In Deep with the FBI Agent Read online

  At least Arianna and Valerie would be here, giving him some allies.

  “Sam? Sam Cooper?” A short, slightly balding man clapped Sam on the back, stopping in the entry.

  Sam eyed him, wishing for a name tag, because he had no idea who this guy was.

  “It’s me. Andrew Beckman.”

  Sam shook the proffered hand and stared as the memories came flooding back. “Beckman. Wow, good to see you, man. How are you?”

  “Great.” Andrew pulled a brunette woman closer. “This is my fiancée, Mara.”

  Sam shook the fiancée’s hand, stunned that the kids in his grade were buying engagement rings, and, if rumors were correct, baby carriages. “Nice to meet you.” He turned back to Andrew. “Can’t believe you’re getting married. Seems like we were just at prom together.”

  “I know, right?” The three of them walked together toward the gymnasium, which was hosting the big party tonight. “How about you? Seeing anyone?”

  “Uh. I’m seeing someone, but it’s pretty new.”

  “Nice. Good luck with that.”

  They all reached the entrance, where a long table was laid out with pretyped name tags. Annie, Casey’s assistant, was staffing the desk and greeted them with her usual bright smile. “Welcome back to school. If you could sign in with me and then grab your name tag.” She turned to an older lost couple. “The nineteen ninety-five class reunion is in the cafeteria. Remember where that is?” Then she turned back to him. “Oh, hey, Sam.”

  “Hi, Annie.”

  Andrew looked at them curiously. “How do you two know each other?” He gave Sam’s arm a light punch. “You have been loyal to the alma mater. You said at graduation you were never coming back, but here you are at the reunion.”

  “Well, he’s seeing—” Annie blanched. “Sorry, never mind.”

  “I’ve been helping with some of the computer systems upgrades,” Sam lied smoothly to cover Annie’s gaffe. He wondered if Annie knew about their school’s security breach, or if she’d been about to reveal that he and Casey were dating. Obviously, Montgomery Prep didn’t want their cyber attack discussed publicly tonight, especially to the alumni who Casey was hoping would make donations. It would come out soon enough.

  Sam grabbed his name tag, slapped it on his chest, and led the way into the gym. “Let’s go find the bar.” He entered the large room, which had been completely transformed and was unrecognizable as a normal PE classroom. Drapes of white fabric covered all the walls and the lighting was dark and mysterious.

  He scanned the room for Casey, but didn’t see her immediately, so he headed for the bar to grab some sparkling water. He wasn’t on duty, but there was a chance he’d get called into work anyway as things were overloaded as usual.

  Andrew and his fiancée fell behind, greeting people as Sam got in line for a drink. “Never thought I’d be drinking legally on campus,” the woman in front of him muttered loudly enough for him to hear over the music.

  He chuckled and she turned to smile. Both their smiles grew as they read the other’s name tag, but Sam wouldn’t have needed it to recognize Amy Oldman, one of his favorite people from school. She’d been one of those girls who defied a clique. She was on the cross-country team, got decent grades, but partied really hard with kids outside of the school. Sam had liked her, although they’d lost touch after graduation.

  “How are you, Sam?” Amy asked, leaning into him to give him a hug. “Heard you’re some sort of super-secret hacker now.”

  He smiled. “I’m with the FBI, cybersecurity division.”

  “That’s awesome. You’ll have to tell me all about it.” It was her turn for the bar, and Sam bit back a smile when she ordered three shots of vodka and a Corona.

  “Need a hand?” Sam offered when he saw that all the drinks were for Amy. He followed her to one of the many round tables scattered around the gym, and they set the drinks down. The people at the table all rose to greet them, and there was a lot of hand shaking and back slapping as they reconnected with people they hadn’t seen in ten years. From the corner of his eye, Sam saw Casey standing in the same circle of girls who’d followed her around all through high school.

