Inferno

Chapter 6

6. Chapter 6

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Later, Tuesday afternoon || Hollywood Hotel

"Why should anything be wrong, Agent Callen? Maybe we should go practice everything again, so I can make sure that I won't embarrass you."

"What the hell are you talking about, Nell? There is no way that you could embarrass me."

"Are you sure? I mean, sometimes we kids don't know what we are talking about."

"What? Nell, right now I have no clue of what you are talking about."

"Well, what do you expect from a kid?"

Callen thought back over what he had said about kids in the past few minutes. Crap. It couldn't have been that crack he made about the ranch dressing, could it? The man got up, walked over to where she was sitting, and knelt down in front of her.

"Nell, I'm sorry if that senseless remark I made about kids and ranch dressing disturbed you. I wasn't thinking about you at all. In one of the foster homes I stayed in, the mother put ranch dressing on everything. It wasn't just salads and raw vegetables; she put it on cooked vegetables too. She had a ranch dressing gravy to go over mashed potatoes."

When Nell heard that, she made a face, sticking out her tongue to indicate her aversion to that combination of foods."

"I couldn't take it. I spent a week and a half there before I escaped. When I asked my social worker why she did it, I was told that all her children loved ranch dressing. I asked him if he would put a note in that file that not all children love ranch dressing and I was one of them."

"That didn't really happen, did it?" Nell asked. She wondered to herself, Is he just leading her on again. If he was, she needed to protect her heart, because she saw how easily she could fall for him. If he wasn't and she didn't take this opportunity to explore all its possibilities, she might live a long and lonely life wondering what could have been.

"Do you want me to have Hetty write her and get the recipe for the gravy?" he asked sincerely.

"No, that's entirely okay," she told him. "I like ranch dressing, but not that much."

There was a long silence while both of them were avoiding the elephant in the room with them.

Finally Callen looked up at Nell, took her hand, and told her one more time, "Nell, I know it wasn't the ranch dressing part of my comment that upset you, so it must have been the part about kids. I want you to know that I have not, can not, and will not ever look upon you as a kid. You are a vibrant young woman, that any man would love to be with."

Nell got up from the table and walked over to the couch, plopping down in the corner.

"And did you hurt your head when you tripped on the rut by my door? The one all those men made as they beat a path to it? You know I keep a baseball bat near the door to drive away all the extra men who want to date me?"

"It can't be that bad for you, Nell."

Callen had followed her and sat on the other end of the couch. A brief look of sadness crossed his face for a moment, and then was gone.

"Right," she said sarcastically. "What sort of future relationships do any of us have in the business we are in? Unless you find someone on the inside, you are out of luck."

"That's not entirely true."

"Can you name me one person who is in a stable, committed relationship, with someone from the outside?" Nell dared him.