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“Now, I’m jealous. Everywhere I go, I have to walk, but not you. You float. It’s how I know when there’s someone—all of you, your feet never touch the floor. Except for the quiet one. He is a hard read.”
“Hell,wecan barely read Pozza.”
She laughed, eyes twinkling.
Once she finished tending to the wounds as best as she could with their limited resources, she helped him into his shirt, her palms not-so-innocently skating over the muscles in his stomach and chest.
“When you return stateside, you will need surgery on your shoulder,” she said, walking backward to the tent opening. “This will probably be our last time meeting. I’m going to Germany to practice.”
“That’s unfortunate,” he said. “But you’ll do an amazing job there.”
She scanned the length of his body, the corner of her bottom lip between her teeth. Then, sighing, she turned around and left.
Chuckling to himself, he reached for his gift from Josiah, and he smiled from the middle of his chest when he pulled out what was inside.
The Amazing Adventures of Secret Agent
Joe L. Attimore
Written by Josiah Nikora Savea
Josiah had created a book out of his mother’s thick cardstock—or “the good paper” as Ayesha called it—which he stapled over lined wide-ruled paper. On the “cover” was a picture of a dark-haired man wearing sunglasses, a trench coat, and a detective’s hat. However, the man wasn’t alone; six other men surrounded him, all wearing various spy and secret agent outfits. One had a hand on Joe L. Attimore’s shoulder, and that man had long hair, tribal tattoos, and a halo above his head.
He was also smiling the biggest.
Joel tucked one hand behind his head and opened to the first page.
Chapter One
The Peculiars & The Normies
At Miss Henson’s School for Rotten Boys, there were exactly zero rotten boys and exactly one rotten Miss Henson.
Of these rotten boys, there were the peculiars and the normies, which was rather strange because the normies were quite peculiar, and the peculiars were perfectly average. And of those average peculiars was the strangest of them all, neither a runt nor the strongest boy in the school.
They called him Joe, which was short for Joe L. Attimore, and Miss Henson swore to all who would listen that his name came to her in a dream.
But the owner of The Attimore Store: Shoes for the Average Joe, disagreed, especially since it was rumored it was how Joe L. Attimore was found—as a baby and so tiny that he could fit inside a men’s size twelve work boot…
CHAPTER32
As the escalator at the airport descended, Joel spotted tiny feet stomping in mini Converse sneakers. Next to those little feet, larger yet still-quite-small feet hopped in place. Then Josiah and Theo’s faces came into view.
Theo had on a pair of khaki shorts and a T-shirt that read,I Like Long Naps, and I Cannot Lie.Josiah wore a T-shirt that said,Leaf Me Be! Can’t You See I’m Reading?!with denim shorts and slip-on sneakers. Rather than round out the punny trio, Ayesha wore a teal romper and sandals. Instead of braids, her hair was twisted to her scalp with twists hanging over the side of her face like bangs.
“Are you ready?” she called out to him, smiling.
One of his arms might have been in a sling, but he still had another that functioned perfectly fine for hugging these three.
He nodded. “I’m ready.”
Both boys screamed his name and dashed for him. Several people in the airport turned to look at them and smiled.
When he reached the bottom of the escalator, he kneeled. Although Josiah had rushed over, he slowed his pursuit and leaned forward to give him an excited yet slightly subdued hug around the neck. Theo smacked into him at full speed and wrapped his arms around his middle.
And it was everything.
“I missed you guys,” he said. “So much.”
