Page 66 of Jonesing for a Spy

So would Dad, but she’ll never know that he’s an offender. To her, he toes the line. But I know the truth. With a cream-filled glazed, I could get state secrets or an extra share of my inheritance.

He makes eye contact. “Scoot, you know it bothers your mom. I don’t know why you continue to provoke her on holidays like this.” I get a sly wink before he returns to his nearly empty plate. He places a kiss on Mom’s cheek when he’s done. “Delicious as always. I knew I married you for a reason.”

“It wasn’t my cooking,” she deadpans, and every voice at the table groans and evacuates the room.

Strider

Running was a bad idea. It took about a half a mile before the pounding of my heart was a focused pulse on my neck and eye socket and the throbbing became so intense that I fell into a brisk walk. Better than nothing, I guess, and definitely better than sitting on my sofa.

Mirren hasn’t responded to my last text, but she was right about the arnica. I drive two towns over for a pharmacy that’s open today. Not because it wasn’t available in Peoria, but because I own a business in town—one that’s respectable, gives back to the community, and one that had enough controversy yesterday for the decades we’ve been in business.

Firing people isn’t fun. Putting men you like out of work sucks, but during the holiday season, it’s even harder. Now a man’s in jail, which made the freaking news. No doubt all the neighborhood pages on socials are abuzz. That’s not the way I want to be thought of, discussed, or the way I want my business dissected.

Showing up with a ring of bruises and a black eye is fuel on a fire I want quenched, so I took a bit of a drive and looked sketchy as shit in my scarf and sunglasses on a cloudy day.

Calling Mom on the way to explain how I wasn’t on my flight was as much fun as running with the pounding at my jugular… or the moment I acquired the injury. What’s worse is her repeating everything to the room at large after each sentence since she refuses to put me on speakerphone. I make a statement, she comments, gasps or emotes, then repeats what I say close to verbatim, but with commentary.

Over and over again.

“Jim, come talk to your son.” That’s when the line goes from full of background noise to a man-to-man conversation with the person I most respect in this world.

“Son, what happened? Tell me from the beginning.”

I do, down to investigations, audits, and the conversation-turned-confrontation in the conference room.

“There was always something off with that man.”

“What?” I damn near hit the brakes at his tone.

“It was off. He knew the business, but not the way that we do. Does that make sense?”

Making a right, I consider it. “Maybe. He didn’t seem weird though. More so, he was formal. And let’s be real, you’ve been in the industry longer than he’s been alive, and I’ve been raised to eat, sleep, and breathe it, so that’s not a valid argument.”

“He understood the business side. The spreadsheets, managing the crew, but it was his in-the-field presence that I’m talking about.”

Well, that shit’s on me, because I didn’t check in on him nearly enough to see that. Or I was checked out enough that I missed it. That’s not how I operate.

“I’ll need to consider that.” That’s all I can come up with because I haven’t… considered it, that is. His references were glowing, and his work history was right. He was new to town, and we were an obvious choice for where he’d land with his skillset. And we always make room for talent.

“How are you going to backfill that much loss?” Dad, ever the businessman, has his wheels spinning on how I should be running my business. Well, his, but it was handed over to me. So it’s mine, though he may never see it that way.

“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”

“And you didn’t feel well enough to come? Are you having a flare up?”

“No. Thank God or this would’ve been way worse.”

He drops his voice through the line. “You didn’t answer my first question.”

“Dad. I’m fine. I wasn’t interested in traveling with visible bruises, or having Mom worry, or pressing myself for three days.” Only to return and not know the status of Price’s whereabouts. I don’t add that part. But ever since Mirren mentioned it, it’s rattled around in me like she pulled the plunger on a pinball machine and the worry is seeking a high score.

28

packing under here

Mirren

By the time we’re prepping for the four p.m. lunch… dinner… lunner, we’ve had multiple aggressive hands of Texas Hold ’Em, all won handily by Davie, who managed to run home, shower, shave and change, and be back in forty-five minutes, an overly aggressive round of Monopoly that Johnny won so thoroughly, the rest of us were in jail or completely indebted to him, and one game of Exploding Kittens where Charlie let his inner-beast out and trounced us all.