I decide to wake Aiden up with a flurry of kisses, all over his face and neck and chest and hands. His eyes flutter open, blinking around until they locate me busily peppering his solar plexus with swift, enthusiastic smooches. Maybe ticklish ones, because his huffing laugh is the first sound he makes.

“Good morning.” My voice is muffled against his skin.

“Good morning.” He reaches down and twines two fingers into my hair, toying with it, his eyes clear and warm and smiling. “What’s-?”

I climb up to sit on him, and he spreads his hands on my upper thighs.

“So, here’s the situation. We both slept through your alarm, and you’re about forty minutes late for work, right now.”

Aiden props himself up on his elbows. “Oh, shit.”

“But!” I continue, pressing a finger over his lips, “I already called Gabby. I told her that I had a small emergency and that I needed you this morning, and that’s why you’re late. She said it’s fine, but she wants you there within the next hour. I think we can make it, if we don’t have to rely on the bus, so. I’ll drive you.”

“Wait a minute.” Aiden stares up at me, disbelieving. “You’re saying you lied to Gabby? And it worked?”

“Nope, it wasn’t a lie.”

He tenses. “What’s the emergency you needed me for?”

“Good question! It’s this.” I return to covering his body with kisses, and Aiden startles, then laughs. He rolls us over, landing between my legs, smiling with his whole face. I fold my arms around him, stroking the fine hair at the base of his neck.

“An hour, hmm?” He leans down and kisses me, slow and lazy and sweet. “Cool. I can do a lot with an hour.”

“No, you have to be there within an hour,” I laugh, against his mouth. “You have to shower, and we have to pick you up a change of clothes. Plus, if you want time to go to Mugshot-”

“I can shower tonight.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll wear my clothes from yesterday.”

“Right, that won’t be suspicious at all.”

“And we can skip the coffee. I can survive one morning without caffeine.”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” I tell him, and he grins, all playful and unwound, the way he gets sometimes when we're alone. “Are you sure you don’t mind using up your lunch break for Ghost Office stuff today? I feel like I’m always at City Hall just demolishing your productivity.”

Aiden nods. “Yep, that’s accurate.”

“Wow!” I pull back, trying my hardest to look offended. “You’re supposed to say, no, Jamie, you're always welcome at City Hall, and in my office, and on my lap-”

“Jamie, you're always welcome at City Hall, and in my office, and especially on my lap, even though you most definitely demolish my productivity.”

“Okay, so that’s a compromise, and it’s not what I was looking for.”

“Oh, no.” Aiden starts kiss-nibbling his way along my collarbone. The scrape of his stubble sends pleasant tickles rushing all the way down to my toes. “I’m so sorry. This must be very difficult for you.”

“So difficult,” I groan. “To know that my own man doesn’t care about making me feel good-” I cut off sharply as he uses his hips to push me deeper into the bed. His hands are braced in the pillows on either side of me, blue eyes sparking.

“On the contrary,” he murmurs, watching as I catch my lip between my teeth. “I really like making you feel good.”

“Should have told Gabby you needed a full sick day,” I mumble, and he laughs again.

“Nah, we should probably save those up for the heist, if we have to leave town to get to the museum.”

“Sure, yeah, cool, the heist. Jesus fucking - this is just not a thing that I ever expected to be talking about so casually. Like, hey, Destinee, can you cover me at the shop? I have to miss my shift because I’ll be busy doing a heist.”

“Would it be easier if we called it something else?” Aiden asks. “The - Borrowing Without Permission Ghost Office Excursion?”

“So the - BWPGOE? Yeah, no. We’re gonna call it a heist.”

We both laugh, but I stop before he does, staring up into his face, something making my heart swell.

“We should probably get going,” he says, tracing a hand down my cheek. I pull a giant pout on, and he smiles. “Dude, we’ve just established that you’re gonna see me on my lunch break in like, a couple of hours.”

“Yeah, but still. That feels like too long for us to be apart.”

I had answered without thinking, and I’m instantly worried that I just came on way too strong.

The joking expression on Aiden’s face softens; he looks like he’s going to say something, but he ends up just shaking his head, nuzzling his nose into mine. Something passes between us, something glowing and warm, like our connection is open, but it isn’t.

I’m now seriously contemplating calling Gabby back and letting her know that Aiden won’t be making it today. Where’s my phone?

“Hey,” Aiden says, very slowly and carefully. “I’ve been meaning to ask - if you’d want to go with me-”

“Yes.”

He stops, blinking. “Wh-? I didn’t say where, yet.”

