"Am I married this time?"

"Um... YES!" Luke decided trimphantly, "married to the greatest and kindest and most powerful-lest king in the whole, wide world." He stretched his arms out wide and little Tracy gasped gently in awe. Her bright eyes turned to her bigger brother.

"And I have a kingdom?"

"You have the biggest kingdom."

"And do I have a horsey?"

"You have a million horseys." Tracey's eyes were beaming with wonder.

"Tell me more! Tell me more!" She began boucing up and down in her bed, and after many requests and much persistence, Luke continued.

"Okay, but you have to promise to go to bed after this." Tracey hesitated for a moment.

"...okay." Her older brother gave her a suspicious look of disbelief. "Okay! I'll go to bed! But tell the story first, pleeeease!"

"Alright then. It all starts with a strong and powerful king," he raised his arms victoriously as he mentioned the king, " and the most cleverest and prettiest lady in all the kingdom, his wife." Tracey clapped her hands with glee.

"That's me! That's me! I'm the Queen!"

"We follow the kingdom's bravest knight through a terrible battle," Luke narrated. As he spoke, Tracey listened. As he moved, she watched. Every different character, every wild event lead them through the tough and testing story of the brave knight who fought for his kingdom. She ooh'ed and ahh'ed at the amazing feats the knight had to undergo. She cried in terror when he entered a glorious fray with a monstrous, fire-breathing dragon, and she laughed hysterically with every silly voice her brother put on. She listened in almost complete silence, only ever interrupting when the Queen gave an order.

"-and then the Queen rose from her throne with such elegance and power that it sent chills down the criminal's spine, and she made an order to her guards-"

Tracey stood up on her bed vigorously and pointed at nothing in particular with such authority that she nearly sent herself toppling down.

"GUARDS! TAKE THIS FOUL VILLIAN TO THE DIRTIEST CELL YOU CAN FIND!!!"

He continued as they travelled vast distances, meeting various characters and, eventually, defeating the enemy. And as the story came to an end, with Luke's voice dwindling down so as to not stir his dozing sister, he raised the covers to her chin, turned off the lamp, and let the story play on in her dreams.

“Am I married this time?” I asked the Chief.

“Yes, you and Dylan will be posing as a newly wed couple.”

“Cool.”

Dylan, while having one of the lamest names in the history of humanity, somehow lucked out at the end of academy training and became my partner.

Partner. I love that word because it both describes what we are and what we pretend to be.

What we are is a couple of buds who work together. What we pretend to be is a married couple. Even though marriage is the furthest thing from my mind and the closest thing to his. However, that doesn’t matter because we’re partners, not partners.

After missing the first few minutes of our briefing, Dylan finally jogged over from the omelet bar. “Whaf mis lit?” He muffled through a mouthful of food.

Used to his childish behavior, I was fluent in the kind of nonsense that leaves his lips. “We got our new assignment.”

He gulped the eggs down. “Coolio. What’s the happening?”

“That’s not correct grammar, but nonetheless we’re posing as newly wed couple to get close to President James.”

“Oh, is Jamie is trouble this time?”

“Please don’t call the president that.”

“What? I told you, I got the a-okay. We’re friends.”

I crossed my arms. “I refuse to believe that.”

He shrugged. “Believe whatever you want, baby doll. The truth will always be the truth.”

The Chief coughed to distract us from our arguing. “Yes, President James is in trouble this time…”

No matter how psychopathic it may have seemed, I smiled at those words. Man, it’s been so long since I’ve been on a real mission. I miss the chase.

“His wife worries that he’s eating too many sweets and may get diabetes.” The Chief continued.

My smile dropped into a frown. “Are you serious right now? Come on, Chief, give me a real mission. I can handle it!”

The Chief shook his head. “Sorry, it’s out of my hands. The higher ups just refuse to give you two those types of cases anymore. Not since the Giller Case.”

I glared at Dylan. He had just stuffed in another forkful of eggs into his mouth. “That wasn’t my fault.”

