“I’m not a fool, Tristan,” my badass woman snipped. “My own part is already safely secured.”
Fabi gave a brief chuckle, followed by a satisfied nod and a quirk at the corner of her mouth.
“So the question is, will you accept the task?” Sloane queried as she confidently made eye contact with each person at the table, one by one.
The couples conferred, the individuals watching Sloane and me thoughtfully. Then one at a time, starting with Fabi, they all accepted.
Though none of them likely noticed, I saw the relieved drop of Sloane’s shoulders.
“If this is finished, I have guests who are waiting for me,” Tristan said as he slapped both hands on the table and stood. “Do I choose a box at random, or have you named and numbered them?”
The guy was a snarky asshole, and he rubbed me the wrong way.
Fabi took one and started passing them down. That answered that.
Once each person had a box, they said their goodbyes and exited. Fabi was the last to leave. She lingered, talking to Annette.
“Does this mean you’ll be coming home?” she asked Annette.
Annette gave her a sad smile. “No, Fabi. Texas is my home now. My grandchild is on the way, and I wouldn’t miss that for the world,” she replied, brightening at the mention of her grandchild.
“Umm, about that, Mom,” Sloane hedged.
“What?” Annette shot a suspicious glance at her daughter, then me.
“We found out we’re having a girl. Surprise!” She made jazz hands that had me laughing. I certainly hadn’t been laughing when we found out the day before. I’d been pissed. Automatically. Because the thought of all the boys chasing after my little girl made me want to punch something.
“Really?” Annette’s smile was huge.
“Well, congratulations, my loves!” Fabi said with an equally bright expression. “I’ll expect to be there after that sweet baby girl is born too. Don’t forget to keep me in the loop. But I need to get on the road as well. Good to see you again, Annette—and to finally meet your beautiful daughter. Oh, and can’t forget that gorgeous hunk of man meat she’s got there.”
Sloane giggled, and I rolled my eyes.
Fabi left, and we went around extinguishing the candles and then shut out the lights on the way out.
“Thank you,” Sloane said to the woman manning the desk outside the conference room we’d vacated. The woman gave a friendly wave and went back to her computer. We walked to the elevator and waited for it to arrive. A ding preceded the doors sliding silently open. The three of us stepped on the elevator and rode it until the doors opened again. Annette inserted the base of a small figurine into the wooden panel in front of us, turned it, and it slid to the side.
We stepped out, and she pushed on the side of the bookcase, setting it in motion. It slid back over the elevator door. Then she walked over to the round table by a bay window and set the figurine on the chess set.
As we made our way to the front door, we passed the kitchen. What appeared to be an elderly woman doing dishes looked over her shoulder at us. “Finished up?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sloane told her with a jaunty mock salute and a grin.
“Good to see you again, Annette,” the woman said. As she turned to go back to her task, she paused and winked at me. For a second, it was like I saw a mirage, and a young woman with white-blonde hair and brilliant green eyes was smirking at me. With a confused frown, I shook my head and blinked. The old woman was looking at me expectantly. “You all right there, young man?”
“Uh, I’m… yeah.” I quickly followed Annette and Sloane out of the house and over to the large tree we’d parked my truck under. When we got in, I was still trying to process if I’d imagined that.
“What’s wrong?” Sloane asked with a concerned tilt of her head.
“That woman… I thought for a second she was young,” I replied with a shaky laugh. It wasn’t like I hadn’t seen strange shit before, but that was odd and left chills along my skin.
Annette laughed in the back seat. “Opal fucked with you, didn’t she?”
“Opal—that’s the old lady?” I asked as I started the truck and started down the gravel drive.
“If you want to call her that. She’s likely about three hundred and some-odd years old. She can look like anyone she wants to.” Annette was still laughing.
“I don’t even want to know,” I said as we reached the blacktop road in bumfuck Kansas—near the geographical center of the US. A glance in my rearview mirror revealed the same farmhouse we’d left. It was weird to imagine that underneath it was a luxurious meeting place for several different non-mortal groups.