Chapter 6
Detached. That was what Rio was supposed to be and yet her and Agatha’s last mission proved she was being anything but.
What was that? She didn’t know.
Firstly, Agatha had gotten her so riled up, so angry, so nervous in that bathroom. She’d deliberately broken one of Rio’s boundaries with seemingly no remorse. That was really the tip of the iceberg for her, and that’s why Rio had done what she did. Rio knew Agatha had another lover and she’d touched her anyway.
Why? Because she was pissed off and no that wasn’t an excuse.
Secondly, she’d gotten all jealous when their mission target was whispering and giggling with Agatha. Why she had gotten jealous she didn’t know. Her wife was a lesbian and Peter was their mission. But Agatha was laughing, it wasn’t fair that Peter got to make her laugh and Rio didn’t. She’d turned that envy into more anger and made Agatha deal with Peter on her own. She almost caused them to fail their mission because she was too aggravated to help.
Lastly, after terrorising the streets of Manhattan with her extremely impressive driving skills she and Agatha had simply…laughed about it. As if they hadn’t been playing sick games with each other all night, as if they weren’t fuming with each other, as if they hadn’t almost killed one another and their mission subject.
It all felt so…normal to Rio, completing a mission and then laughing about it with her wife as if this were a practice they’d done for years.
It had only been three. Fucking. Days.
She didn’t know if she would be able to survive this marriage. She was already acting out of character. Rio didn’t think one person should be able to make such an impact on another in such a short amount of time. It scared her.
Agatha coughing to the left of her ripped her out of her thoughts.
It was the first night of their new mission. They were at a ski resort in Verbier, Switzerland keeping tabs on the Archibold family, more specifically Amelia Archibold. She was the CEO of Hifiz, a tech company dominating the tech market at the moment. The FBI have reasons to believe Amelia is using her tech company as a front for something else, Agatha and Rio’s mission was simple. Observe Amelia, her husband Jack and twelve-year-old child, get close to them, download a software onto Amelia and Jack’s phones so the FBI could track their activity and that was it.
Should be simple enough.
The agency had booked Rio and Agatha into the hotel room next to the Archibold’s and they had installed a camera so that they could watch them 24/7. The only problem was that the room only had one bed. Rio had claimed it immediately, she had told Agatha that because she was a ‘princess’ she deserved it. Agatha looked ashamed of herself and therefore hadn’t objected.
The other woman coughed again.
Rio rolled her eyes. “Why do you keep coughing?”
“What you think I’m doing it on purpose? It’s fucking freezing and there are no blankets. I’m probably catching a cold.”
“Turn the heating up,” Rio told her.
“It is up.”
“Then why are you still cold? Are you a reptile or something?” Why am I snapping at her?
“'Are you are reptile or something,’” Agatha mimicked her.
Rio scoffed. “And just like that…my sympathy has vanished.”
Agatha sneezed before she said a sarcastic, “Oh, no! How ever will I recover?”
The room fell into silence. Rio stared at the pitch black to the left of her where her fake wife was probably curled up in a ball on the floor. She didn’t want Agatha to be cold, she didn't even know why she kept making digs at her.
It was just Agatha was so confusing. It was easier to act as if she hated her.
The other woman sneezed three times in a row before she was attacked by a coughing fit.
“For fucksake,” Rio grumbled. “Get up here.”
“What?” Agatha said.
“You heard me. We actually need to be able to sleep if we want to get this mission done well and neither of us is going to be able to if you won’t stop coughing and sneezing.”
Rio was met with silence. Agatha didn’t reply nor did she hear her move. She bit her lip, now she just felt stupid.
What seemed like years to Rio passed before she heard a rustling. The left side of the bed sunk with added weight, she felt cool air hit her skin as Agatha lifted the duvet and slid underneath it.
The room fell silent again.
Rio shut her eyes to try and ignore the way her body felt like it had been set alight due to her and Agatha’s close proximity. The knowledge that if she stretched her hand to the left her fingers would connect with Agatha’s body filled her with dread. The temptation to do just that was unbearable.
Out of nowhere, the bed started shaking.
“You’re shivering?” Rio asked.
“Not on purpose,” Agatha replied.
“I don’t get it…the whole reason I told you to come up here was so that you wouldn’t be cold anymore.”
Agatha huffed. “My body just needs time to adjust. Bear with me, alright?”
“Well, I can’t exactly sleep if the bed is-”
“There’s not much I can do about it, Rio.” Agatha snapped.
Rio opened her eyes just to roll them. She needed sleep and wouldn’t get any unless Agatha warmed up. Instincts from where Rio didn’t know, took over. She rolled over, pressed her body against Agatha’s and slipped her hands around her waist.