  He tried and failed to catch her eye, so he turned his attention back to the crowd of people at his table. They all exchanged the how are you’s, what have you been up to’s, where are you working’s. As usual, Sam won with the job title that garnered the most interest. He spent ten minutes answering questions that, as usual, ended with the inevitable question. Yes, he was currently carrying a weapon.

  He hadn’t been friends with these kids in high school. He hadn’t not been friends with them, but they’d been on the periphery of his existence. If he was going to go through the effort of showing up at this reunion, he wanted to see the kids he remembered hanging out with for hours on end at the computer lab.

  Luckily, they found him. Within a few minutes, three men and two women came over with wide grins on their faces. Sam relaxed, falling easily back into conversation as if it hadn’t been ten years. Now that they were all talking again, he inwardly berated himself for not doing a better job at keeping in touch. He’d genuinely liked these people as teenagers, and he could tell that he liked them as much as adults.

  They fell easily into conversation about their careers, or lack thereof—the economy had been hard—and their lives in general. Sam kept his attention on the conversation, but a part of him kept glancing around for Casey and his opportunity to greet her. Now he was feeling stupid. He should have walked right over to her the second he saw her.

  But it was as if they’d fallen right into their high school personas, where she was the untouchable queen bee and he was the geek on the outskirts. Well, screw that. He wasn’t sixteen anymore.

  “Excuse me for a moment, I see someone I want to say hi to,” Sam said, and smiled at his new-old friends. He turned and walked purposefully toward Casey.

  Casey’s grip tightened on her glass of wine as she watched Sam walk toward her. She tossed her hair and smiled at something her former best friend said. She was having an oh shit moment as Sam drew closer. On one hand, a piece of her was right back in high school ready to ignore the nerd; on the other, she was sleeping with him; on the other hand—wait, she was out of hands. Regardless, he’d ignored her for the first half hour of this reunion.

  She’d politely rejected his offer to drive her to the reunion because she had to be way early for setup, but still, he should’ve found her the second he walked in the room. She’d spotted him and waited for him to approach, but no, he’d gone to the bar and flirted with stupid Amy Oldman, even carrying her drinks.

  “Oh, my God, is that Sam Cooper?” Tania asked from behind her martini glass.

  “Wow, he grew up nicely,” Amanda added.

  Casey wanted to claw their eyes out. How dare they ogle Sam? It was also a dilemma, because she wanted to give him a little payback for ignoring her, but now she also wanted to lay her claim and give him a kiss in front of everybody. And then Tania said, “I bet he’s still a computer geek.”

  A defense of Sam was on her tongue, only she didn’t have time to say a word, because Sam came up at that moment.

  “Sam Cooper,” Amanda said, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek. “How have you been?”

  Tania repeated the gesture, and Casey noted that each clung to his biceps longer than necessary.

  Sam turned to her and raised a brow. She raised her own back at him. Was he waiting for her to kiss him and fawn all over him like Tania and Amanda? Well, he’d have to wait.

  A hurt look crossed his face, and she took a sip of her wine to cover her uneasiness, but then Tania was asking Sam what he was up to. The second they learned he was an FBI special agent, they about wet their pants.

  “Do you carry a loaded weapon?” Tania asked, “Can I see it?”

  Oh, come on, was Sam actually smiling at that line, which was so old it needed an AARP discount? “Girls, can you excuse me and Sam for a second?” s
he asked, but didn’t wait for an answer and dragged Sam off by his hand.

  Sam walked silently alongside her until they were out in the hallway and then in the girls’ locker room. He looked around, a look of interest on his face. “I’ve never been in here. I always imagined it was a palace of velvet couches and secrets, the way you girls came in here in groups.”

  She found a smile. “It’s the same as the boys’, dummy.” Then she remembered why she’d dragged him in here and scowled at him. “Why did you ignore me?”

  A frown settled on his forehead. “Ignore you? What are you talking about?”

  “You’d been at the reunion”—she glanced at her watch—“twenty-seven minutes before you deigned to come say hello.”

