Amateurish [Kiran Estevez/Rose Marigold]
Rose offers Kiran a drink and the agent refuses, justifying she’s at work. The waitress has a pretty face and a soft voice and words easy to catch someone else’s attention—a crowning of laurels and appraisal, making it impossible to say “no” immediately.
It’s all in her looks, surely. With time, Kiran has a glass.
...
Blonde strands curl around a finger. Rose doesn’t take her eyes off Kiran, and her beauty is a distraction Kiran tries not to dwell on, much less feel timid at it. Clearly she fails. And clearly—as all failures are prone to repetition—the agent outmaneuvers these emotions by dragging her own fingers on Rose’s hair, curling their smoothness where Rose has purposely left untouched.
...
Kiran doesn’t know how to lie so well, so if anyone questioned her about the weight on her lap, she’d tell: it’s comfortable. Wrapping one arm around Rose’s waist and watching how it fits on her palm is comfortable. Getting held by the waitress, feeling her digits touch her neck and collarbone, warmth reaching places she hadn’t been tended to for quite a while… it’s all very comfortable.
So is laying down her face on Rose’s chest and hearing her laugh vibrate through her entire body.
...
She likes how their mouths dovetail easily against each other. The way Rose has her arms wrapped around Kiran, dragging her deep into their embrace. The passionate heat of something which shouldn’t even be this casual. She enjoys this more than she should.
Kiran doesn’t forget the investigation, however.
...
Or maybe she did.
Getting up next morning with Rose at her side, sleeping in soft snores on the curve of her neck, made Kiran doubt her own sense of professionalism for a moment.
Yet as she gets up to gather her clothes and exit, she picks up folded papers over a desk and reads them. They depict everything that happened yesterday, all Kiran remembers and all she does not. She reads herself. Reads this exact sentence detailing the exact words she reads now.
Kiran shakes her head; leaves after pressing her lips on Rose’s forehead and with all her fiction in what will be now in the Bureau’s possession.