After almost two hours of driving in silence I start biting the inside of my cheek, thinking. I already failed to convince myself that I don't care whether she talks to me again or not because I can't just be indifferent to her, so I have to devise a plan to get her to talk to me again without it seeming like that was my intention all along… I grab my ipod and connect it to the car's stereo. I know she's listening to her own music, but it's not loud enough to block out everything around her. I push play without taking my eyes off the road, hoping that it's still on the last playlist I was listening to this morning, from my run in the gym that overlooks the pool area where Emily and her teammates practiced all morning. "Call Me Maybe" starts blasting through the speakers and Emily angrily lets out a little burst of air from her nose, when I glance over she quickly turns towards the window again, she's angling her body away from me, trying to put as much space between us as possible. I pretend not to notice and turn the volume up just a little more while I start shaking my head, waiting for the chorus because it's my favorite bit. "Hey, I just met you… and this is crazy but here's my nu—" Emily turns the volume down on the stereo while glaring at me, interrupting my singing. "Can you please turn your terrible music down? Some of us are trying to listen to real music. Thanks." She says and I have to bite my tongue to keep myself from smiling. She took off her headphones. Progress. I turn the volume back up again. "No, it's my car, my rules. And this isn't terrible; this is the song of the summer for a reason!" I protest. I really do like this song. "It's not even that good. And it's overplayed anyway." She answers, uncrossing her arms and turning the volume down again.
"Hey, the chorus is the best part!" I protest, trying to regain control of the dial and she just bats my hands away while laughing at me. "That's because it's the only part you know." I open my mouth to deny it but close it again because it's true. Dammit. "See. I knew it!" She says while laughing victoriously and punching me lightly on the arm. I smile. "Whatever. This song is still amazing." This makes her laugh louder. "No it's not." She tells me, pretending that she doesn't occasionally borrow my computer to "use your boring grown up work software for like a minute" and when she gives it back, there is a disproportionate amount of plays in my embarrassingly titled 'summer jamz' playlist, where this song is. "Mock my music taste all you want." She smiles. "Thanks. I will." Emily says as if I just conceded victory over this issue. "…but just remember that the Olympic swim team even made a video lip-synching this amazing summer song." The way her face contorts from triumphant to annoyed is enough to show me that she's long forgotten that she's supposed to act like she's still upset with me. "Low blow Agent McCullers… low blow." I laugh at this because now she's completely over the whole thing. It's in her tone of voice… and the way she says my name as she lightly shoves my shoulder against my body. "What? It's not like I forced them to make that video!" She looks at me in disbelief. "How do I know that? Maybe you did…" I laugh at her ridiculous argument. "Months before we were to have this argument? How committed do you think I am to convincing you that this is an amazing song?" Emily laughs so hard at this that she has to lean forward in order to catch her breath. I'm so enraptured by her that I don't even notice that the song has been over for several minutes. When she looks back up, smiling at me I smile back. "You know, you're very sneaky." She scrunches her face, not understanding what I'm talking about. "You made me miss my song… you know what this means, right?" She rolls her eyes at me as I put the song back on.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
When we start slowing down because we've reached our pit stop, Emily is still trying to wrestle the device from my hand because the song has been on repeat for the past half hour or so. "Please, just play another song… or let me pick the music." I laugh as I pull up to the gas station, right behind the bus. "First of all you can't pick the music because you're not driving and second of all you listen to super depressing songs. Every time I hear one of your playlists I wonder if I am in fact dead from being sad by association." Emily laughs at my description of her musical tastes. Just as she's about to chime in with a retort I give her an ultimatum as I put the car on park. "So either you admit that this is an amazing song or you can just listen to me duet with Miss Carly Rae for the two and half hours left of the drive." Her mouth drops open and I smirk at her, trying not to feel the heat from where her hands are holding my wrist and closed fist. Trying to pretend that the only reason I wanted to keep the same song on repeat was because I wanted to annoy her instead of just to have her keep touching me. She opens her mouth to say something and I lean in closer, wanting to hear her say that this is the best song of the decade, not because I share that opinion but I like being petty and winning. Emily looks down at my hand that's no longer holding on so tightly at the ipod and then back at me again while she bites her lip. "I…" She starts just as her teammates gather around the car and start loudly banging on it, making Emily blush and drop my hand as if it burned her. "Come on Emily! We only have like 15 minutes to use the bathroom and buy crap." She opens the door and I turn the car off, Emily glances over her shoulder at me and looks apologetic, whispering a small "sorry," before she closes the door behind her. I wonder what for. She laughs along with her friends and I get out of the car, following them into the convenience store.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
After we check in we head back to the car to get our stuff. I grab Emily's duffle bag, my suitcase and my duffle bag with the equipment I'll need for tonight. Emily is about to protest when I tell her that "Hey, I got off easy; you now have to find out where the hell our room is." She laughs and takes a small bow before leading us in the wrong direction. Something we only find out after going in circles for a couple of minutes. "Emily, I think we already passed that fire extinguisher three times now." She squints at our room key and tries looking for any clues as to how the numbers are set up in this place. "No… I think this is right. I mean the rest of the team headed this way, so we should be close, right?" I shrug at her. This hotel doesn't even deserve its half-star or whatever the fuck it's rated. It's more confusing to navigate than the goddamn Bermuda triangle. "Just give me another minute." She begs me as she pulls out her cellphone and calls one of the girls.
