CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Perk didn’t want his and Sloane’s time in the wilds of Maine to end, even though the majority of his family had been grade-A assholes on Christmas.
After watching Sloane that day do a slow burn over breakfast, Perk had known she would eventually blow, and he’d been right. He wished, however, that he had a picture of his family’s faces when she’d finally made her big reveal. Buffy and Steve had gone especially sour-pussed, and although his parents had eventually managed a few insincere platitudes before he and Sloane had taken their leave, they had displayed horrified looks of disbelief.
Yup. How could their perpetually youthful boy get himself hooked up with one of the Fed’s finest? It probably still hadn’t sunk in.
Dirk and Alison, on the other hand, had been over-the-top pumped, and had subsequently met up with Perk and Sloane a few times over the ensuing week. They’d been very excited to hear more about what he and Sloane actually did. It was heartwarming to know that they, at least, appreciated him. Their support over his career choices had been a surprise, and had gone a long way toward making the trip memorable.
The only thing—other than his three family members and Buffy being jerks—that had colored the twelve days with a less-than-vibrant brush for him, was that Sloane had yet to acknowledge his “I love you”. Sure, he’d shut her down when he’d first said it, wanting her to mull things over, but not once during the nine days following Christmas had she made mention of it.
What choice did he have but to wait?
Perk tamped down a sigh. He’d give her a few more weeks.
Right now, he and Sloane were packing up and getting ready to head back to their real lives. Not that they’d taken all their time in Maine for leisure. In-between winter snowshoeing and him attempting to teach Sloane how to ski, they’d worked the case and still been connected to what was happening back in Boston.
The day after Christmas, a few of Sloane’s team members had broken in to Mr. Shultz’s house while he’d been away for the holidays, but they’d come up empty handed. The man had left no digital trail to anything significant, and there was no gun to be found.
Sloane’s digging around on her laptop had been equally as frustrating. It seemed that Mr. Shultz didn’t own a car. He Uber-ed to school and back, and rented vehicles when he needed to travel further afield. A strange way to live, but maybe it gave him a sense of anonymity so he could continue a sketchy lifestyle?
Sloane had lifted a few of his rentals’ license plates from street cameras outside the man’s brownstone, and digging deeper, found that he had a huge supply of aliases he used when signing his short-term leases. Fishy as hell, but skill-wise, not surprising for someone who spent his life as a computer expert. He could probably create fake document and bogus identities all day long.
The problem was, Sloane had yet to uncover the alias or the car the man had used around the time of Nelsin’s death. Which meant there was no evidence yet, to tie him to the crime, and Sloane was extremely frustrated over it.
Perk’s part of things, on the other hand, had gone smoothly. He’d been feeding bogus phone numbers to Jeremy, ones on which he’d downloaded the game that—unbeknownst to the kid—would connect Jeremy to FBI agents and their planted bank accounts.
Still, Perk hadn’t heard that any of those efforts had panned out. But that was okay. The Feds would eventually let him know if progress had been made.
“Is it wrong for me to be excited about going back to the office where tech support will be more easily accessible?” Sloane asked, chewing her lip as they loaded up the truck.
With the one laptop she’d been using, Sloane had been toggling back and forth between traffic cams, rental agencies, and Mr. Shultz’s footprint, all while interfacing with her office. It had been a lot of extra steps, and extremely frustrating.
“I’m not taking it personally,” Perk assured her, burying deep the real prickle of hurt he felt; not hearing back from her the three words that were constantly on the tip of his tongue. “I’m actually anxious, too,” he told her instead of screaming his love to the yurt-tops. “I need to see if Smalley and Sarge have been able to follow any digital money trails after Jeremy extracted the pertinent bank account numbers and did his thing. But not having heard from them about it…” he sighed. “I’m guessing they haven’t had any luck. And a lack of evidence means I’m not only going back to school, but I’ll be ramping things up at the Nelsin’s.”
Sloane grimaced as they both got into the truck. “Which means putting up with Ms. Handsy -Nelsin.”
“I’m afraid so.”
Perk’s dick seemed to shrivel in his jeans, not just from the cold, but by thinking about that woman’s claws touching him. He choke-laughed. “I, uh, don’t think I’ll have to worry about escalation there, though, past groping.”
“Why not?” Sloane asked.
“Because just the thought of her has my cock retreating. Once she goes exploring, which will make me want to puke, she’ll totally find herself without a willing erection to torment.”
Sloane smiled cheekily. “You’ve never had any trouble with me.”
Perk growled. “Because all you have to do is smile in its direction, and it wants in.”
“So, you’re saying I have your cock wrapped around my little finger?” she smirked.
“Signed, sealed, delivered,” he quoted. “I’m yours.”
Sloane’s face fell. “Yeah. About that…”
Perk wanted to groan.
Was she really going to bring up the whole “love” thing now? When they were leaving? Well… If she was, Perk wasn’t going to stop her this time. Bad timing or not, he really needed to hear where her head was at.
“I haven’t forgotten your, uh, declaration,” she began. “And contrary to my outwardly ignoring it, I actually like knowing how you feel. I understand you’d probably do better if I could return the sentiment, but I’m not sure I can. Yet.”
Perk’s chest fluttered. The “yet’ was more than he had hoped for.
Sloane turned to face him, but her whole demeanor slowly grew more troubled.
Perk knew she felt guilty about not returning his sentiments, which meant he needed to support, not force words from her mouth just to appease him.
“Sloane, it’s okay if you don’t—”
“No. It’s not okay, Perk, and I know it,” she interrupted. “It’s just that…the last time I thought I was in love, my ex shit all over me. He basically made a mockery of what I thought we had between us.”