  “Casey, I looked for you the second I arrived, but I couldn’t find you in the crowd, and then I was talking to everyone. As soon as I could, I came over. And you were ignoring me first. I was trying to respect your boundaries.”

  She was about to protest his version of the events, when he said, “Am I going to get to see high-maintenance Casey tonight? I’m kind of excited about it, to be honest.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m not high-maintenance.”

  He smiled and kissed her forehead before she could scoot back. “Come on, Casey. I’ve known you a long time, and I knew some of the guys you dated back in high school. I overheard things. And one of the things that was said about you was that you were high-maintenance. It’s cool. I still want you.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, grateful for her high heels that put her at a slightly more even footing. “You’re being an ass. And I am not high-maintenance.”

  He grinned and played with one of the locks on the gray metal locker. “Oh, really? You didn’t accept my offer of a ride so we could arrive at the reunion together, and now you’re bitching because I didn’t fly to your side the instant I entered the room? That’s laid back?”

  He might have had a point. “That’s not the point.”

  “What is the point?” He stepped into her space and curved an arm low on her waist.

  “The point is that if we’re together, we should act like we’re together.”

  “Works for me. That’s what I wanted in the first place.” He hauled her in close for a kiss, which she reciprocated until she found a metal locker at her back and a six-foot FBI agent at her front. His mouth was hot on hers, lulling her cranky mood into something soft and sweet. “How’s this, princess? Is this together enough?” He pulled back long enough to whisper against her cheek.

  In answer, she pulled him in for another kiss before she remembered she was one of the hosts of the reunion and had to stop making out with her boyfriend in the locker room and get back out there to make sure the slide show ran at the appropriate time.

  “I have to go,” she said.

  “Okay,” Sam said, but his lips kept doing something sexy to her earlobe.

  She squirmed out of his way, wanting nothing more than to test their ability to make love on a locker room bench. “Sam.” He released her and she stepped away.

  “We seem to have a thing for bathrooms, don’t we?”

  She smiled. “Do me a favor. When we go back out, don’t flirt with Amanda and Tania, okay?”

  He held up his hands. “Hey, they flirted with me. You’re the one who ignored me.”

  “Because you ignored me first.” They grinned at each other, then she started for the door, grabbing Sam’s hand to tug him along, but there was no moving Sam until he was ready.

  “What’s the plan?” he asked, tugging her back to face him.

  “Plan?” But she knew what he was asking.

  “Are we going out there as a couple? The biggest nerd from our grade and the most popular girl?”

  “You were never a nerd, Sam. Change it to the smartest guy and the most kick-ass girl. But I don’t think we should advertise our relationship. Nancy is here tonight, and things have not been good for me at work. She still might suspect I was the one who told you about the hacking incident here, coupled with the fact that it was my password used in the hack. I’ve been avoiding her all week, and maybe I’m imagining it, but I think she’s been avoiding me.”

  “How long do you think you’re going to want to hide us?” Sam asked seriously.

  “I don’t know. Until Nancy retires?” she asked hopefully.

  “Casey, I don’t want to hide us. At some point it’s going to come out into the open. The school was in the wrong to hide the security breach, and you were in the right to go to the authorities. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You were not the hacker.”

  “I know, and I’m not saying we hide forever, but maybe for tonight.” She pulled out her cell phone and held it up. “Nancy said she was only going to stop by our reunion before she heads over to the class of ninety-five’s reunion. I’ll call Annie and ask if the coast is clear.”

  Annie answered on the first ring and confirmed that Nancy was in the cafeteria with the class of 1995. Casey smiled widely, and Sam got the message without saying a word. They grinned at each other and returned to the reunion hand in hand.

  “This is like a scene from a John Hughes movie,” Sam murmured to her as they reentered the even more crowded gymnasium.

  “Are you going to show up at my door in a red Porsche holding a boom box over your head?”

