Page 35 of Eye on the Ball
They looked at each other and then down at the table. Alejandro started laughing. “I’m sorry, Tess. We got carried away. We were talking about the job offer, and just kept grilling.”
“The job offer?”
Alejandro looked surprised. “Didn’t Jack tell you? The FBI has offered him the position of official liaison to Atlantis.”
16
Tess
Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry.
“No. No, he didn’t,” I said quietly. “Hey, I’m just going to go check on … that thing.”
I turned and walked out of the room, out of the house, and to my car, grabbing my purse and phone on the way. Then I drove to the gas station and filled up my tank, just for something to do.
But I kept hearing Alejandro’s voice in my head.
Didn’t Jack tell you?
Didn’t Jack tell you?
Didn’t Jack tell you?
No. Jack hadn’t told me.
And that hurt so much.
“Tess!”
I looked up from the gas pump to see tiny Mrs. Frost waving at me from the driver’s seat of the car across the way, her husband seated next to her. Since Alaric had healed her cataracts, she drove all over the place. Apparently, Mr. Frost’s hip replacement had healed well, too.
“Hello, Mrs. Frost.”
“You kids better win that game next week! We’ll be rooting for you!”
“Just please don’t bring your crossbow, okay?” Last year, on our third loss in a row, she’d threatened to shoot Ace. Mrs. Frost had been a prize-winning archer for over fifty years, so it wasn’t an idle threat. Uncle Mike had been forced to talk her down and confiscate her bow until the game was over.
The ridiculous thought crossed my mind that maybe the Frosts were driving around with Ace hogtied in the trunk of their car, and I stared after them as they drove off.
Nah.
My phone was buzzing and buzzing when I got back in the car with my gas station Icee. It was Jack, of course. I didn’t really want to talk to him, but I was an adult and not a kid running away from an unhappy situation.
I answered the phone. “Jack?—”
“I didn’t tell you about it, because I’d forgotten about it.”
“What?”
“Alejandro called me a few weeks ago with some nonsense about this job, but I told him I wasn’t interested. I also told him to stop calling me about jobs because I was officially retired. And then I forgot about it, because we were in the middle of dealing with mutant zucchini.”
Therehadbeen a lot of trouble from that zucchini.
“How can you just forget about a huge job offer like that?” I was skeptical.
His voice, which had been rushed and a little frantic, warmed. “Tess. I love you. Nothing that would take me away from you is or could be important to me. Fireworks Lopez asked me if I wanted to get drunk and wrestle gators, too, and I didn’t tell you about that, either, because I have zero intention of doing either.”
Mateo, aka Fireworks, Lopez was one of the Swamp Commandos. He had a history of doing … questionable things. I wasn’t sure the two things were at all equivalent, but Jack loved me.