“What are you-?”
Rio cut her off. “You’re cold, my body heat will warm you up and we’ll both be able to get some sleep.”
“I know but-”
“Don’t question it, okay?”
Agatha didn’t reply, instead, she pressed her body further into Rio’s. She hadn’t been lying, she was freezing and Rio immediately felt guilt about making her sleep on the floor. She started rubbing Agatha’s arm to generate heat as the other woman trembled against her body.
“Is this, okay?” Rio asked. She owed it to Agatha to ask after the last time she touched her.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Yeah, it’s okay.”
***
Rio blinked slowly awake. At first confused by her surroundings. This wasn’t her room in New York. Then she remembered she was on a mission and had left New York fifteen hours ago. Another thing confused her, the feeling of weight behind her, of hands holding on to her that weren’t hers. She craned her neck slightly to see Agatha’s face pressed against her back. Rio froze. Was this how she fell asleep? No, it hadn’t been. It had been the other way around. Had they flipped during the night? Evidently.
Fuck, Rio thought.
As carefully as she could, she detangled herself from Agatha, grabbed some clothes off the armchair by the bed and tiptoed to the bathroom. She needed a shower. There was tension built up in between her legs that she needed rid of as quickly as possible.
Whilst in the shower Rio wondered if she made the right decision last night. She had essentially cuddled her fake wife. Was that allowed? Did that count as cheating to Agatha? Would her lover approve? No, it mustn’t do. Agatha would’ve said something.
She grabbed her towel off the toilet seat once she was done and stepped out of the shower. Rio frowned when she saw the bathroom door ajar. It wasn’t by much, but she swore she had shut it, she didn’t want to wake Agatha up with her showering. She crept across the bathroom to close it, it did for a second before it popped open again.
Their bathroom door didn’t shut.
“Great. This is just great,” Rio muttered.
“Are you talking to yourself?” A voice croaked from the other room. “Because you know that’s the first sign of insanity.”
Despite herself, Rio laughed. “Pretty sure I crossed over the line to insanity a long time ago.”
“Shit, should I be worried? Should we start looking at psych wards to put you in?”
Rio smiled. “You’re hilarious.”
“Aren’t I just,” was Agatha’s quick reply.
Fifteen minutes later Rio was dried, moisturised and partially dressed. She couldn’t find a top. She swore there had been one in the pile of clothes she had brought with her. Currently, she was dressed in leggings and a black bra.
“Agatha?” She called.
“Yeah?”
“Is there a top on the chair by my side of the bed?”
There was a pause before a, “No.”
Shit.
She scanned the bathroom, lifted up the towels on the towel rack to see if she’d put it there, nothing. She looked behind the toilet, in her pile of pyjamas, Rio even checked the shower.
Still nothing.
Oh, it was fine. Agatha had seen her in a bikini this was no different. In fact, this time she was even more covered because she was wearing leggings. Rio considered asking her fake wife to bring a top for her, but then Agatha would have to dig through her luggage case, and she’d rather avoid that.
Rio sucked in a breath before pulling the already open bathroom door wider apart. She stepped out and blue eyes locked on to her immediately. She froze as if Agatha had trapped her in a trance. The other woman’s gaze fell to Rio’s chest. She made no attempt to cover herself, actually, Rio let her stare…she would’ve.
It was as if Agatha had to force herself to take her eyes off Rio as she cleared her throat and shifted off the bed.
“You…you done with the bathroom?” She stuttered.
Rio nodded.
Agatha made her way towards her and Rio swore she was walking in 0.5 speed. Goose bumps spread across her skin as Agatha stopped beside her. What would she do? Grab her right here and now? Throw her onto the bed and kiss her until she couldn’t breathe? Rio scolded herself for wanting nothing more.
Agatha’s eyes trailed up Rio’s form again before she looked up at her. Her gaze let Rio know she had her undivided attention.
“Rio,” Agatha said, her voice laced with desperation.
“Mhm,” was all she could manage.
Agatha only stared at her for a long moment. Her eyes flickered between each of her eyes and her lips.
“I…I lied.”
Rio furrowed her eyebrows.
“There was a shirt on the chair.”
Rio took her eyes off Agatha for the first time in minutes, and there on the chair was the shirt she thought she brought with her to the bathroom.
She scoffed in disbelief. “You bitch.”
Agatha cackled before disappearing into the bathroom.
***
Agatha stared at their mission target as she sipped her coffee. They were three tables down from them at the restaurant where they were eating breakfast. She was trying to ignore the way Rio kept glaring at her so that she didn’t laugh. She figured she’d messed with Rio enough for the morning, if she laughed in her face, she would only make the situation worse.
