Chapter Twenty
His meeting with Jack Hansen had gone exactly as Oscar had expected: a whole lot of words, a whole lot of bluster...and absolutely nothing accomplished. Oscar chuckled to himself. Jaime had been right – the man didlook like an angry little troll. Oscar was just about to pick up the phone and share that thought with her when he heard a firm but quiet knock on the office door.
Jaime tentatively poked her head into the room. "Um...Callahan isn't at her desk, so I let myself in. I hope that was okay."
Oscar greeted her with a soft kiss on her cheek and a hand on the small of her back, welcoming her. "I sent her to make sure our friend the Troll left the building."
"Eew...how'd that go?"
"The Troll turned at least three separate shades of purple," Oscar told her. He noticed that she wasn't laughing with him. Her face was pale and her eyes were clouded with unspoken emotions. "Babe? What is it?"
"I...I guess...I really need to talk to you," she stammered.
"Well, come and sit down. I've got plenty of time today."
Jaime didn't move from just inside the doorway. She seemed visibly uncomfortable as she looked into the office. "I...um...well...it isn't business. Maybe a little, but mostly not and -"
Oscar nodded, suddenly understanding that Jaime needed Oscar, not Mr. Goldman. "How about if we go for a walk? Maybe down to the river?"
"Thank you," she said, exhaling a huge sigh of relief.
They walked mostly in silence, side by side but not touching, each trying to figure out exactly what they intended to say. They ended up not at the river but in a small wooded alcove close enough that they could hear the rippling of the water. Jaime sat down on a rock and Oscar sat in the crook of a tree, so near that he could touch her but distant enough to remain non-threatening. She was clearly troubled, and he wanted to make her as comfortable as possible.
"Oscar, I..." she began, "I've been thinking, about...yesterday, when we...um..."
Oscar saved her the discomfort of trying to find the words. "The last thing I wanted was to upset you, or make you uncomfortable in any way. I'm so sorry if -"
"No, that's not it. I...um...I sort of...liked it. And that's the problem."
Oscar frowned slightly. "It is?"
"Well...yeah. I mean, I probably shouldn'thave liked it." Now that she'd gotten started, the words poured out of Jaime like water from a ruptured dam. "But Jack Hansen...and the Secretary...you could get in so much trouble! And what about when you have to put me to work? Then what happens? Are you gonna be too easy on me, or harder – to make up for it?"
"Jaime -"
"And...most of all...I don't know if I can give you what you deserve...I mean, I'm sort of a mess right now, if you didn't notice, and -"
Oscar stepped away from the tree, crouched down to her eye level and gently took Jaime's face in his hands. "First of all, I don't care about the Secretary or Jack Hansen. I care about you.There's no pressure here, Babe. We can take things day by day and just see where it all leads us. As for your future assignments, we'll play that by ear. If it's too uncomfortable for either of us, I can have Russ supervise your missions and I'll just stay in the background. Alright?"
Jaime nodded, overwhelmed and touched by what she was hearing.
"And one other thing," Oscar said, "about yesterday. I liked it too – very much."
Jaime finally smiled, and Oscar caressed her cheekbone and the curve of her jaw before leaning in for a kiss. It was soft, sweet and filled with the hope that there would be many more kisses to come.