My eyes burned a hole into his forehead. “It was maybe a little my fault.” Dylan confessed.

I placed my hands on my hips. “Alright!” He added. “I may have made a mistake. It was a calculated risk, but man was I bad at math.”

“Stop quoting memes!”

“Never!”

I threw my hands up in the air. “It’s stuff like that that convinces the archduke we weren’t from Austria!”

“No, that was caused by your Hello Kitty socks.”

“They were on sale!”

Breaking away from our quarrel, the Chief clapped his hands. “Like that! Argue like that! Like some old married couple fighting over the remote and everyone will believe your a married couple.”

I sighed. “Fine. Let’s do this.”

Friday night. I could have spent it drinking away the painfully dullness that my job had succumbed to. Instead, I was sparing no drop of a forty-year-old scotch at a presidential Christmas party while watching the president eye up mini cupcakes. The only good thing about that night was Dylan as he continued to try and convince me he was personal friends with the president. Unfortunately for him, none of the secret security knew who he was and would let him near President James. Fortunately for me, none of the secret security knew who he was and would let him near President James. It made his efforts twice as hilarious.

Dylan slid over to the Secretary of State. “Hey, Sadie.” He greeted. “It’s nice to see you again.”

She eyed him up and down. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

Dylan smirked, glanced over at me, winked, then said. “You know, Dylan McLanster?”

I nearly spit out my scotch as she sighed and walked away, hiding behind a barrier of security guards. “Nice try.” I congratulated as I strolled over to him. “You really sold that. You should become a salesman! You know, since this whole ‘secret agent’ thing isn’t working out.”

“What are you talking about? Life has never been better. You’re my wife! We’re at a presidential Christmas party! And, I’m rocking besties with the president!”

I snorted. “We’re not actually married, you know.”

He winked again and I rolled my eyes with a simper on my lips. “Not yet.”

“Besides,” I added. “We’re only here to stop him from eating too much sugar, nothing important.”

Dylan glanced over my shoulder. “Well, apparently we can’t even do that.” He gestured tk the president stuffing three cupcakes down his throat at once—and a piece of fudge.

“Damn. That is impressive.” I took a sip of my scotch. “Shame I gotten stop him.”

As he held out his hand to stop me, Dylan said. “Hang on, babe. I got this.” He cleared his throat. “Aye! Yo, Jamie!”

I stifled a laugh as he dashed across the room. “Is that your husband?” A man asked behind me.

Pivoting around I came face to face with the vice president. “Oh, yeah.” I replied.

He smirked. “Good. You snatched a nice one. You two remind me and my husband and me. Never let him go.”

I stared into my drink, a slight smile to my lips. “I won’t.” And for the first time since I met Dylan, I was actually considering those words.

“Oh, it looks like they’re bringing out the cake now.”

My eyes widened in fear as they brought out a five tier, white, vanilla cake. Odd choice for Christmas, but okay. “Oh, god. Someone has to save the president.”

“Don’t worry. That’s not for him.” Dylan whispered behind me.

“Then who?”

“You.”

“What?” I turned around to see Dylan, this sappy romantic, down on one knee holding a ring pop. “Amanda, will you be my partner?”

“Dylan, you know my opinion about marriage,” I looked down at him. “But I really want to say yes.”

“Then say yes.”

“Yes.”

Bonus: “Congratulations. Dylan my boy!” President James called out as he popped the cork of a new bottle of champagne.

“Thanks, Jamie!”

I stared at him. “You’re really friends with the president?”

“Would I lie to you, babe?”

“Am I married this time?” she teased, draped across the motel’s dingy couch that was barely wide enough to cushion her long, gangly legs.

She tossed a yellow stress ball into the air in an endless loop. From his desk a few paces away from the couch, he watched as the ball arced up and came back down, up and down, up and down, up —

“Kieran.”

