"You're going to be here," she said.
"I'm going to be here." Not a question on either side. "I have a bedroll. The living area works fine."
She looked at him for a moment. The low light of the flat. The specific quality of this kind of proximity — not romantic, just real. Two people in a small space with a shared purpose and a mutual understanding that some things were what they were and would be addressed at the appropriate time.
"Arjun," she said.
"Yes."
"When this is over." She said it carefully. "I want to talk about some things. Not now. When it's done."
He looked at her. He understood what she meant. He also understood the professional line and where he stood in relation to it. "When it's done," he said. Not a deflection. A recognition of the correct order of things.
She nodded. "Lock the front door with the deadbolt. And don't drink that coffee from the machine in the kitchen. It's from 2019."
"How do you know?"
"There's a 'best before' sticker. I checked when Dev was showing us around. He didn't notice." She went into the bedroom.
He locked the front door. He checked the windows — all secure. He sat on the bedroll against the far wall with a clear line of sight to both the front door and the bedroom corridor and did what he did in these situations: he stayed alert and waited and did not sleep and he was very good at this, had been good at it since a very long time ago.
At one AM, she came out of the bedroom. She sat on the floor against the opposite wall, her knees pulled up to her chest, and looked at him.
"You're not sleeping," she said.
"I'm on watch."
"What was the job before this? Before private security."
"NSG. Special Group."
"Why did you leave?"
He was quiet for a moment. He decided to answer. "I lost someone on an operation. Not because anyone made a mistake. It went wrong in the way that operations go wrong when everything goes right but the variables don't cooperate. I did everything correctly and someone died anyway." He paused. "I still believe in the work. I just needed to be smaller. More specific. Where the variable was a person, not a mission."
"And now you protect politicians' daughters," she said. Not mocking.
"Among other things. Usually people in situations that involve someone powerful wanting to harm them. The powerful-to-civilian threat. That's the one I understand."
"Why urban planning?" he said. "With your background and your father's connections—"
