Tox chuckled. “I just need a couch and a TV. I don’t need to talk a spaceship back into orbit.”
Calliope momentarily stalled. Tox talked about his new house like a bachelor pad. Hadn’t they agreed to move forward? She shook it off and tried to look around like she hadn’t a care. As she studied the recessed lighting in the ceiling with great care, she failed to notice Nathan give Tox the tactical signal for “dog” and “okay.” Tox nodded and they proceeded with the tour.
“Calliope, Twitch is over at what she insists on calling Cyberland.” Nathan rolled his eyes. “We’ll head there first. We actually could land a spacecraft if we needed to,” Nathan added.
“Jack and Charlie can’t wait to see Uncle T.” They’d settled on the name because when Jack said “Tox” for some reason it came out sounding like “fuck,” and Uncle Miller was being abbreviated by the boys to “unkiller.” Uncle T seemed like the safest option.
They completed the tour in Nathan’s office. The space bore no resemblance to Nathan’s fortress at Knightsgrove-Bishop in New York. The rooms took up a back corner of the second floor. The glass walls which separated it from the offices and open workspaces could be darkened for privacy but currently provided an unobstructed view all the way to the large reception area in the center of the building. Tox and Calliope sat in matching nut-brown suede and chrome chairs facing Nathan’s glass-topped desk behind which he currently sat, beaming. The traditional 12-pane sash-hung windows had been replaced with a single pane of double-layered bullet-proof glass covered by plantation shutters.
“Calliope, Tox called me with an idea a couple of days ago, and I was inclined to agree. We think your unique brand of fieldwork could be a real asset at Bishop Security.”
Calliope sat up straight in her chair.
“I spoke with your handler. Sorry about all this behind the scenes maneuvering, but you know as well as anyone how carefully we have to step when it comes to international surveillance.”
Calliope nodded.
“Tox spoke with your stepfather. He can discuss that with you later.” Nathan remained indifferent, but Tox shifted in his seat like he was sitting on fire ants.
“You’d be doing almost exactly what you did for INL but a pared-down version—shorter assignments, more specific data, more immediate intel. We have more leeway when it comes to international work, hence, more jobs. It would be actual undercover work. We would give you an identity, you’d do preliminary informational recon and you’re out. You’d be based here and travel as needed. The contract is in your inbox. Look it over and get back to me.”
Calliope glanced at the photo in its place of pride on his desk. A candid photo of Nathan and Emily each feeding a toddler ice cream. It wasn’t taken in an exotic location, and the family wasn’t doing anything particularly memorable, and yet their faces reflected their unfettered joy. That, Calliope thought, that’s what I’ve been looking for.
Tox spread his hand across her upper back. “It could be the best of both worlds. You could continue doing what you love, but you’d also have a home, a place to put down…”
“Yes.” Calliope jumped from her seat, climbed into his lap, and repeated nearly the exact words her mother had said to her stepfather when he had given her the fish all those years ago. “It isn’t a romantic gift, but it is exactly what I wanted.”
When they broke apart from the kiss, Nathan had left the room. Tox stood and set her gently on the carpet. With a look that left her warm and hot, he took her hand.
“Come on.”
One look and Calliope knew. Tox wanted her there with him. He had chosen this house for her. It was a pale-yellow clapboard, Cape Cod colonial with dark gray shutters and a red front door. Overflowing flower boxes punctuated each window, and a covered porch ran the length of the front–a suspended bench swing at one end, a small table flanked by Adirondack chairs at the other. Calliope let the fantasies she’d been having about Tox since the first day she’d met him—and had desperately tried to quash—run free in her mind: she and Tox drinking coffee each morning on the porch, sitting on the swing watching a rainstorm blow in from the ocean. She nuzzled into his side and he wrapped a big arm around her like a cloak.
“Want to see inside?”
“Only if I never have to leave.”
“Well, you’ll have a job. And there’s groceries and stuff.”
She smacked him on the chest. “You know what I meant.”
He ushered her up the path lined with hostas and ferns, across the planked floor of the porch, and into the house, where they were greeted by a familiar bark. Coco climbed off her plaid flannel dog bed and greeted Calliope with a stretch and a nuzzle.
“How did you get her down here?”
“You need to have a talk with her. She will get in a car with anyone.”
Calliope laughed and scratched the dog. She glanced into the living room and beamed. From the quirky pillows and cashmere throw on the beckoning couch to the collection of thrillers and historical fiction that lined the bookcase to the framed photos that dotted the mantel, it looked like a dream. No. It looked like her dream.
“Who decorated this place? It’s like they know me.”
“She does know you. Emily hired someone, but according to Nathan she chose everything down to the welcome mat.”
All her life, Calliope had felt invisible. In her mind, she was a third wheel, an obligation. She could never be still because she never truly felt wanted. She ran towards something. She ran away from something. Standing in this place, next to this man, for the first time she felt…grounded. She didn’t want to stop traveling or having new adventures, but she wanted to have them and come back here. Come back home. Come back to Miller.
They continued the tour with the familiar clatter of Coco’s nails adding another wonderful layer to her sense of rightness. Upstairs, the master bedroom took up one side of the second floor. Movement on the cushioned window seat caught her eye. Loco looked up from his sunning, hissed, and lolled back.
“It seems suburban living agrees with him,” Tox shrugged.