“Hey hero,” she said. He stopped and turned around. She smiled. “I just wanted to see if you’d answer to that.” She winked. “I read your file.”
He was laughing as he went out the door.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Whister carrying B Team was still on the pad when K Team landed at the end of the night, so they were just a couple of minutes behind the veterans. When they reached the lounge, they were tired and wasted. The stress of staying alert for hours takes its toll on muscles and psyches.
The sound of laughter coming from further in the room shocked Falcon enough to cause his head to jerk in that direction. It was Elora, leaning on Ram and laughing at something he or one of the others had said.
That laughter caused his stomach to clench. It also made him breathe a little faster. That was when he knew.
And there it is.
That thing that Monq kept asking him about in the weekly sessions he still kept.
What did he want?
What did he want?
What did he want?
That’s what he wanted. To laugh, even when there wasn’t much to laugh about. Maybe have somebody to hear it and treasure it. That laughter. It was like a little gift from the gods, a bit of stardust fallen to a world where there was little to be happy about. And he wanted it. Bad.
He tried to remember the last time he’d laughed and realized it had been so long that he might not know how.
His eyes slid over to Wakey who was chatting up the guy tending bar. Wakenmann had never forgotten how to laugh. He didn’t even realize it was special, magical. He just took it for granted. That’s what Falcon wanted, to laugh so long and so hard and so often that he took it for granted.
Since Falcon had been cleared to return to duty, his life was pretty much routine. He slept until one or two in the afternoon then grabbed a coffee and a ham and cheese croissant at the Hub on his way to the gym. He didn’t tell them heavy on the ham, heavy on the cheese anymore. They started getting it ready when they saw him coming.
He worked out for sixty to ninety minutes being careful to exercise different muscle groups on alternate days. Sometimes he sparred with other knights. It helped with his speed and reaction time, but he’d never openly admit that it also helped with deep-seated anger.
After the gym he showered, dressed for the night and usually had a couple of hours to watch TV or read until it was time to meet his teammates at their reserved table in the Mess. On duty nights, which was every other day, they’d head up to the roof to hop a Whister after dinner. If it was an off night, one or more of his teammates might have a date, in which case he’d hang around J.U. and join in a pick up game of poker or pool. Occasionally he’d get a ride to the city and go see a movie. He liked movies and didn’t mind going by himself.
His weeks had a rhythm. Work on. Work off. And everything in between was the same.
Until the night that he looked up to see his partner guiding Gretchen Galen toward their table, Wakey’s hand resting comfortably against the small of her back. Falcon’s teeth ground together. He didn’t know if that was because the beautiful Director of Operations challenged his newfound sanity or because it rankled to see Wakenmann’s hands on her. Either way, the whole thing put him in a mood even fouler than the one he’d brought to dinner.
Her eyes flitted to each of his teammates as they approached, but hesitated for the space of a blink every time they came back to rest on him. Falcon’s gaze moved down her body and locked onto the graceful sway of her hips. When he’d seen her before, in Operations, the counter had blocked her figure from the bust down. He knew she had luscious tits, but hadn’t allowed himself to so much as guess at what else the counter had been hiding. He felt a twitch below the belt, which infuriated him and had him glaring at Wakey in challenge even before the two of them had reached the table. His partner wasn’t supposed to be working at cross-purpose. He was supposed to be on his side.
“Hey,” Wakey said. “I told Crisp to bring us a place for one more. We can squoosh together. This is Gretchen Galen. She’s the new…”
“She’s the new Farnsworth,” Spaz said, standing up to shake hands with her. “We met already.”
“Hi, Kellan. Nice to see you again,” she said.
Wakey touched her arm and motioned toward Sin. “This is Sinclair Harvest. I’m telling you that so that you won’t get any untoward ideas when you hear people calling him Sin.”
Gretchen smiled. “What do you want me to call you?”
Sin was already standing. “Anything you want as long as you call me,” Sin said smoothly, making sure she appreciated the fact that he looked like a model for Abercrombie and Fitch.
“You knights are all slick talkers. Do they teach a class?” She saw a silent communication take place when the men glanced at each other. She drew in a sharp little gasp. “They do! O.M.G. They teach a class on pick up lines!”
Sin chuckled under his breath. “Shhhh. I didn’t say that. True or not, you’re going to out us to every woman in the building. Sit here.” He motioned to the chair on the end where he’d been sitting.
She looked down at the chair just vacated. “Thank you,” she said and accepted.
K Team had one of the dining-car-style tables along the edge of the room which meant the table abutted a wall with two places on either side. A fifth chair could be added to the outside if necessary.
Within a couple of minutes the dining staff had set a fifth place and brought up a chair for Sin. Gretchen was sitting next to Spaz and across from Falcon. Smiling like the cat that ate the pet parakeet, Wakey slid behind Falcon and took his regular seat by the wall. “And this oaf who’s too lazy to stand up is Kristoph Falcon.”
She finally felt like she had permission to look directly at him. “Hello,” she said. He nodded, looking like his jaws were clenched, but said nothing. “Didn’t you come into the Operations Office one day?”
He looked down at the table and then up again. “I went to see Farnsworth. Farnsworth wasn’t there.”
“Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s working on perfecting a sour puss,” said Sin.
Spaz and Wakey chuckled.
“Well,” she said softly, “maybe it’s something I can help with. I don’t want to say that I can do everything she can do, but…”
“You can’t be Farnsworth,” Falcon insisted.
“He’s right,” Spaz said, chewing the last of a breadstick. “You can’t be old and married.”
Everybody laughed except for Falcon.
“Like I said, ignore him,” said Sin. “So how long have you been here?”
“Three weeks.”
“Three weeks?” Sin looked around the table as if to say that couldn’t be true. “How come I haven’t seen you?”
“I’ve either been in the office or overseeing the repurposing of Monq’s offices. Right now it’s just me and enough work for two. Like the Sovereign keeps saying, ‘All hands on deck’.”
The knights looked at each other.
“Repurposing of Monq’s offices?”
“Yes. For the Chinese.”
“I hate to sound like a parrot,” Sin said, “but ‘Chinese’?”
“I hope I’m not talking out of turn, but there was no indication this is classified and, even if it was, it would be more likely that you would know it and I wouldn’t. Right?”
Sin, Spaz, and Wakey all nodded their agreement while Falcon looked on like a sullen hawk. “Right,” said Sin. “Go on.”
“You’re getting a team of knights from Shanghai. On loan of course. And there wasn’t any place to put them. So I claimed two of Monq’s offices that weren’t being used. We’re repurposing them for temporary housing.”
Wakey seemed delighted. “How’d that go over? With Monq?” He leaned forward.
Gretchen smiled slightly as she nodded like a bobblehead. “Not well.”
“Did steam actually escape from his ears?” asked Wakey.
“I was distracted and
can’t say for certain, but I am sure that he was hopping mad.”
“You know what would be funny?” Wakey asked.
“What?” Spaz said.
“If we dared one of the Chinese to get into the sparring ring with Elora” Wakey chuckled, looking like he could see it in his mind.
“You’re one sick bastard, Wakenmann,” Spaz said.
“Can’t argue with that. And it’s a non-starter. She’d never do it. She’s got a thing about ethics.”
“You think?” said Falcon.
Wakey looked at him wide-eyed. “He speaks!”
“So what brought you here to beautiful New Jersey?” Sin asked Gretchen.
“I don’t really know how I got the job. One day the San Francisco Sovereign walked into the office and said, ‘Jefferson Unit needs a director. You up for it?’ As soon as I could get my mouth to work, I said, ‘Yes’. I’ve never been to New York.” She looked around the table. “Still haven’t.” She laughed. “But I hope to correct that soon.”
“I’ll take you.” Sin smiled and leaned in her direction.
“Thank you.” She smiled at the offer while Falcon attempted to burn holes through Sinclair Harvest with his eyes. “A couple of the nurses are going to show me some night life on Saturday night. It’s not the cultural tour, but I’m looking forward to it.”
“Hmmm,” Sin said. “Just be back before curfew.”
“Yes, Dad.”
He rolled his eyes. “Seriously.”
“I know! I’m just kidding. I take the curfew seriously.” He seemed satisfied so she continued. “So I was offered the post here and…” When she looked across the room at B Team, they all followed her eyes. “I’d heard a lot about J.U.”
“You mean B Team. Yeah. They’re famous. Some night when we’re not on duty ask me to tell you what happened when everybody was gone from here except for a few miscreants, the Lady Laiken, and us.”
Gretchen’s smile was brilliant. “The Battle of J.U.?”
They looked at each other. “Somebody calls it that?” Spaz asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “There’s even a song about it.”
“There is not.”
“There is!” She glanced at Falcon, then at Wakey. “Were you here when it happened?” she asked Spaz, knowing full well that he was because she’d read the detailed account. She hoped Wakenmann would behave like the conspirator he was supposed to be and not reveal that he knew.
“Was I here?!?” Spaz said. “I was right in the middle of it.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Well,” he amended, “I was in a locked room, but I could see the whole thing.”
“Wakey and Falcon weren’t in a locked room though,” Sin said. “They really were right in the middle of it. They’re bonafide heros. Decorated and everything.”
Her gaze reached across the table and settled on Falcon like a physical weight. “Really?”
Falcon broke the contact and looked around the room.
“Hel yeah!” Sin said. “These two walked into the middle of a fire fight like they were invincible superheroes or some sh… thing.”
Crisp appeared beside Sin. “Good evening, Ms. Galen. It’s lovely to see you here. What can we serve you tonight?”
She turned to Sin. “Order for me. Since you eat here all the time, you know what’s good. Right?”
He opened his mouth to say something then looked up at Crisp. “Everything’s good. To die for, as a matter of fact.”
Crisp bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement of the compliment.
“I’ll order for her.”
Everybody turned to look at Falcon. He was staring at Gretchen with a gleam in his dark eyes that she wished was lust or amusement. Unfortunately she pegged it for what it was. Meanness.
“She’ll start with the stuffed mushrooms. Follow that with a wedge with blue cheese sprinkles. Then she’ll have the sixteen ounce t-bone, rare, with pasta primavera on the side. And I think she’ll like the chocolate-covered bacon for dessert.” Without taking his eyes away from her, he added, “You want wine with that? White or red?”