“He was an asshole,” Perk reminded her. They’d already talked about that.
“Yes, he was. But he, along with my family, have made me question if I really am loveable.” She held up a hand when he would have reiterated his certainty. “I know you’re serious, saying it, but I need you to be patient while I slowly absorb the reality of what that means.
“This time,” she continued, “when and if I commit, I want it to be forever. So, I have to be really sure.” She ended on a whisper, wetness shimmering in her eyes.
What could Perk do, but agree?
“I’ll give you all the time you need, Sloane. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Promise?” she chuckled tearfully.
“Promise,” he immediately agreed.
He’d take whatever she could give him, because it was far better than the alternative, which would be walking away. And he didn’t think he’d ever be able to do that. If Sloane decided she couldn’t take the risk with him, she’d have to be the one to end things.
Right now, she needed his reassurance, so he reached for relevancy. “What’s that ring on your finger, again?” he questioned, injecting a note of playfulness into his voice.
“Uh, a gold ring?” she answered, clearly confused.
“Yes, but it’s also a friendship ring,” he clarified. “Which means that I not only love you, I like you, too. And as long as you have that on your finger, we’re friends. Special friends.”
“That’s…kind of corny, Perk,” Sloane snuffled, but managed a tiny uptick of her lips.
“Corny but true,” he assured her. “And you can wear that for the rest of your life if that’s what you need, or you can eventually trade it in for what’s behind door number two when and if you feel more confident in what we have.”
“Door number two?” she asked, hesitant yet clearly interested in what that meant.
“Yup. When the time is right, if you decide you want me, we can swap it out for an engagement ring.” He didn’t want to scare Sloane, but he wanted her to know that he was in this for the long run, with his entire heart.
It seemed he hadn’t frightened the intrepid agent.
“Hmmm,” she responded, an impish look washing over her face as she squared her shoulders and raised her hand to stare appreciatively at her ring.
The deliberate action made all Perk’s heretofore unknown caveman-possessiveness rear up inside him to see her reaction to his gift; to his mark on her finger.
“We may have to negotiate, if it comes down to that,” she told him, trying to maintain a serious demeanor but failing miserably.
Perk could see she was thoroughly amusing herself.
“Negotiate?” he repeated, posing it as the question he assumed she wanted.
“Yeah. I really, really like this one. If committing means I have to replace it, then I might be tempted to let things remain status quo.”
Not what Perk wanted.
He thought fast, knowing he needed to keep the conversation going in the same vein of lightness that she’d delivered. “Okay. How about this. If you finally decide that you can’t live without me because I’m so handsome and irresistible, we’ll have this ring remade with a platinum band and a bunch more diamonds. Will that do the trick?”
She shrugged noncommittally but gave him a huge smile. “Irresistible, huh?” she repeated, then smirked. “We’ll see.”
****
Monday morning came too fast.
Perk groaned, punched his pillow, and hit snooze on his alarm.
Just five more minutes before he had to drag his dejected ass out of bed.
After dropping Sloane off at her condo, Perk had driven back to his pretend home feeling…empty. It didn’t seem right, being so far away from her. They’d fit together almost seamlessly over the holidays, and now they were both in separate places.
Perk wondered if Sloane was feeling the void, too, or if it was just him. His fingers momentarily itched to pick up his phone and call her, but they both had jobs to do, and it was important to keep his head in the game. The faster they could clear up this case, the quicker they could concentrate on each other.
Mini pep-talk over, Perk flung the covers back and slipped his legs to the floor, shutting off his alarm in the process.
He was wide awake as he hit the shower, going over in his head the late zoom meeting the SOS and FBI teams had jointly held last night. They’d outlined Perk’s next course of action where the Nelsin’s were concerned.
It had been determined, that if at all possible, Perk needed to infiltrate Jennifer Nelsin’s office and download all her files off her computer. In that regard, Sarge would drop off a thumb drive at the house today while Perk was at school, leaving it with the two agents in residence who would arm Perk with it before he headed to Jeremy’s.
“Good morning,” Smalley grumped at him as he emerged into the kitchen. “Coffee’s made,” he added.
Perk walked directly to the pot, pouring himself a cup.
“And it’s forage for your own this morning,” Tertia yawned as she shuffled into the kitchen. “I’m not quite up to cooking. I, uh, may have overdone it a bit with the alcohol yesterday. My friends were very persuasive convincing me that we needed to celebrate the wrap-up of the holidays.”
As if on cue, Smalley closed his laptop with a loud thud.
Tertia groaned. “Seriously, Chuck? You can’t be a little more quiet?”
Chuck, huh ?
That was the first time Perk had heard Smalley’s first name, and he wondered…
Nah. It couldn’t be. Perk had Mizzay and Smalley pegged for each other. Both had secretive pasts, and they shared looks that hinted at some kind of connection. There was no way these two had hooked up. Had they?
Maybe Smalley had more game than Perk was giving him credit for.
Perk walked over to the cupboard where the cereal was kept, and pulled out a box of Oatie-O’s while surreptitiously watching the pair, but nothing else happened that would give him answers.
He smirked to himself as he poured a bowl. He’d be keeping an eye on them.
****
Fifteen minutes later he was on his way to school with instructions to come home right after his last class so they could give him the thumb drive and wire him up again before he went to the Nelsin house.
Yup. It was time to escalate.
But first, school.
****
Seven hours later, other than being bored to tears in his classes and receiving repeated, excited kudos from Jeremy in the hallways over the awesome luck the kid had breaking into the new phones, nothing of note had happened.
Perk had, however, made arrangements to go to Jeremy’s house after school.
Maybe, finally, they’d make some headway on the case.