“Hello?” Ralph snaps his fingers at me and Aiden. “Anyone listening? Who was that?”

Aiden and I blink and look at him, taking a second to pull ourselves back to the present.

“She’s-” I struggle for a moment, searching for an answer that doesn’t reveal too much or include any lies. I can’t exactly tell Ralph that Calla is a thief we know, one we’ve helped rob a police evidence warehouse. “She’s an acquaintance - friend - sorta like, coworker, once, um-”

“What the f-?” Ralph is feeling around in his pockets. “She took my whole fucking pack! And my lighter, too?”

“Yeah, you gotta watch yourself around her,” Aiden informs him. “She got Jamie’s wallet, once.”

Ralph's wide eyes flit up to Aiden's face, then go right back to the darkness where Calla disappeared.

“And you made yourself look like an absolute idiot in front of her,” Aiden continues, instantly making Ralph turn to scowl at him, “When the whole reason everyone is scared of you is that you’re so damn smart.”

“Oh, fuck you, dude,” Ralph begins heatedly, then stops, apparently just now processing the last part of what Aiden said.

He pauses, then tries to make a scornful face, then just sort of looks blank. He tightens his grasp around the book in his hand, runs his fingers over the back of his neck. Doesn’t say anything.

“Why were you so rude to her?” I blurt out, unable to stop myself. “You could clearly see that she was already upset! And she doesn’t even know you, man - you had a chance to make a good impression on her! If you had just been respectful-”

“Then she wouldn’t have even fucking noticed me, Keane!” Ralph snaps.

“And what, you’d rather have people notice you for a bad reason than not notice you at all? Is that really any better?”

Ralph opens his mouth to answer me, then stops again. He just looks at me, picking at the leather bands around his wrist, his expression unreadable. He seems like he’s struggling over his answer. Like he’s not sure what it is.

I hesitate, wondering if Ralph really doesn’t realize that there are better ways for him to get people’s attention. Maybe he hasn’t tried any of those other ways in so long, he forgot they were even an option.

I consider pointing out to Ralph that Calla actually did notice something about him, aside from him behaving like a jackass. She noticed the book that he had on him.

There are better reasons why people might notice you, I nearly tell Ralph. Nice reasons. There are nice reasons. You know that, right?

“Just - do what Calla said, man,” I tell him instead. “Keep studying.”

I tap the book in his hands, and he twists his lips to the side, then lets out a heavy sigh.

A lengthy silence falls over us. Aiden and I stay quiet, don't break it. It seems like Ralph is working his way up to saying something.

“When you see her again.” He’s avoiding our eyes, wincing as he speaks, like each word hurts. “Will you tell her - can you tell her I’m sorry? If she remembers me.”

Oh, my god. Ralph apologized for something.

Honestly, I couldn’t have been more startled if a fucking buckshot blast had gone off in my ears. I jerk my head back, blinking at Ralph, then look at Aiden with very wide eyes. We exchange a swift, holy shit kind of glance, then turn back to Ralph, who still won’t look at us.

“We’ll tell her that,” Aiden rumbles. “If you mean it. And if you do mean it, you won’t do that disrespectful shit again. I'm not saying you have to be a perfect person, you’ve just - gotta try to be better, if you really mean that apology.”

Ralph bites the inside of his cheek, then drops his head, runs a hand through his blonde hair.

“I am trying, man.” Suddenly he sounds deeply frustrated, but not with us. With himself. “I’m trying.”

I put my fingers over my mouth so that Ralph doesn’t see me smiling. It’s just - I can tell how much he means it.

Aiden's expression softens a little. He's been where Ralph is. He knows that it's hard.

Ralph takes a breath, then manages to collect his face back into an irritated frown.

“Don’t even know why I’m taking advice from you boys on this shit,” he growls. “Calla was pretty pissed off at you guys, too.”

“That’s different, dude. It was a misunderstanding.” Aiden shivers, his blue eyes filled with residual alarm. “That was scary, though. Jesus Christ. She looked like she was about to smite us.”

Ralph cracks a tiny smile, glancing again in the direction Calla went. “Yeah, she did.”

I catch Aiden’s eye, then quickly drop my expression to neutral again as Ralph turns back to us.

“Why was she upset?” he asks.

I normally wouldn’t give Ralph any extraneous information - who knows what he might use it for - but Calla already admitted to a robbery right in front of him. And he just apologized for something, so. This isn’t the Ralph we’re used to.

I decide to give him the benefit of the doubt, just this once. Weirdly enough, I feel like he’s earned it. Not that there’s an easy way to explain.

“We needed something from Calla," I begin haltingly, "And in exchange, we promised not to get her or her people arrested - I'm explaining it wrong. It’s, um. Complicated. You wouldn’t get it.”