We find our way to our room and I tell Emily to let me perform a sweep before she settles in. "What's a sweep?" She asks. "Well…" I say as I start pulling my equipment out of the bag and testing it to make sure it's working properly. "A bug sweep is a counter surveillance measure where we try to locate electronic eavesdropping devices such as hidden cameras, tapped phones, a miniature transmitter… even a cellphone that's activated remotely from another location." I tell her as I begin my sweep with the RF probe. Emily laughs in disbelief. "So have you guys ever actually found anything?" I shake my head. "Yeah, my dad told me that some of his friends on the advance team were prepping a hotel room once and they found a bug in the phone." I laugh, remembering the end of the story. "Turns out that Elton John had previously stayed in that same room and the staff bugged it so they could listen in on his calls." Emily looks at me like she doesn't know whether to find it funny or not. "I umm… I guess it's funnier if you're an agent…" I say lamely as I finish the first sweep. She nods and raises her eyebrows at this. "Yeah. I guess." Emily says as she bites her lip and scratches her arm. "So, Paige I umm…" She starts saying before there's a knock at the door. I hold my hand up to stop her from automatically opening it. I make my way over and check the peephole before rolling my eyes. It's only Shelby. I put my gun away because I automatically just respond to things sometimes and I didn't even notice when it made its way to my hands. Probably the second her friend knocked. I move away from the door and nod at Emily, giving her the ok to open the door. I grab another scanner and start looking for stashed electronics.
"Hey girl, where's your prison guard?" Shelby jokes and Emily laughs uneasily. "Umm… she's right here, doing a sweep?" She asks her friend instead of telling her. Shelby peeks in as I'm holding the scanner up to a mirror. She waves at me and I just raise my head in acknowledgment. I really hate her teammates and their fucking timing sometimes because now I'm left wondering what Emily wanted to tell me. "Woah, it's like super James Bond stuff going down here, right?" I hear Shelby say in amazement. Emily agrees with her. "Yup. So… what's up? Are the girls going to have a sleepover or something?" She finishes excited at the possibility of being able to actually spend time with her teammates before they have to go to bed. Shelby answers something in a whisper, prompting them to have a short conversation in hushed tones as I continue going over the room, trying to look as if I'm not trying to listen in on their conversation. "Whatever. I'll see you guys later." Emily says coldly as she slams the door shut with a swift shove. I look over at her and before I can ask what's wrong she shakes her head and wipes at her eyes. "Nothing. Just… the girls are sneaking off downtown to carbo-load and they all agreed that I was going to stay behind anyway so I should be the one on the lookout for Coach Fulton so they don't get caught." She sighs. "I just wish people would stop deciding what I'm going to do with my own life sometimes." I bite my lip and look down at the floor because I don't really know what to say to make her feel better when she pretty much got mad at me for the same reason hours before. "We could order room service and watch one of those scary movies you like…" I suggest, talking to my feet. Emily laughs. "I could do with some pasta…" I can feel my face break out into a smile as I look up at her. Emily is still wiping at her eyes with her hands. "Sure." I tell her as she heads into the bathroom and I grab the phone that's in between the twin beds.
Emily is still in the bathroom when room service knocks. "Leave the cart where it is and place your hands behind your head." I instruct to the confused looking hotel employee. I open the door when he complies and quickly pat him down before searching the cart and finally signing off on the food. "Thanks. Just leave it on the table." I ask him and then lock the door behind him when he finishes. I loosen my tie and start taking off my suit. By the time Emily comes out of the bathroom I'm in my pajamas, flipping through the channels, laying on top of the sheets, with all four pillows from both beds propping me up. "Hey there. I thought you'd gotten lost in there. I was seconds away from sending in a rescue team." She laughs and shakes her head. Her eyes are red and swollen but I pretend I don't notice that she's been crying. "You feeling hungry?" She sighs. "Not really." Emily sits down at the table anyway because she can't skip a meal if she wants to perform well tomorrow. We eat in silence, the glare of the muted television flashing different colors on the wall, lighting up the room with occasional bursts of color. After we're done eating I put the empty plates outside the room, brush my teeth and settle down on the bed again while Emily goes into the bathroom. The volume is low enough where I can hear her brushing her teeth and I just bite the inside of my cheek again, worried about her. I continue flipping through the channels until I decide to settle on a black and white monster movie because it seems like the kind of thing she would like. She comes back into the room and sits down next to me, laying her head on my shoulder. "What are we watching?" I shrug. "I don't know, but there's werewolf in it."
