Just Another Day at the Office

The nap did wonders for my attitude. I made no plans to become a jetsetter, but I thought it was possible that I could make it through a future flight without all the flight attendants telling the air marshal to keep his eye on me. Little did they know, I had my own weapons and could probably take the air marshal.

  Anyway, that was one fear down, if only I could get past my fear of clowns, I'd be all set. I wasn't expecting that to happen anytime soon. They're way too disturbing.

  We'd made it past the circus at the airport and had been driving down the road according to my estimation. By Nate's calculations, we'd arrive at our temporary home within five minutes. My eyes were peeled, because in my research I'd found that if you blinked, you'd miss the town of Vida, Montana. With the work being done in the town, I had a feeling that was exactly the reaction the townsfolk wanted from the general public.

  As far as the vehicle I was forced to travel in went, it was a tank. For some reason Nate decided he needed a big vehicle and picked out a Chevrolet Suburban. To me, nothing screams government agent here investigating your evil doing, like a big black SUV, but he was the senior agent in our duo, so he had to know what he was doing.

  Houses started to pop up, and nothing too out of the ordinary seemed to be brewing. The town had a few wind turbines and most of the houses had solar panels on the roofs, so I decided energy efficiency was important.

  There were no vehicles in sight, but I imagined they were all Smart cars or hybrids. Our gas guzzler was going to stick out like a sore thumb. Since Nate didn't have to pretend to be in with the brainy crowd I was definitely blaming him.

  He pulled into a driveway and parked the beast. "This is it," he said, getting out. "Doesn't look too bad; let's go in and check it out."

  We left the luggage in the vehicle and walked up a little path to a single-story home. It had the solar panels on it like the rest of the town and some kind of tinting on the windows. Along with the thin, plain white siding, a royal blue front door greeted us.

  Nate procured a hidden key from a planter on the left side of the door. After using said key to gain access to the house, and because he was the biggest fool in the world, he turned around and picked me up bridal style to carry me into our happy abode.

  "Put me down you crazy person," I said, smacking him on the back of the head. He didn't immediately drop me, but my legs did find solid ground.

  "Come on, you know that was fun. What should we check out first? My pick would be the bedrooms, but I'll be a gentleman and allow us to go see your favorite room first."

  He led the way to the kitchen without me needing to say a word. Just as a note, I loved the kitchen because I love to cook, not necessarily because I love to eat. My apartment's kitchen was pretty small and getting a bigger one would be the only perk I could see of ever moving.

  I only made it about a foot in the kitchen before I stopped in my tracks and my mouth dropped. As we'd made our way, I'd noticed how nicely the house was decorated without taking in a whole lot of details, but the kitchen was gourmet cook overload.

  It had a huge center island with a cooktop, one of those huge ones you only see in million dollar homes, with stainless steel pots and pans hanging above it. I saw a double oven on the right wall and counter space galore along a twenty-foot wall directly behind the center island.

  The cupboards over the counters went all the way to the ceiling, so there'd be room for any of those infomercial gadgets I'd been putting off buying. ?I saw a nice shiny dishwasher and a stainless steel fridge that looked to have some kind of computer in it, because there was a touchscreen on it.

  There was a good-sized stainless steel double sink and an equally impressive wine chiller. Since neither of us drank much, I imagined that would go to waste, but with everything else I saw, Nate was going to be lucky to get me out of the room.

  "I love it. Can I just live in this room? I really don't need to see the rest of the house, just bring me a blanket and a pillow and I'm all set." I leaned down to check out the floor surface and felt heat coming from it. "Oh man, the floor is even geothermal. I don't have to worry about walking around barefoot." I took my enthusiasm to the next level by petting the floor affectionately.

  "Hey, it isn't often I get jealous of a floor, so cut that out and don't make a habit of petting it, unless you decide to pet me too." He grabbed my arms and lifted me back into a standing position.

  "Let's take a little tour. The rooms we passed on the way were the living room, you probably noticed that one by the big leather sectional in the middle of it and huge flat screen TV. We also passed a dining room, hence the table and chairs taking up residence in there. Let's head towards the back. There should be two bedrooms, two baths and a library slash den."

  We left the kitchen and sure enough there were all the rooms he'd described. The bedrooms were both very spacious and both probably bigger than my whole apartment. They had big, fluffy looking queen-size beds and walk-in closets.

  One of the rooms was in a green paint scheme and the other a blue paint scheme. I had a slight aversion to green, so I called dibs on the blue room. To the left of one of the rooms was a door, which I assumed contained a closet, but when I opened it I found a little laundry room. Living in a studio apartment meant I'd always had to go to the Laundromat, so it was just another pleasant surprise.

  On to the baths, one only had a shower, but it was a huge shower with five different shower heads and a little bench. The geothermal floors seemed to be throughout the house and I didn't see a lick of carpet in sight. The other bathroom was a little bigger and had a large Jacuzzi-type tub sunken into the floor in one of the corners.

  It also had a similar shower, but only two shower heads. I could happily report, both bathrooms also had toilets. Don't want to leave a detail like that out.

  The last room we checked on was the library. It had floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on the right and left walls. There was a large picture window on the rear wall that had the tinted glass, so sun wasn't shining in. I bet the glass throughout the house saved a lot on heating bills.

