I am silent as Jörn checks his phone for messages and emails and turn away slightly so as to allow his requirement of privacy and yet, this affords me the opportunity to look again at the unopened message still causing me confusion and glance at him
The only part of the unopened message reads: <hey, I know it’s been a minute but —have you ….>
“Does Willem know your whereabouts?” I ask carefully
Jörn stops reading something on his phone to look at me,
“have you heard from him?”
“I….”
“You have,” he reads me
“I wasn’t sure….” and sigh with resignation and move closer to where he remains propped in the corner of the hide’s wood structure
He gives me a look and reaches his hand out and waits for me to hand him my phone
Again I sigh with resignation but this time with a heavier sense of indecision and I still grip my phone as I hand it to him
Again that look at me with those kryptonite vampire eyes that have powers beyond my understanding and immediately I release my grip
“Why didn’t you open it?” he looks up from my phone, finger hovering over the message
“I guess I wasn’t sure….”
He nods at me thoughtfully before looking again at my phone. It is a long look he gives me,
“how….” and now he studies me more critically taking in my full appearance for the first time since I discovered him here, “how have you ….been?” and narrows his eyes on me, observing me much too closely
“What do you mean?” I ask him
“Well, before I left here, last time, I bumped into Smulligan down at ….” he waves to indicate FBI headquarters which is not too far from where Sunny’s property is by car
“Oh? And?” I ask
“Stina was there….”
I look away,
“does she seriously still want me to ….”
“Stina does not give up that easily,” he chuckles to himself. But I feel his gaze remain upon me and with it, those omniscient invisible tentacles that miss nothing and after a pause he says, “you’re too thin, duva, I am concerned and ….at least if I know you are reporting back to someone I’d…. be able to focus better….”
I suddenly look at him as his remark quite surprises me
“Jörn ….” and shrug, “how am I….” I say aloud thoughtfully and look away again to consider how best to reply. Only it occurs to me that…. no one has asked me that in so long; not even the Celf. “I am ….” and get stuck on how to answer “I don’t know…. Ok, I guess…. but…. I suppose I miss some semblance of—home….you know.”
“You were ready to leave the Adirondaks,” he says
“I know but — don’t you miss the philharmonic? Our life back there?”
He smiles and suddenly gives me an uncharacteristic playful wink and pats a spot closer next to him, and when I move closer, he pulls me inside his arms with my phone,
“I know I must reek of sweat and blood,” he says in apology as I lean against him
“It’s not so bad,” I tell him, “it’s not like I’ve never sat in a sauna with you or—other things, and I’ve missed your smell.”
“It must be love,” he teases, “you open it,” he gives me the phone and I open it with him there
<hey, I know it’s been a minute but —have you ….seen anything of moose over there?>
I glance up at Jörn now
Jörn taps my reply into my phone with my hands still holding it,
But to my surprise he taps back
<crab fishing>
I look up at him but he just looks at the phone
It is only about forty seconds when Willem’s reply comes
<I thought herring was on the menu>
Jörn replies
<the red herring disagreed>
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