t escape the attendant’s notice. She seems completely accustomed to this sort of behavior when she says, monotone, “We don’t give away information about out residents.”
Gordon clears his throat again and leans in over the counter. “Ma’am, I was just Tasered, and I narrowly escaped death by rottweiler, just to see my girlfirend, so do you think there’s any way you can help a guy out?”
No. No, this attendant is very clearly not going to help him out. “We don’t give away – “
“Yeah, yeah,” Gordon says with a wave. “I’ve got it. I’ll find her. Thanks anyways.”
Staff elevator.
Jackpot. And it had only taken half an hour of wandering aimlessly around the hotel.
Dingy staff locker room. Okay. Slightly less of a prize, but he can work with it, the Tracys are nothing if not adaptable. And lockers are easy to bust into. He busted Alan out of plenty of lockers in highschool, he can crack a locker open in like ten seconds.
And he does. And it’s…oh. Oh, sweet, actually. It reeks of chlorine. Pool boy. Yeah, he can totally work with that. Oh hell yeah.
Because a pool’s always got that lost and found box, and he can totally get his hands on the guest list somewhere, that’ll…probably he’ll have to hack into something, yeah. He can totally do the hacking thing, no problem. He’ll just hack his way in with this poor hapless employees keycard. Easy. Then he’ll find Penny’s room and he’ll fabricate the pretext of returning a lost…well, whatever’s interesting, poolside lost and found boxes are grab bags. Probably in a hotel this nice there’ll even be something classy enough for Penny.
The uniform’s a little big, but that’s fine. It’s a smart, crisp blue polo, slacks. Nice, grippy shoes. Walkie talkie, whistle, flashlight. Nice. Okay. New Pool Boy. Name tag still needs to be made. Got a keycard, though.
Heading out the locker room door, Gordon runs headlong into someone who’s chest is right at his eye level. When in the world everyone got so tall, he has no idea. It’s not damn fair.
This guy, though, he’s just a giant. Taller than Scott or John, even, and Scott and John are the tallest people Gordon knows.
“Uh. Hi. Hiya, boss. I’m new.”
Gordon, apparently, does not make for a very impressive pool boy. He’s an Olympian and a world-class diver and he can probably swim laps around this huge guy. But stood in a slightly too big polo shirt being looked up and down by someone who’s not actually his boss…oh well. He doesn’t need to be an impressive pool boy. “Mmhmmm. Pool boy? Your lucky day. Some rich old bint’s booked the whole pool.You get to go make sure the place is spotless.”
“…oh. Goodie.”
The man leans in, pokes Gordon in the chest. “And no goofing off like the last guy. You stay there and do whatever the old bird tells you. Fetch towels, mineral water, vol au vents, whatever. We don’t screw around with this kinda money, you got me?”
“FAB, boss.”
“…what?”
“Uh, I mean, right on, chief.”
Welp.
The person who booked the pool definitely isn’t old and he’s pretty sure she’s not a… what had that guy said? A bint? She’s definitely not that, what ever the hell that means. Rich, however, he can’t deny. He knows with absolute certainty that the woman on the other end of that golden room is the youngest daughter of the oldest money in Europe.
He’s got to get the hell out of here.
54-86-233. Gordon had seen those numbers punched into the keypad on the employee’s locker room door. If he can just get over there, he’ll be fine, but Penny’s standing right where he needs to be, as if she’s trying to get in his way.
54-86-233.
54-86-233.
54…
Is it just him or does Penny look really good in a swimsuit?
Gordon’s always been a fan of the bikini, for reasons that he doesn’t think need explaining. He’s always been pretty fond of blonde-haired, two-pieced girls, but damned if Penny isn’t the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. She’s got a sensible one-piece on and all her pretty blonde hair is tied up into a swim cap – a swim cap. The last time Gordon’s seen a girl in as swim cap was when he won the gold medal.
God, she always knows what she’s doing, doesn’t she? Is there anything more attractive than a girl who always knows what she’s doing?
Just as the thought crosses Gordon’s mind, she jumps and he learns that, yes. There is, in fact, something more attractive than competence – and that thing is a cannonball. A pure, unapologetic, cannonball.