  There was also a big desk that took up the middle of the room. It was very neat with only a couple of books and a notepad and pen sitting on it, like they were staged. Glancing at the bookshelves, I saw mostly geeky stuff, like quantum physics and mathematical theories. I didn't see one romance novel, so I was a little bummed. It was a good thing I brought a few of my own on my trusty e-reader.

  "Okay, the tour's over, what do you want to do now?" I asked Nate. Maybe I could distract him while I sneaked back to my kitchen.

  "Well, first I think we should bring in our luggage. I can do that now since we only have a bag each. How about while I do that, you grab a piece of paper and start making a grocery list. When I'm done bringing things in, we can find the store and stock the kitchen for you."

  "Anything involving that kitchen sounds like a great idea to me."

  "When we go into town, don't forget that you are Peggy and I'm Sean. You need to get used to thinking of yourself as Peggy. Not being immersed in your character is the easiest way to blow your cover. And please try to remember that we're supposed to be boyfriend and girlfriend, I don't want to go to hold your hand and have you yell out 'eww cooties' like you did when we were leaving a restaurant once. That'd really not be cool."

  "I couldn't help it. You shook that waiter's hand and I totally saw him picking his nose not three minutes before. That's just gross and I don't think your skin is made of anti-bacterial soap. You know I was just recovering from being shot. The likelihood of infection was really high." That was also the last time I went out to eat. After that, it had been home cooked or prepackaged foods from the grocery store for me.

  Nate left to take care of business, while I worked on the project he'd given me. It wasn't long before he joined me in the library, where I'd decided to sit on the desk to make my list.

  "How many days do you think we should buy for? I don't want to get a lot of stuff if you think we can wrap this mi
ssion up quickly," I said, looking at my list of basic necessities.

  "The town isn't big enough that the store is that far away. I say just start with a couple days' worth of stuff and if we need more, we can probably just walk right over."

  "Okay, I suppose I can try that. I'm curious to see what exactly they have stocked in a store catering to maybe a hundred people. Do you have anything you're craving? I'm currently starving, so just about everything sounds good."

  Having been knocked out, sort of, for most of the flight had meant I'd missed out on food. Of course, the chances were good I wouldn't have been able to keep it down. That fact didn't change that I was in need of nutrients.

  "If you're worried about them not having something, we can wait to make a full list until we see what they carry. As far as my cravings go, everything you make is so good it's hard to have any favorites. We haven't had your alfredo sauce in a while. I know you don't have your pasta maker here, but I'm sure the store bought stuff isn't that bad."

  "How can you say that after you've had my fresh pasta? I'll make you an alfredo chicken pizza if you're craving the sauce, but I will not buy dried pasta. What else?" I asked as I added items to the list.

  "I could really go for a cheesecake. Maybe a caramel swirled one?" The expectant look on his face showed me he was a lot better at the puppy dog eyes. I wasn't as immune to his look as he appeared to be to mine, and I may have melted a little looking into those eyes.

  "Yes, you can have a cheesecake." After adding a few more things to the list, I called it good. "Do you think we can unload our clothes before we head out? I'd like to give them a chance to air out after being stuffed in a suitcase for so long."

  "Sure, go right ahead."

  I walked to my blue room and saw not only my suitcase, but Nate's as well. I turned to go yell at him, only to find him standing right behind me. I could tell I wasn't going to like how our next conversation would go just by looking at his face.

  "What's the meaning of this?" I asked, pointing at his bag.

  "Maybe you've forgotten, but we're playing the part of boyfriend and girlfriend. I know you wouldn't know this, but in most cases being in that kind of relationship and living in the same house means sleeping in the same room."

  "I'm well aware of how things work in a relationship, Nate, but that's not how our relationship works. Why do we have to carry the charade into the bedroom? No one's going to know we don't sleep in the same bed."

  "I told you, you have to immerse yourself in the character while you're undercover. You're Peggy, madly in love with Sean. You have to be that person even at night from now until we catch the person stealing the documents."

  "I think madly in love might be a stretch for my acting skills. If you aren't going to let me out of this, we're taking the pillows from the other bed and lining them down the middle of the bed."

  I knew I seemed weak, letting him have his way so easily, but I'd learned to pick my fights with him. If he gets to win one, I get the next one and the way things were going, I was sure I'd need a little extra leverage. Plus, we'd slept on a couch together before, so a queen-size bed even divided was plenty roomy for the two of us.

  "At least for a little while, I can live with that. Now, hurry up and unpack, I'm getting hungry too."

  Neither of us had packed our full wardrobe, so the process was relatively easy. Nate tried to invade my drawer space, but I relocated his to another drawer. There was only so much pretending I was willing to do.

  After everything was squared away, we made our way outside. I already preferred the filtered light from inside the house to the harsh brightness waiting for us outside. It wasn't like I'd been inside long, but I knew I wanted to get back in the house as soon as possible. Chances were good it was because I missed the kitchen.

  "Do you know where the grocery store even is?" I asked as I climbed into the tank.

  "Like I said, this town isn't that big, we didn't pass it on the way in, so if we continue down the street, we're bound to run in to it," he said, starting the car and pulling out of the drive.

  CHAPTER 3

  The most powerful force in the universe is gossip