  “You’re confusing John Hughes with Say Anything. I’m clearly going to have to educate you in—”

  But what she needed to be educated in, she didn’t know, because they were barely ten feet into the reunion when they were bombarded with people coming over to say hi. It was like high school all over again.

  Tania and Amanda had obviously made the rounds spreading the word that Casey and Sam had disappeared into the locker room. Together. Now they were out together, holding hands.

  “Oh, my God. Casey, you didn’t tell us you and Sam were dating,” Tania said in an almost squeal.

  “You didn’t ask,” Casey said, with a challenging look.

  “We wouldn’t have thought to ask,” Amanda said. “It wasn’t as if we’d ever in a million years guess that you and Sam were a couple.”

  “Why not?” Sam looked both women in the eye, daring them to say out loud that he’d been unpopular in high school.

  Casey squeezed his hand and received a squeeze in return. Amanda and Tania proved they were both kinder and more honest than they’d been as teenagers.

  “Because Casey ignored you in high school,” Tania said bluntly. “But that was all of our mistakes. Quick, who did I ignore in high school? Please tell me he became a super-hot FBI agent and that he’s here tonight to confess his undying love.” She gave an exaggerated look around the reunion, making them all laugh.

  Arianna and Valerie came over together, interrupting the laughter.

  “Still glued at the hip,” Amanda said to them, but with an approving smile rather than the judgmental sneer Casey remembered from high school.

  “Yep,” Ari said.

  “Lance and Jason are both on duty tonight,” Valerie said, mostly to Sam. “Sorry your boys aren’t here.”

  “Valerie’s husband is a firefighter, and Ari’s fiancé is a Secret Service agent,” Casey explained to Amanda and Tania. “Sorry they had to miss tonight.” She gave a small commiserating frown to Sam, who had to be a little bummed his friends couldn’t make it.

  “Jason’s not sorry,” Valerie said with a laugh. “He said he never wants to go back to high school, even for an evening.”

  “Should we start the slide show?” Ari asked.

  Casey glanced at her watch. “Yes. I’ll go get it set up.” She left the crowd, surprised that Sam stayed close on her heels. “Hon, you could’ve stayed with Ari and Val. I’m working tonight.”

  He gave her a wry look. “You’re forgetting who was the head of the AV club. I’ll help you turn on the show.”

  “Thanks.” She had put on enough slide shows to feel confident about it, but it was good to have
an expert at her side in case anything went wrong.

  Sam stayed close by as she lowered the music pumping into the room and went to the microphone to invite everyone to take a seat. There were a few speeches from other members of their class and then Casey said a few words, ending with a request for people to include Montgomery Prep in their annual charitable donations, and then she hit Play on the slide show.

  She and Sam watched it, leaning against one wall, her back against his chest, his hand on her hip. It was comfortable and nice, like they’d always meant to be here at the reunion together.

  “It’s funny,” he murmured in her ear. “We started this journey together, and now we’re here together. Would you have ever guessed?”

  “No,” she answered honestly. “Never.”

  “Well, I hoped.”

  They stayed close for the rest of the evening except when Sam went off to refill her wineglass and she was busy chatting up her former classmates. She hoped she was doing a good job of balancing catching up with everyone and putting in the reminder that loyal alumni donate to their alma mater.

  Finally, at the end of the night, it was Casey, Sam, Annie, and the school custodian closing down the event. “Can you leave?” Sam asked.

  She smiled tiredly at him. “Thank you for waiting with me. Yeah, I think I’m done here.” All in all, it had been a successful event. The members in her class weren’t raking in big bucks yet to be big donors, but getting them to make small donations now was a good start to forming habits so that later, when their careers took off and they could afford to make bigger gifts, they would.

  “How’d it go?” Sam asked. “Any six-figure donations?”

  “Not unless you’re planning on writing a check.”

  He laughed. “I could write a check, but I wouldn’t advise cashing it.”