“Yeah, but-” Wherever you’re going, I’m going, too. “I’m sorry. Finish your thought?”

“I - was going to see if maybe you wanted to, um. Go with me on a date? Like a date-date, not like - picking up a pizza after a ouija board session or hitting Big Belly Deli at 2 AM, or-” He stops, cringing with his whole face, so hard that his eyes close for a second. “I mean like a real - it’s fine if you don’t want to.” A pause, and then - “Stellar execution,” he mutters to himself, under his breath.

I look up at him, biting back an absolutely huge smile.

“Aiden.”

“Yeah?” His voice is all nervous and soft, suddenly.

“We’ve been seeing each other for a minute, now. We both told each other that we’re serious about this. We’ve done the whole meet the parents thing, on both sides. And you’re chillin’ between my legs while we have this conversation.”

“Yeah, man, I know all that.”

“So why do you look so stressed out, asking me on a date?”

“Because-” Aiden hesitates. A burnt crimson color is starting to fan out across his cheeks. “Feels like - um - boyfriend... stuff? To go on a date like that. And I know we haven’t - said - exactly-”

That’s true, I realize. Neither of us has ever used that word, yet. I trail my fingers down the curve of Aiden's face, smooth a thumb over his stubbled chin.

“Where are you taking me?” I ask, and his blue eyes light up like the sun is right behind them.

“I was gonna surprise you, if that's okay. But is there anything you specifically don’t want to do?”

“Um… I just don’t want to go to that coffee place on Garnet Street. I took a pretty spectacular fall right outside of it once, and everyone inside saw, and it was way too embarrassing for me to ever go back.”

Aiden’s eyebrow quirks. “What happened?”

“Well, I was trying to buy an eclair, and-”

“Oh, there's your problem. You should have left such a challenging task to someone more capable. Like a five-year-old.”

“Excuse me!” I slap his shoulder, and he breathes out another one of those huffing laughs, shaking his head again. “The sidewalk was really icy, okay, and - is it too late for me to say I don’t want to go on a date?”

“Yes,” he answers, smiling as he leans down to kiss me. “Way too late for that.”

~~~~

“This is so unfair,” Kasey groans, watching Aiden unwrap the sandwich I brought him. “I want a fucking bite!”

Aiden hesitates, halfway through tearing a mustard packet open. “Um - you want me to put it away?”

“No, no,” she sighs. “It’s your lunch break. I’m just saying. Goddamnit. Doesn’t matter. Did you find anything good?”

“Actually, yeah, I think so.” Aiden cleared off his desk in advance of our visit; all that’s sitting on it now is his laptop, and me. “We were right in thinking that there aren’t many museums close to Ketterbridge. The ones I could find are tiny, niche ones that I’m not sure even qualify as museums. There’s a clock museum off an exit ramp down the highway, run by literally one guy. I looked up a picture, and it’s just a super small house filled with clocks. It’s called A Rather Good Time.”

“Mkay, I weirdly love that, but also, would never ever set foot inside.”

“Agreed, Jamie, and anyways, I feel like we already have one timepiece. We’re probably not looking for another.”

“This doesn’t sound that promising, so far,” Kasey says, and Aiden nods.

“Right, I didn’t think so, either. But then I found this.” He turns his laptop to face us. “Technically it’s a private collection, with a showroom. It didn’t turn up on my first search, I had to really dig for it.”

Kasey and I lean in for a look.

“This is fancy,” she observes, and I have to agree. The website on Aiden’s screen definitely doesn’t belong to a shabby roadside attraction. It’s neatly organized, with professional, auto-scrolling photographs of antique engravings, pewter figurines of soldiers, faded flags, and sterling silver cutlery. Flowing script at the top spells out the name of the place.

“The Albert Bratton Collection,” I read. Kasey skims the intro text, then grins.

"Oh, Aiden, good work! This is it. No doubt in my mind."

“Wait," I cut in. "If it’s someone’s private collection - are we sure we feel good about stealing something from this poor guy?”

“I don’t know if poor is the right word for him,” Aiden answers. “I looked him up, he’s rolling in it. He forked over a gigantic endowment to set up and maintain this museum. People can come and tour the historic house, then see stuff from the collection in a showroom. No one actually lives in the house, so they’ve got one level converted to storage, for the portion of the collection that isn’t on view.”

“Can you click on the about page, Aiden?” Kasey asks, and he does.

“Okay, but even if this guy is loaded,” I press on. “The museum, it’s just a little one, difficult to even find on the internet...”

“You’re right, Jamie. Good news for us, hey? Less security to worry about.”

“Oh my god, Kasey, that was not my point. I mean that maybe we should feel bad about stealing something from it.”

“Here we go,” Aiden says, tipping the laptop screen back so he can read out loud to us. “The about page says… Founded by businessman Albert Bratton and housed in a historic mansion, this highly established collection provides an unparalleled window into early American history. Visitors are encouraged to view a selection of the many notable objects collected by Bratton, including stunning finds from the Pre-Revolutionary Period-”

“See? It’s a place where people can learn about history, and here we are-”

“-all the way to remarkable pieces from the Civil War Era, especially those celebrating Bratton’s own proud Confederate heritage.”

“Oh.” I stop, taken aback.

Aiden raises his eyebrows, and we all look at each other.

“Any further objections, Jamie?” Kasey asks, suppressing a smirk.

“You know what?" I shake my head, my mind officially made up. "No. Let’s rob this guy.”

