“I think he’s going for drinks with them,” Jeff remarked.
We watched as Tito left the conference room with Marjorie.
We shifted to another screen.
And there they were, walking down the hall, Tito having tucked both their hands in his elbows, and connected, they walked down the hall, entered the outer office, and left.
“No asking him now,” Moses muttered.
“I say don’t question it,” Jeff suggested. “If that worked, let’s allow the fragility of it to strengthen so we don’t have to hear what section whatever, paragraph whatever, subsection whatever says as quoted to Shirleen all the time.”
“I vote for that,” Moses seconded.
Cody came into the room.
I took a good look at him.
We didn’t have a lot of Cody time. He mostly did second shift control room. He was also younger than all of us by several years. He might pitch up at a pool party or a bar, or the Super Bowl gig that just happened (something he did), but not often, partly because he was working during happy hour.
Still, he was cute.
“Did I see Shirleen and Marjorie linking arms with Tito wearing a glitter fedora in the hallway?” he asked.
“That man in the glitter fedora just created a tentative peace. Don’t speak openly about it. It might shatter,” Jeff joked.
“I’ve erased seeing them from my memory,” Cody replied.
Boy, that handbook recital must be getting old.
I didn’t doubt it.
“We’re out,” Knox said, pushing up from his chair.
That meant I had to push up from mine, and that was a bummer, considering it was fun hanging with these dudes and watching stuff I didn’t know why they were watching it (outside the Shirleen/Marjorie/Tito deal—I didn’t ask what was happening on the other screens because they couldn’t tell me), but it was important regardless.
Anyway, there were lots of knobs and buttons, and everyone knew when there were lots of knobs and buttons, it was fun.
See what I mean about this being the command deck?
Knox must have read my face because, after we said our goodbyes and headed out, he said, “It seems fun. Spend a whole hour in there, it will be very unfun.”
“Is Cody getting over being stuck in there?” I asked.
“Yeah. And Mace wants him in the field, training. He also wants to send him up to Denver for a while so he can work with Brody and Vance and extend his tech skills. So we’re recruiting again.”
“Ah. So you’ve alerted the modeling agencies.”
He gave me a startled look, then burst out laughing.
After that, he slung an arm across my shoulders and kept it there all the way to the parking lot, where we separated for him to go to his truck, and me to go to the Prius.
I got to use my new card thingy to release me from the parking fees.
And the second-best part of my day occurred.
I followed Knox home.
So I could get to the best part of my day.