“I wouldn’t get it?” Ralph makes a skeptical face at me. “You realize that’s pretty much the exact relationship I have with everyone I do business with?”

“That’s… true,” I answer, realizing as I say it. “Huh.”

Come to think of it, Ralph has been the kingpin of a lucrative, highly illegal business since we were all teenagers. He’s run it so smoothly, kept it so tightly organized, turned it into such a well-oiled machine that he’s never once let himself, Noah, or Grant get arrested. Never let any of them so much as pick up a court date.

Regardless of anyone’s opinion on what Ralph does for a living, there’s no denying that he’s good at it. Exceptionally careful, smart, strategic. Always thinking ten steps ahead. Always slipping through the fingers of anyone who might try to catch him.

He and Calla actually have some things in common.

I shake my head, pulling myself out of my thoughts.

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” I tell Ralph. “Stay focused, dude. You’re working on you, right now. Keep doing that.”

“Yeah, clearly you’ve still got a long way to go,” Aiden adds. “Fix yourself, then maybe you won’t fuck up so bad if you ever run into Calla again.”

I flinch at this, waiting for Ralph to get mad. I can tell that Aiden meant it in a joking way. I don’t expect Ralph to.

But, despite the deadpan way Aiden said it, Ralph picks up on the thread of humor in his deep voice. He arches an eyebrow at Aiden, who does it back at him.

It seems like some exchange of silent laughter.

I tend to forget how far back Aiden and Ralph go. But sometimes, very rarely - there are moments like this, and I remember.

There are intimate methods of communication between Ralph and Aiden, ones so deeply embedded in them that they still happen automatically, even after all these years. The two of them both just did that silent laugh like they’ve done it thousands of times before. They did it without thinking.

Ralph definitely didn’t think before he did it, because he seems surprised afterwards, blinking at Aiden.

He quickly breaks his gaze away from Aiden’s, then takes a deep inhale. It turns to white mist on the night air as he slowly breathes it out.

“I’m focused,” he says, then fixes me with his usual scowl. “Even if this shit is one giant headache.”

“Alright, if you hate it so much, then gimme the book back.”

Ralph swats my hand away as I reach out for it. “Fuck off.”

I press my lips into a line, so Ralph doesn’t see me smiling. “How’s the plant doing?”

Ralph hesitates, then slips his phone out of his pocket. Aiden and I lean forward as he turns it around to show us what he has pulled up.

It’s a photo of the plant that I gave him. It looks like it's recovered from being overwatered. It looks much better, actually. Bright green in color, no wilting spots. Fewer blemishes on the leaves, which are slowly beginning to unfurl.

“Little worried about it,” Ralph says, pointing to the screen. “That thing, right there - I dunno what it is. It just showed up one day.”

I zoom in to see what he’s talking about, then find myself hit with a burst of happy surprise. I can’t believe that Ralph didn’t recognize it for what it is.

“It’s a bud, Ralph.”

A puzzled pinch appears between his eyebrows. He turns his phone around, stares down at it.

“A bud,” he repeats.