“Hmm?” he mumbled, barely realizing she’d addressed him earlier. The static buzz of the TV was a constant droning in the background. Jules said the sound made her skin itch, but Kieran was insistent on leaving it on the vacant channel. The white noise soothed the murmur of activity in the hollow at the back of his mind.

“The cover story for the upcoming case. Am I married this time?”

The words finally registered. He flushed from ear to ear, dropping his face into his hands and groaning. “How many times are you going to make me apologize for that, Jules?”

“Until you stop getting so flustered about it,” she said, eyes shining emerald green with unshed mirthful tears. She had always been embarrassed about her tendency to cry when she laughed, but Kieran found it terribly endearing. He found most things about her terribly endearing.

He shook the thought from his head. “Yeah, well,” he scoffed, crumpling up one of the thousands of discarded papers on his desk and tossing it across the room. She had the audacity to level an offended lift of her eyebrows at him when the wad of paper cuffed the side of her head. “I didn’t see you jumping to say anything last night when that ambassador asked how we knew each other.”

“Not my fault you got lazy with memorizing our cover stories,” she replied with a sly wink that assured him she wasn’t genuinely upset; she just liked to press his buttons like no one else could. “Can’t believe you made yourself my ball and chain. You don’t know the restraint it took for me to not flirt with anyone for the rest of the event. That’s the kind of willpower it takes not to steal those decorative soaps from high-scale venue restrooms. Which I also totally didn’t do last night.”

“I’m sure,” he said, although he was no such thing.

It had been a moment of weakness. He and Jules had spent that whole morning before the event picking out designer clothes from boutiques that were normally way above their paygrade, and it was a blast. She had pretended to fan her face in mock attraction each time he came out of the dressing room in a new tux, and he had given her an exaggeratedly sultry once-over each time she strutted out in a new dress. The entire experience had been rife with laughter and the familiar dips and curves of a friendship that had been etched out over a decade.

It had nearly been ruined by a comment made by the retail worker helping them choose their outfits. “You two make such a good couple,” she had said as she took a dress from Jules’ hands. “I remember my parents were like that when I was growing up.”

Kieran had frozen, ice running cold in his blood. It was an unwritten rule between him and Jules that they weren’t allowed to address the massive crush he had on her (crush, he called it, because he knew labeling his feelings for Jules to their true extent would drive him insane) after the first time Jules had kindly but firmly shut him down.

He had opened his mouth to correct the worker, but Jules had beat him to the punch, saying with a smile, “Thank you, sweetheart. Could I have the next dress, please?”

It was stupid. It was so stupid. But love— crushes, crushes! he corrected his thought with a rush of panic that nearly unseated him. His eyes darted over to Jules on the couch as if to check she hadn’t heard the hiccup in his internal monologue. Judging by the uninterrupted up and down, up and down of the yellow stress ball, she hadn’t; he breathed a stealthy sigh of relief and settled back down.

It was stupid, but crushes were stupid. Kieran knew it was impossible that Jules’ feelings for him (or lack thereof) had changed, but the fact that she hadn’t corrected the retail worker had given him reckless, baseless hope. They had continued their trying on of various different outfits, but now with the charade of a couple instead of two best friends. It had made him hopelessly giddy.

But that was the one of the dangerous parts about their line of work. You couldn’t let yourself get lost in the fantasy; you had to learn how to slip selves on and off, on and off, on and off like gloves.

It had been a moment of weakness. The gloves wouldn’t come off; they had shrunken to fit his hands perfectly.

“Kieran Doherty, your fame precedes you,” the ambassador had said, mustache twitching as he spoke of Kieran’s entirely falsified resumé and last name. ‘Fame,’ Jules had mouthed to him, eyes shining with amusement. He rolled his eyes at her and thanked the ambassador, who then asked, “And who is this lovely young lady with you?”

“My wife, Julia,” he had said automatically, naturally as anything. Her eyes had widened almost imperceptibly; that wasn’t the story they had planned out together. Glass shattered in Kieran’s head. “I, um — that is to say —”

“Yes, we’ve been married for — oh, five years now? I lose track,” Jules had said, sweeping in before the ambassador could become suspicious. Her smile was slightly tight, eyes not quite right. The shattered glass cut at something deep within him, the wound deepening as he spread his mouth into an equally as forced smile.