Is this what love feels like? This is definitely what love feels like.
But it’s definitely not going to be what love feels like if she catches sight of him and starts asking questions. Like why he’s here. And why he’s wearing a pool boy’s uniform. And why he’s using straight bleach to clean the floors when the instructions very clearly said to use 409 – all very valid questions, but avoidable, nonetheless.
54-86-233. He’s just got to make his way over to the –
“Pool boy?”
The words are ice in his veins, saltwater in his throat, and just about every hit to the chest that he can possibly imagine. He cleverly hides behind the mop, sticking up out of the cart that he’s rolling back to the office. Gordon clears his throat and hopes that his fake voice gets him farther than it did last time. “Yes ma’am?”
“What is your name?” she asks him. “I like to know the names of the people I am in the company of.”
Name. Name. Name. Gordon risks a glance at the locker room door, wondering if he can make a break for it, but he knows that the friendly neighborhood giant is probably waiting just inside the door and might just kill him if he tries to leave.
Still. If it’s a choice between Penny and the Giant… well. Gordon’s knows which one he’d rather face.
Except he still doesn’t know what those little hearts are, and he’s already come this far, so he stays hidden behind the mop and says, “Uhh… Matt. Just Matt.”
Mineral water. Still, not sparkling. Chilled glass, no ice. Obviously not, that would be barbaric.
The tap in the men’s locker room has a bit of limescale crusted on it, maybe that’ll fool her, and he won’t have to admit that he doesn’t have the key to the fridge where he presumes all the fancy, uppity refreshments are.
This is probably one of the stupider things he’s done.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to get caught. Maybe he can bust into another locker, find a spare pair of trunks and pretend it’s pure coincidence that he’s here. Oh hi, Penny! Fancy meeting you here? What, private booking? Huh! You’ll wanna yell at the guy who let me in then, big tall guy. Give him hell. Order me a mineral water while you’re at it.
Or the more plausible route, which is just copping to everything. Admitting that he’s insecure and jealous and threatened by tiny blue hearts in a book he never should have been looking at. That he’ll stretch himself out on a ridiculous limb, trying to figure out what he’d even do if he ever found out he couldn’t measure up to the kind of secretive, clandestine affair that has to be Penny’s preference.
Gordon can’t help it. Despite the fact that he’s using someone else’s name and someone else’s clothes and trying to squeak out someone else’s voice, at the end of the day, Gordon would rather be honest. He’d rather have everything out in the open and he’d rather be the kind of boyfriend who exists out in the open. No sneaking around hotels, no secret meetings. No espionage. The things he loves most about Penelope are the things that separate her from her job. Her lovely, distinctive handwriting. The way she sighs when she takes off her heels at the end of the long day, settles down into being those precious four inches shorter than he is. Her laugh. The fact that she’ll do a cannonball, that perfect, imperfect demonstration of form.
He shouldn’t be lying to the woman he’s in love with, not even if it’s about just how stupid she can make him. Resolved, and hoping he can translate such grand feelings into the sort of sentiment that’ll get him let off with a warning (or at least not tasered again), he leaves the locker room and heads back to the pool.
Only Penny’s not paddling from one end to the other any longer. She’s down at the bottom, in the deep end, nine feet under.
There is exactly one word that spins through Gordon’s being in that moment. One word sparking through his mind and churning in his stomach and pumping through every vein in his body: No.
No, this can’t be happening. No, he can’t let it happen. No, no, no, over and over until the word bubbles up to his lips and comes out in a defiant cry. “No!”
He’s vaguely aware of the sound of shattered glass as her “mineral” water hits tile. He doesn’t quite remember the splash as he enters. All he can think about is her and the fact that this is different than all the other rescues. This time, he’s got regrets.
He should have just told her. He should have just told her everything. He should have just asked her about the damn hearts and now she’s going to be gone and he’ll have been a liar. Penny deserved so much more than a liar.
She’s going to be gone.
She’s going to be gone.
No more feeling the ridges of her favorite pens across paper. No more drowsy smiles. No more hearing her laugh or sigh or tell him he’s wrong. Penny’s going to be gone and he already misses her, so it is for purely selfish reasons that Gordon Tracy takes a breath and dives down.