It wasn’t that Agatha wanted to mess with her fake wife, she just thought Rio deserved some payback for having her sleep on the floor and almost giving her hyperthermia.
For people who were supposed to be happily married (that’s what Amelia had said in every interview Agatha had watched before they had arrived at the hotel last night) they didn’t look it. The Archibald’s had barely spoken a word to each other since arriving at breakfast, and their son had been so engrossed in his iPhone games he didn’t seem to notice. Even Rio and her looked happier than them, although Rio was scowling at her, they were holding hands across the table.
“Okay, so plan for today?”
“We follow them. We put trackers on them if we make contact.”
Rio nodded.
A waiter came with their omelettes and Agatha flinched when Rio took her hand out of hers. She shuddered. That was weird. Her body shouldn’t have reacted that way simply because of the loss of contact.
And all of a sudden it was last night again, and Rio was rubbing circles on Agatha’s arm. At some point, Rio had fitted her head in the crook of Agatha’s neck. It had fit so perfectly there as if it had been made with the other woman’s head in mind.
Agatha had pressed so far back into Rio’s body that she wouldn’t have been surprised if their bodies moulded together.
“…Agatha?” Rio said. By the look on her face, this hadn’t been the first time she’d said her name.
“Yeah?”
“I said you can ski, right?”
She nodded. “My dad planned yearly trips to Aspen for ‘work.’ Really it was just an excuse for him and his business friends to get inhumanly drunk.”
Rio raised her eyebrows in a way that said she wasn’t shocked by what she had said.
“Erm…what about you? How do you know how to ski?”
“Had to live in Canada for a bit for a mission,” Rio told her as she put a piece of her omelette in her mouth.
“You ever snowboarded?” Agatha asked, eating a bit of her own.
“Once. It was alright, I prefer skiing. You?”
“Yeah. I kept faceplanting and called it a day.”
Rio snorted the coffee she was sipping. It sprayed over her face.
It was Agatha’s turn to laugh. “I forgot I was a comedian. I should’ve waited until you had taken a sip before I spoke,” she said, pulling the cup from Rio’s hand. She reached over with a napkin and started wiping Rio’s face.
“Or maybe you shouldn’t speak at all and then I wouldn’t have coffee up my nose,” she smiled.
When Agatha smiled, she showed teeth.
Their relationship was so confusing to Agatha. One minute they were pushing each other’s buttons, the next they were talking as if they were lifelong friends, the other they were trying not to rip each other’s clothes off.
“Oh shit,” Agatha said, scooting her chair backwards.
“What?”
“They’re leaving.”
“Shit,” Rio mumbled, shuffling out of her own chair.
***
The two women found themselves on a ski lift twenty minutes later. The Archibold’s were five lifts up from them. Five lifts too far Agatha thought, but a family of twenty had gotten in front of them and there was no getting passed them. They stuck to each other like gorilla glue.
Rio swung her ski-fitted feet back and forth whilst the lift climbed up the mountain. Normally Agatha would’ve told her off for making the lift rock, but she didn’t feel like it today.
The view was breathtaking. There was snow top covered mountains for as far as the eye could see. The pine trees looked like they had been dusted with icing sugar along with the wooden ski lodges of their resort in front of them. It looked straight out of a Christmas card.
Agatha’s gaze shifted to Rio in her all-black one-piece ski suit, black beanie and silver ski goggles that sat on top of her head. Her raven hair spilt out onto her shoulders.
“Yes…” Rio said.
“I didn’t say anything,” Agatha replied.
“You were staring at me.”
“I was staring past you,” Agatha said.
Rio scoffed. “Yeah, okay.”
“I’m worried we’re going to lose them,” she said, changing the subject. “We haven’t engaged yet; we haven’t slipped trackers on them.”
Rio bit her lip. “Yeah, me too.”
Agatha leaned back in her seat and started pulling at her navy blue ski gloves.
“Do you have your intercom on you?” Rio asked.
“Always.”
“Okay, put it in.”
She furrowed her eyebrows. “Why?”
“So, we can communicate,” Rio laughed as she pulled at her ski goggles.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to catch them down the mountain.”
“How?”
Rio winked before her brown eyes disappeared behind metallic silver.
“Ri-”
In one movement, Rio lifted up the barrier locking them in place and slid off the ski lift.
Agatha screamed as her fake wife dropped onto the pine tree below them and glided down the tree until she hit the ground. She was too far away but she was sure Rio had hit it with a thud.
“Are you fucking insane?” Agatha yelled to her.
Somehow, she made out Rio’s cackle as the ski lift pulled her further up the mountain.