“I believe it’s actually been six, my dear,” he had replied softly. The ambassador congratulated them on their union before he disappeared into a crowd of other high-ranking officials. Once Kieran was certain he’d gone, he turned to Jules to apologize — but she’d already slipped away without a word.

Back in the present, he sighed. He tracked his hands through his hair, disturbing the strands and causing them to spring up like weeds. He was supposed to be planning out the cover stories for their upcoming case, but instead here he was. Pondering impossibilities. What a fool he’d made of his own heart.

“Hey,” Jules said, voice soft. He looked up from the document in front of him. She held the yellow ball in her hands and smiled at him. “You and me, yeah? S’all we need.”

He looked away, lump forming in his throat. Those words, they were both everything he ever wanted to hear, and not enough. Never enough. She would never mean those words the way he wanted her to mean them.

But he’d rather have her as a friend, a partner-in-crime, than as nothing at all.

He cleared his throat. The static from the TV invaded the hollow at the back of his mind.

“Of course,” he replied, mirroring her soft tone. “Of course, always.”

“Am I married this time?” I wonder. I glance down at my hand and see the gold band. Married, okay, that explains the breathing sounds next to me in bed. Just to be sure I take a look at her hand. Good, the rings match, I’ve made that mistake before and the results were not pretty. Quietly as I can I search the room, envelope on the dresser says Elizabeth and Richard. Those are tricky, to many variables. I hate to do this but it’s necessary, I have to know. I dig around until I find a sappy love note tucked away in the drawer. Okay, It’s Liza, and R.J, good thing I checked, never would have come up with those on my own. I check Liza’s alarm and smile, I lucked out it’s not set which means barring unforeseen circumstances I can make it in and out without a problem. Looking around I see no evidence of children or pets so I am triple blessed. For some reason kids and animals they can always tell. I dress quietly as I can then head out the door. I have three hours before R.J repossesses his body and he has to back in bed before that happens. Until then I have my target and three hours to kill.

Sitting in the waiting room in the small business I work for, trying to think about where they’ll send me next.

“Cherry, come into my office please.” My boss peeks his shiny bald head out of his door. Grabbing my flip phone and passport I head in.

“Give me your phone and passport.” My boss took my things and like usual, opened his ‘safe’ and threw them into the incinerator. My boss opens the vent above the ceiling and pulls out a briefcase. He sets it on his desk, turns it toward me, and opens it. There was a file, a pair of tasers, a pair of new passports, a pair of flip phones and a few thousand dollars.

“Am I married this time?” I’ve never been married because I hate working with others.

“Yes, Cherry. Can you handle that?” My boss asked, knowing that I can’t say no.

“Ha, I can handle anything. Is he going to be able to handle me?”

The new guy came running into the office.

“I’m here! I’m sorry I was trying to find this building and I was so lost. Who idea was it to put this place 20 stories underground? Did you find this place easily?” He turns to me with his hand out. “Hi, I’m Jake.”

“Okay, first don’t tell people your real name and second give him your passport and phone we need to leave soon."

Jake gave his phone to our boss and our boss threw it into his ‘safe’.

“Hey! That phone was expensive!” He turned to me. “Why did he do that?”

“Jake calm down. Cherry you should probably carry the briefcase, and you might want to leave now because the jet is ready. Jake, Cherry will explain everything to you.” My boss hands me the briefcase and I walk out of the office, leaving Jake to following close behind.

We board the private jet and I change into my new clothes. Then I read about our mission.

“Your name is Christopher Cole, my name is Allisa Cole.”

“Oh, that has a nice ring to it. Get it. Ring.” Jake was laughing at his own joke.

“Shut up and let me finish. We will have to take down a drug cartel.” I close the file and prepare myself for the mission.