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Is he okay?Is there anything I can do to help?
But her face betrays no answers.She only says, “Though I’m personally hoping he goes into something a little calmer like…”
“Technicalwriting?”Her son spits out the profession like it’s distasteful, and his eyes bug out.“So boring.”
Chuckling, I glance at his mom.“Why do I get the impression that’s what you do, Ava?”
“Because all your military intelligence training paid off.That’s exactly what I do.And I’ll have you know, it’s not nearly as bad as he makes it out to be,” she finishes, giving Nicholas the classic side-eye.
“She writes manuals,” he tells me with an eye roll.“It’s—”
“Stable, secure work that lets me out in time to pick you up and make dinner every night.”She gives him a pointed look.
“That’s several points in its favor.”I back up the mom because from where I’m sitting right now, she deserves a freaking medal.Well, hell, any mom does.Raising a kid never looks easy.But throw in that she’s pretty much doing it on her own and her kid apparently has health issues?Ava’s just been elevated to near sainthood.
I glance at her.She’s easy company, and to be honest, if I felt her give off an even slightly flirtatious vibe, I’d be asking her out on a real date sometime, preferably on a night she could get a sitter.
But I don’t get the feeling that she’s interested in me that way.
I can understand that.I can’t imagine she’s got much time to hit the dating scene, or even foster the interest in complicating her life with a man—not with all she’s juggling.
And if she everwereto dip her toe back into the dating pool again, a man like me—who will be moving in six months—would probably not be her first choice.
Still, I sense a magnetic pull toward her.Maybe it’s just the season—a time when I can’t help feeling my own lack of a family around me.
When I was growing up, the holidays were a time to be together, a loud, boisterous time filled with activity and fun.And traditions—too many to even count.
I sometimes wonder if my career will ever allow me to carry on those traditions with a family of my own.For me, it’s always been deployments and TDYs while I’m stationed somewhere.And then after two years, I move someplace else to continue the pattern.
Really, the only time I ever felt stability were the two years after I was injured when they had me teaching at the Academy.
I force myself to pull my eyes from Ava and let them settle on her son instead who’s still looking at me like I’m a Marvel superhero.“But I will say that if you’re good with computers,” I add, “then you won’t have any problem finding stable and secure work for the government.Even the top-secret kind you’ll want to brag about to your friends but won’t be able to.”
His eyes sparkle with awe.“Really?”
“Oh, yeah.You keep focusing on that, and you’ll have no problem getting set up in a great career.I work with people who do that sort of thing all the time.”
Ava’s eyebrows rise.“And I’m hoping it’s a little safer than the James Bond sort of thing I see in the old movies.”
Nicholas’s eyes roll upward, a direction I’ve noticed they take a lot.
“Hewas a sexist,” the kid proclaims.
A sudden laugh overtaking me, I nearly spit out my food.
Ava sighs, and our eyes meet.“My son’s always reminding me what’s PC these days and what isn’t.”
“And the James Bondyou guyswatched is totally not PC,” he tells us, an astute observation from such a little kid.
“You’re probably right.If James Bond ever treated one of my sisters the way he did inGoldfinger, he’d never have lived to make the next sequel.”
“You have sisters?”
“Two.I was outnumbered in my house.”
“Are you going to visit them over the holiday?”she asks.
“No.I have to stay within one hour of base in case they need me.”