Nine feet is nothing. Nine feet is child’s-play. Gordon’s had baths that went deeper than this, but it’s true what they say about drowning. A person can drown in a glass of water if they’re stupid enough.
Except she’s not stupid–god. She’s never been stupid, and every bit of Gordon’s training is telling him that if someone like her is drowning in a pool this shallow, then something is really, really wrong.
Heart attack.
Spinal injury.
Stroke.
The words strangle him faster than the water could ever hope and he just about chokes. He feels breathless by every meaning of the word, but he can’t go up for air. Not until he’s got her. Not until she’s safe.
It should be easy. It should be automatic. How many times has he done this?
Except it feels wrong. All wrong. Is he really supposed to be this rough? Is it really supposed to take this long? Is Penelope Creighton-Ward really supposed to be the one on the other side of his rescue?
There’s that word again. No. No, no, no.
And finally he can breathe – or he’s supposed to. Truth is, he still feels like he’s drowning. He still feels like the world’s all out of air. He’s got to get her out of the water. He’s got to keep her airways clear and he’s got to –
That’s when he hears the laugh.
And Penny rolls off of his shoulders to face him.
And Gordon’s never been more confused in his life. “Penny?”
“Excellent work, Matt,” she says, and she doesn’t sound even a little bit hurt. Gordon’s searching for all the signs – pluming puffs of scarlet or sickly yellow skin. A droop in one side of her face or anything else that could possibly be wrong.
Except there’s nothing wrong, and she’s smiling. “What?” Gordon says, and it’s not so much directed at her as much as it’s just a general question for the universe.
“I was beginning to think I’d never get you in the pool – although it was very amusing to watch you try and find towels. You’d think by the third time, you’d know where they were.”
“… what?”
She’s doing a good job of keeping herself afloat – she’s a strong swimmer, he knows. Strong enough that she can spare one of her hands to reach out and hold his cheek. “You, Gordon Tracy, are excellent at rescuing people,” she says, and it’s as sincere as she can get. “But I am so, so very glad that you did not seek a career in the clandestine services.”
“So you’re not…” and the pieces still haven’t fallen entirely into place. “Are you sure you’re not drowning?”
“Of course not,” she says. “Nine feet of water, are you joking? I’d have to be an idiot to drown in this, but I was beginning to think that you were never getting in, so I had to do something.”
“P, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I am probably going to freak out.”
“The hearts, silly,” she says. “You followed the hearts.”
And now Gordon’s really confused, because she knows about the hearts? And she’s apparently not dying right in front of him? And she’s handling these events a lot better than Gordon is? Because at this point, Gordon’s just glad he knows where the bleach is. That way he can at least clean up his mess after he gets sick. “The hearts?”
She nods her swim-capped head. “Empty ones for indoor pools, full ones for outdoor. I was worried you might never catch on.”
And then it hits him. He’s been through this before. When you’re dating a spy, everything’s a code. “A scavenger hunt?” he says. “This is another one of your scavenger hunts?”
“This is a breadcrumb operation, darling – they’re very different,” she corrects. “I knew that as soon as you saw that planner, you wouldn’t be able to keep your nose out of it. Our anniversary’s coming up soon you know.”
“Yes, I know,” he says, and he wants to be a little angry, but he can’t be. Technically, he did this to himself (even though this is really all her fault). “I thought you were dead, Penny.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time you thought I was dead.”
Another truth. Close calls are a part of the dating-a-spy package deal.
“It was the first time I had to watch.”
And then he feels the tile under his feet. He doesn’t know how he ended up in the shallow end, but Penny still can’t touch. She’s so much shorter without her heels on. She’s the only short person left in his life.
So he helps her over to a spot where she can reach and then they’re standing there, Penny in her one-piece and Gordon in a uniform that doesn’t fit quite right. She brings both hands up to his face now, and pulls him in close until all he can see are the lights of the pool shimmering across her skin and a smile shining across her lips. “I’m sorry you were Tasered.”
“How did you – ?”
And then she kisses him, and it’s got Gordon thinking that maybe he should follow the hearts more often.