“Mhm.” I look up at Ralph, once again trying not to smile. “You’ll see. Give it more time. It’ll blossom.”

~~~~

“That was so - I don’t even know what that was.” Aiden rolls onto his side to look at me, and I look back at him, watching the moonlight melt down his sculpted torso. “You ever seen Ralph fold that fast? Or that, like - completely?”

“The power of Calla,” I answer, and Aiden huffs out a disbelieving laugh.

“Guess Ralph’s finally met his match, huh?”

“Seriously. Although - he has before. He won’t go up against you, either.” I tap Aiden’s nose with my finger. “Or he wouldn’t, anyways. He might have finally figured out that you’re actually a sweet thing.”

Aiden makes a face at me, then shifts his cheek against the pillow, his blue eyes thoughtful. “You ever think Calla might be, too?”

I trace my fingertips down his side as I turn it over in my mind.

Aiden and I don’t know much about Calla beyond our connection through the Botswick case. That’s how she wants it, so she’s been all business with us, always wearing her armor.

But, then again. All of this, everything Calla has done, the extreme lengths she’s gone to - it’s been to protect someone else. Someone she loves.

My mind drifts to the embroidered fruits hand-sewn into her socks. The way she slept curled around the evidence after the warehouse heist, protecting it even in her sleep. The flash of deep fear in her eyes tonight, when she thought her person might be close to getting in trouble.

To keep her person safe, Calla would break into police property, rob City Hall, disable security cameras, forge and steal police reports, put herself on the line so many times over…

Despite the hard veneer, I’d guess that Calla has a fiercely burning furnace of love in her heart.

She doesn’t want us to see it, because she doesn’t want to give us any hint about her person, their relationship, what connects them. She keeps herself so closed off to me and Aiden, never lets us look too deeply.

But she doesn’t have that same guard up with Ralph. She doesn’t need to, because he’s not involved.

Ralph looked deeply into Calla’s eyes when she wrenched him down and held his face so close to hers. He must have seen something in them, given that he was speechless for so long afterwards.

“I'm not sure,” I finally answer. “Maybe. Yes.”

“Um.” Aiden huffs out a laugh. “That’s three different answers, but okay.”

“Yes,” I say again, more firmly.

Aiden grows serious, spends a quiet moment in his thoughts.

“Well, this has been one hell of a night.” He tosses his hair out of his eyes, then looks up at me from the pillow. “Calla showing up in that dress would have been wild enough.”

“I know!” I shake my head, let out a dazed laugh. “That was a knockout dress, holy shit. I never thought Calla was the type to own any dresses, much less one like that.”

“No, me neither. Maybe she borrowed it from someone?”

“Yeah, maybe. It looked expensive. Like she'd just come from some vintage cocktail party in a smoky bar, with men in nice suits and women in long dresses. Something from another time, like-”

I break off sharply, then slowly sit up in my bed, my eyebrows furrowing.

“Hey.” Aiden sits up, too, then presses a kiss onto my shoulder. “You alright, Linden?”

“I’m - thinking,” I stammer, my head suddenly spinning.

My mind is swinging through connections almost too fast for me to keep up. Images flash through my head, there and then gone.

Calla in that vintage dress, the scarlet silk flowing all around her.

Ralph gazing down at his fingertips, stained red with the lipstick that Calla left on his cigarette.

The morning on the beach, when we burned the evidence we’d stolen from the warehouse. Calla’s eyes lingering on the cigarette, the decades-old lipstick stain on it.

 I turn my head to look at Aiden. “Have we ever seen Calla wear makeup before tonight?”

“Not that I remember? Doesn’t really seem like her thing.”

“Possible that she borrowed that, too?”

“Sure, but maybe she just only wears it for special occasions, or whatever.” Aiden tips his head to the side, puzzled. “Why?”

“Because - what if she borrowed it from…? Aiden. Wait a second. Wait.”

I fail to follow that up with anything, lapsing back into silence again. Aiden moves to sit in front of me, concerned, but I don’t look at him. The sight of him is pure distraction for me, and I don’t want to lose the train of thought I’m rushing to follow.

I start thinking out loud, holding a fistful of Aiden’s soft grey sweatpants.

“That dress would have been right at home in the sixties, right? I’ve seen enough movies from the sixties to know, that was a great era for horror movies - and that lipstick, the red lipstick Calla was wearing - just like the lipstick on that cigarette butt from the evidence we stole - and I’m guessing she borrowed the makeup and the dress from the same person-”

“Jamie, oh my god, take a breath-”

“Aiden!" I take his face in my hands, speaking even faster. "It makes sense! Who taught Calla all that shit she knows how to do? Who taught her sleight of hand like that, all those insane skills she has? It’s like she’s been learning since she was a kid, and it’s all stuff that an agent would know how to do! Skills an agent could hand down! And the red lipstick, the red dress… who else could it be, if not…?”

I trail off as Aiden’s blue eyes grow enormous, the realization dawning over his face.

“Rouge,” he says softly. “Calla’s person is - Agent Rouge?”

We stare at each other in breathless silence.

“This checks out, man,” Aiden says, his words rapidly picking up speed. “We know now that Calla’s person is a woman, and Rouge is the only woman involved in the case. Besides the babysitter, possibly.”

“And Rouge,” I go on, trying to keep up with my racing thoughts, “She never showed for the meet-up with John Botswick. He thought she was hiding something, remember?”

“If that was her cigarette in the evidence, then she was definitely with Botswick the night that he was killed. At the very least, they must have seen each other.”

“Yeah, and Rouge must have been involved with the farmhouse in some way, because Calla was upset when she heard that we were talking to Finley, the grandson of the own-”

I cut myself off and press my fingers over my mouth, my eyes growing even wider.

“Aiden, Calla knew that we went to see Finley, but she must not have seen us herself. She would’ve recognized us, she wouldn’t have thought we were law enforcement. So - someone else must have seen us, and told her...”

I fade off again.

My mind goes back to the woman who’d caught my attention as we left Finley’s law office. The woman I thought I saw stop still, staring at us. The very stylishly dressed, white-haired, older woman, wearing -

Bright red lipstick.

“Oh, my god,” I whisper. “Rouge.”