By Paths Coincident

Chapter 25

Black Diamond, Alberta, Canada

Breakfast at the local fast food joint was a combination of grease, sugar, and empty carbohydrates. Parker was thrilled. She ate like a chipmunk expecting a hard winter, overstuffing her cheeks and attempting to chew. Then she licked each fingertip with miserly care, not wasting a single molecule of frosting.

Eliot ate like a man who knew he needed to survive, mechanically determined, reminding himself that he had once spent too many weeks living off of whatever refuse his heedless captors had chosen to throw to him, supplemented by insects and highlighted by an unfortunate rat. Things could always be worse. Nevertheless, he vowed that this was their last day as motel-dwellers. Either he would have a job that included a place to stay, or they would be going apartment hunting.

He needed a kitchen.

And with that amount of sugar in her, Parker was going to need a gym. Already she was shifting and bouncing to the beat of the music blaring over the tinny speakers.

"Stop," he growled at her as she jostled his elbow, causing him to drop a forkful of his regrettable meal onto the bench seat.

Parker turned to him, her eyes shining. "Isn't this fun!"

She stole a piece of his approaching-stale cinnamon roll.

Eliot shook his head and closed his eyes. He leaned his chin on one hand and poked at a blob on his plate that was possibly intended to be meat. Fun. Right.

As strangers in this small town, the two of them were gathering surreptitious interest from the few locals also reduced to eating out for breakfast. Eliot catalogued them as non-threats and therefore irrelevant.

Parker noticed them, too. "So," she said around a mouthful of pastry. "Should we be making out or something?"

"What?" Eliot made the mistake of attempting to talk, eat, and breathe simultaneously.

Parker thumped him on the back with enthusiasm as he choked.

When he had recovered, eyes watering and throat raw, she looked at him bright-eyed and innocent and eager to perform whatever absurd caper she thought might serve their con.

"No!" Eliot managed a hoarse whisper. "This is not the time or the place." Never was the time and nowhere was the place. At least if he could help it.

Although you could never tell where a con might go.

Eliot was not above "taking one for the team." There had been one particularly memorable occasion with Sophie . . . but while he and Sophie had enjoyed driving Nate a little crazy, Eliot did not intend to ruffle Hardison's feathers on this con unless it was unavoidable. Which it certainly was not right now.

Ever easygoing about taking his advice in social situations, Parker shrugged and re-applied herself to consuming the maximum number of calories with the minimum amount of nutrition.

Eliot realized that this was Parker's version of being a "girlfriend." God knows, being Hardison's girlfriend wasn't giving her a baseline. And most of their jobs only involved her in the initial flirting with a mark, just long enough to distract him from the con. He tried to remember if Parker had ever had to play this stage in a relationship. She and Hardison had done the married or engaged couple a few times, which mostly involved Hardison running interference for her with whatever ordinary person they were fooling—real estate agents, embassy officials, people who would turn instinctively to Hardison away from Parker's just a little bit off performances. And occasionally they would do some version of making out to excuse their being found where they shouldn't be. But he didn't think the two of them had ever spent time passing for an ordinary dating couple.