Gretchen never changed expressions while Falcon ordered. “Hmmm. Tough choice since you ordered both steak and pasta. Normally I’d have red with steak and white with pasta in Alfredo sauce.” She shrugged and smiled up at Crisp. “So I guess I’ll have both. You only live once. Right?”
Falcon’s mouth went slack when he realized his plan to overwhelm her with food had just backfired.
He hardly registered that Spaz was saying, “Well, actually there are people who work for The Order who would challenge you with some interesting facts about whether or not you only live once.”
Before she could answer, someone was already pouring wine. She picked up the white in one hand and the red in the other and offered a two-handed toast. “To living forever.”
She clinked glasses with Spaz and Sin at the same time while Falcon grumbled something unintelligible and took a drink of red wine. Drinking before duty was strongly discouraged, but knights were free to imbibe after their shifts and on days off. Since they weren’t up that night, Falcon was already planning a nice stiff buzz. He could see that his teammates liked her.
She was likeable, but unreadable. At least that was the conclusion he drew. She couldn’t possibly be expressing interest in him. Not after he’d gone so far out of his way to be offputting. He’d done everything but hold up a giant sign that read, “NO! NOT ME! NOT HERE! NOT NOW! NO WAY!”
He’d accepted that something was very wrong with him. He was, apparently, an over-the-top sappy romantic who fell in love with women for no reason and persisted with courtship in the face of weekly rejections that spanned years.
Years.
The only logical conclusion, when examining his past behavior, was that he was an idiot where women were concerned. And the only way he knew to deal with that was to restrict himself to brief purely physical encounters. The kind where names were not exchanged.
Falcon spent the next hour watching his teammates enjoy lively conversation with Gretchen the Great. Yes. He’d heard her quip about her name when he’d walked out of the O.O.
When the mushrooms arrived, she ate two and shared the rest with the table. When the wedge arrived, she ate half, making yummy sounds and describing how many ways blue cheese could be used to make delectable goodies. When the steak and pasta came, she dived in like a football player in training, ate the entire one pound steak and looked like she wanted to chew on the bone.
When they took her plate away, she said, “I can’t wait to try the chocolate bacon. Is that what you’re having?”
After a couple of beats Falcon realized that everyone at the table had gone quiet. He looked up to see that all four of them were looking at him.
“Did I miss something?” he said.
Sin leveled a look at him. “The lady’s question. She asked if you’re also having chocolate bacon.”
Falcon looked at Gretchen and smiled an evil smile as he shook his head. “Me? Oh. No way. I’m watching my girlish figure.”
“Then why did you order it for me?” she asked.
He let his eyes run down and back up, then doing his best to feign wide-eyed innocence, he said, “I didn’t have any reason to think you’re watching your figure.”
Falcon had once heard someone say that you can get any woman’s goat by suggesting she’s fat. Judging by the look on her face, the goat had been got.
She slowly stood, pushing her chair back as she did, then she picked up her red wine glass and poured it upside down over Falcon’s head. After deciding that wasn’t enough, her white wine followed the red. When she left the table, Sin stood and dumped his ice water over Falcon’s head.
By that time, most of the Mess was watching and laughing.
Falcon looked over at Spaz who responded by throwing his red wine in Falcon’s face. When he stormed away, that left no one but Wakey.
When Falcon turned toward him, he said, “
What? All out of liquid?”
“I got plenty of liquid. What I’m out of is patience with you.”
Wakey threw down his napkin and walked after the others, leaving Falcon sitting alone looking very much like the dickwad that he was.
Of course people stared as he did a version of the walk of shame back to the elevator and down the hall to his apartment. He threw his ruined clothes on the bathroom floor and got into a hot shower. The water felt good. The steam felt better. He stayed in there until his skin was starting to feel reptilian.
After drying off he pulled on a pair of clean sweatpants just in time to hear a knock at his door. When he opened Wakey came barreling past him.
“Come in,” he said.
“Don’t be cute.”
“Okay.”
“You want to tell me what that was about?”
“No.”
“Wrong answer. You’re going to tell me what that was about.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. Because you owe it to me.”
“How do you figure?”
“When we were kids and you wanted to stow away on a Whister and sneak over to the city to go to a strip club, and I didn’t want to. What happened?”
“We went.”
“Then what happened?”
“We got in trouble for it.”
“Yeah. And that meant…”
“That we had to spend all our free time learning to fly Whisters.”
“And when you knew you weren’t going to pass calculus. What happened?”
“You stayed up every night tutoring me.”
“And when you walked straight into alien fire in a move that looked a lot like suicide, who followed and had your back?” Falcon just stared and blinked, looking like he was reliving that scene. “That’s right. And I’m just getting started. But let me skip forward. When you’d lost your mind about Genevieve and you needed someone to sit and watch her while you went to pee and shower, who did you ask?”
“You.”
“That’s right. And did I do it? Even though I thought it was pretty much looney tunes?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know why?”
FALCON: Resistance (KBS Next Generation Book 1) Page 4
