A few weeks later, Birmingham, UK...
At precisely 8 am, Gloria stepped in front of the small group. "Excellent. Now that we're all here, let me introduce you to one another. I like my teams to have at least four people plus myself. First of all, we have our chemist, Rose. Rose has worked with me before and will be assisting with your training." She indicated a wiry woman with a dirty blonde ponytail wearing big glasses seated next to a dark-skinned, bespectacled boy who looked like a teenager. "Edward is our architect. Those roles require specific expertise. I want to train the other three of you in extraction, logistics, and forgery. Gregory, Ben, and Levi..." Eames looked to his left and saw Gregory, a dishwater blonde with shaggy hair. Then he turned to his right and Gloria's words faded in to the background. His eyes met Levi's and he forgot how to breathe. Levi was, in a word, beautiful. He had glossy dark hair, liquid brown eyes and olive skin. After a moment, Levi looked down, blushed, and gazed back at Eames through his long, dark eyelashes.
With the way that Gloria regimented the training and work, Eames concluded that she had experience as either a soldier or a prison warden. The training location seemed to be an old school. They showered in an old locker room, and slept on cots in old offices – Levi and Gregory in one, Edward in another, and Eames in a 3rd, directly adjacent to Gloria's sleeping quarters (and conveniently on the other side of the gym from the other three). Eames, particularly, was never out of hers or Rose's sight. They ate bagels and fruit for breakfast, wax paper-wrapped sandwiches for lunch, and some sort of takeout for dinner. Every minute of the day was scheduled, from 6 am to 9 pm. At 9:15, Gloria expected Eames to be naked, ready, and waiting in her office/bedroom.
Over the course of the training, Eames and Levi had exchanged a hundred furtive glances and had a few inane conversations, but Gloria and Rose had managed their training and time so expertly that nothing personal could be discussed. Despite his nightly rendezvous with Gloria, Eames was going crazy. Gloria was a fantastic lover, but Levi fascinated him. He finally took a chance on the next to last day, bumping into Levi hard enough to almost knock him over, so that Eames had to help him up and had a moment to slide a piece of paper in his jacket pocket. It was a gamble, but despite Rose and Gloria splitting them up for delivery back at the the train station, he would bet that Levi was getting on a train for London, just like he was. If the meetup didn't work, he could at least surprise his mum and sister with a visit and put off going to his father's for another day.
Eames rolled the coin all the way down his fingers and back, wondering if he'd gambled correctly. He'd dropped his luggage at his mother's home before heading over to the British Library grounds. Assuming Levi was from London the way his accent indicated, he would know The Planets sculpture.
"Hi," a soft voice said from behind him.
Eames turned, and there was Levi, smiling shyly. "Hullo," Eames replied, unable to keep a smile from spreading across his face. "I'm glad you came."
"Me, too, " Levi agreed, but he stood stiffly and a little awkwardly.
"Are you hungry? I know a great little place around the corner."
"That...that sounds lovely," Levi agreed.
Looking back, Eames hadn't a clue what he and Levi discussed for the nearly three hours they spent in the little cafe. They were still dancing around their real identities, since Gloria had spent a great deal of time on the fact that their aliases were for their own protection. But Eames could admire the fullness of Levi's lips and the expressiveness of his eyes. Sometime between the entree plates being cleared and the arrival of the baklava they had agreed to share, Levi's left hand had found its way to the center of the table so that his fingertips laid within Eames' right hand. Eames found the other man's gentle shyness utterly endearing. After they bickered over which of them should pay the bill, they stepped into the cool night air.
"Walk you back to the tube?" Eames offered.
"Yes," Levi agreed, and he even slipped his arm through Eames'. A few steps from the entrance of the tube station, he stopped and faced Eames. "I'd like to see you again. Outside of the dream work."
"I'd like that, too."
They stared at each other. Levi reached up and brushed a stray lock of Eames' hair back off his forehead, and then their lips met in a sweet, brief kiss. When they parted, Levi pulled a slip of paper out of his breast pocket. "I'd written this up to give you earlier, but then you arranged to meet. This is my mobile number." He tucked it into Eames' matching pocket, kissed his cheek, and walked into the tube station.
An hour later, Eames lounged on the sofa in his mother's posh flat. The tv was on in front of him, but he ignored it as he unfurled the little slip of paper. He'd already committed the number to memory, but he loved the little ragged piece of paper.