~~~~

We still have jars and bottles and jugs stacked all over the workbenches at the Ghost Office, mostly rejects that wouldn’t stay stuck to the recycling wall during its construction. Aiden and I have to move a bunch of them to make room for all the paper.

We have every page from the museum’s website, printed off. We have reviews from TripAdvisor. A handful of recent articles about exhibitions at the place. Long posts from travel bloggers who visited.

We also have printed sheets of information that we cobbled together ourselves. For example, a complete list of the staff, supplemented by information we pulled from LinkedIn and newspaper articles.

Well, not really the complete list. Only the salaried staff. There’s no intel on the cleaning people, or security, or reception. That info we’re going to have to get without the help of the internet.

I’m kind of proud of us, honestly. We’ve gotten a lot of research done over the course of two days. There’s no way we’ll end up using all of it, but Kasey wants everything in front of her while she formulates a plan.

The only problem is that the Albert Bratton Collection is not large enough to have a full catalog of their holdings online. We’re still not sure what we’re stealing, but we intend to ask Will, when he comes back.

We used the public computers at the library to get all of our information, then cleared the search history. Cleared it on our own laptops, too, just to be safe, but - if everything goes to plan, no one should even come looking for this object, much less the people who took it.

Still, it’s really starting to hit me, what we’re planning here.

The place is about a three-hour drive from Ketterbridge, which confirms our suspicion that Will and Kasey are going to have to sit the heist out. This is all going to fall on Aiden, and on me.

“Nervous?”

I hadn’t heard him come up behind me. I’m leaning over the paper-covered workbench, my head sort of spinning. Aiden slides his hands around my waist and locks me tightly into his arms, which I think means he already knows the answer to his question. Having him there steadies out the ground beneath my feet, calms the anxiety in my chest. I lift a hand to gently scratch his forearm, leaning back into his warmth.

“Yeah, I am. Not even gonna try to lie about that.”

“Paper copies means we won’t have to keep looking stuff up. Should keep our computers clean. We got that lockbox to keep the printouts in, for when we’re not here.”

“I know,” I answer. Aiden puts his chin on my shoulder, and I press my cheek against his. “I just don’t want us to get arrested.” This makes it sound too scary, so I quickly pin on: “You do realize we can’t go on our date if that happens, right?”

“Oh, man, I would be so pissed,” Aiden growls, dead serious. I let out a surprised laugh, and he smiles. I can’t see it from this angle, but I feel it, through the place where our cheeks are pushed together. “I’ve waited long enough, I think,” he adds.

“For us to go on a date?”

“Just for - this.” He gives me a little squeeze, grazing a soft kiss onto the sensitive skin behind my ear. My heart flies into my mouth.

I twist in his arms, lean up to bring our noses together. One of his hands caresses my face. The other he presses flat to my spine, holding me like he has no intention of ever letting go. Like there’s no question - it’s simply a given, that this is where I belong.

Kissing Aiden is always the best, but sometimes, in these moments of closeness between us, something just - happens.

Suddenly all of my senses are intoxicated at once, and I feel like I’m falling towards him with my whole body, though we’re standing still. It’s an intimate, breath-stopping, blissed-out daze. It makes everything else evaporate. There’s nothing in the past to dwell on. Nothing in the future to worry about. Just him, just us. Just right here, and right now.

It’s happened a number of times. Most recently when I had just eaten a breakfast roll, and Aiden decided to slowly and meticulously work the remaining sugar from my lips with his own.

It’s also happening currently.

I’ve never had this with anyone else. It’s dizzying, the perfect intensity of it.

I wonder if he feels it, too.