Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
With each “you” he tossed army knives at us so we had to hop to in order to catch them before they fell to the floor.
Everyone caught theirs except Harlow. Her pink version clattered on the tiles, but she swiped it right up and shot Tex a sunshiny smile.
I noticed Tex had scored an orange one for Luna.
Rad part two.
“This is also for you,” Tex said, pulling an envelope out of the back pocket of his jeans and handing it to me.
It was thick, but wasn’t sealed, so I opened the flap and felt my eyes bug out at what I saw inside.
“Reimbursement for supplies for the camp from Tito and me,” Tex explained what had to be at least two thousand dollars in cash in the envelope.
I looked up at him. “You didn’t—”
“Shut it,” he ordered. “I didn’t request a convo. I handed you reimbursement.”
I didn’t really want to shut it. This was too much.
But the thing was, after all that spending, including adopting Henny and all that entailed, I was running low on Christmas funds.
Now, I was not.
I didn’t get the chance to get another word in, however.
“Uh, are you our boss now or something?” Luna asked.
“Yeah,” Tex stated without hesitation, and we all stared at him even before he went on to share, “Nance and me bought into The Surf Club. We now own a third of this joint.”
That had us all blinking at him.
“You think maybe that was worthwhile to share during our staff meeting?” Raye asked.
“Why?” Tex asked in return.
“Because it’s news worthy of the first-ever SC staff meeting?” Raye suggested.
“Why?” Tex repeated.
Raye had nothing more.
“I told you four,” Tex pointed out. “You’ll blab it to everyone else. News shared. Done.”
He wasn’t wrong about that.
And he was definitely done, considering, without another word, he trudged back to the coffee cubby.
We all huddled.
“I don’t know what to say,” Harlow started it. “Seeing as I’m totally okay with all of this so I don’t have anything to say.”
“Me too,” Raye said.
“Totes,” Luna added.
Before I could add my affirmative, I heard, “Hey.”
I turned my head and saw my brother there.
“Sorry to interrupt, but can we talk?” he asked me.
The girls moved away, but not too far, because they were my girls, and we took care of each other that way (and other ways besides).
Jeff got close.
“You want a coffee or something?” I asked him.
“No, I don’t have a lot of time. I just wanna run something by you.”
I nodded.
“Javi and I just got done with a meeting at Nightingale Investigations and Security.”
Oh boy.
Eric hadn’t given me any heads up, so this could mean anything.
“Yeah?” I prompted.
“They offered us jobs.”
Okay then.
Eric had kinda given me a heads up.
I sucked my lips between my teeth.
My brother watched me do this before he asked, “You knew they were gonna do that?”
I let my lips go to use them to state, “Eric had mentioned he thought it was a good idea and he was gonna run it by Mace.”
“And you didn’t stop him?”
I was confused. “Why would I stop him?”
A beat went by and then Jeff was hugging me really, really tight.
As his arms squeezed me, my heart squeezed itself. It didn’t feel bad in the slightest.
Nope.
It felt great.
He let me go and said quietly, “I really wanna take the job, and not just because starting salary is three times as much as I make now.”
Whoa!
I mean, I knew those guys made bank, but…wow.
“Okay,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.
“Jess, I’ll be working with your boyfriend.”
Ah.
I saw his concern.
“Well, I mean, that’s the loose description of what he is to me,” I shared. “He’s more like the love of my life. But since we’re not even a month old, I’m not making that official at least for another week.”
Jeff grinned. “Just so you know, I’ll be working in their control room. I might go out in the field occasionally, but they need help there the most. Since they know about my illness, I don’t think I could push that, and I really want to work with those men.”
I nodded.
I got that.
“Is Javi going to work with them?” I asked.
Jeff cocked his head to the side. “Blew my mind, but after they left us to discuss, we talked for about five minutes, and he was all in. They’re taking on Cody too, though they told him he has to lay off the weed, and Cody won’t have a problem doing that. He’s good with computer shit, and other tech. He’ll be doing night shifts in the control room. I’ll be working days.”
So NI&S was making moves to completely fold the Shadow Soldiers into their operation, tapping a direct vein to the street and scoring themselves two really good men in the process (probably three, I didn’t know Cody that well, though he seemed solid).