Page 6 of In the Nick of Time
“One hundred and eighty-some days?”Nick paused in front of a wall calendar featuring chinchillas dressed up in funny outfits. What the fuck? “What happens then?”
“I’m out of here. Gone-ski.” Swanson answered Nick’s question while grabbing a chair from the desk behind his and wheeling it Nick’s direction. “Retiring. Heading into my golden years and all that.”
Nick eyed the sexy older man. Questions, only some of them about chinchillas wearing chaps and cowboy hats, ran through his head like the stock market’s ticker. He tamped them down. Nick already knew his internal is-this-okay-to-say filter was out of whack and whatever he asked would be the wrong question. It was a power that wasn’t super.
“You’re not that old,” he responded carefully. “How can you be retiring already?”
Seriously, the guy couldn’t be more than midforties, if that. All the things Nick had noticed a few minutes ago—his basic overall sexiness being number one—added up to Not Old.
“Thanks, kid. I appreciate your vote of confidence.”
“I mean, you’re old,” Nick rushed on, abandoning his attempt to filter himself, “older than me, obviously, but not, like, decades older. I’m sure there’s more life left in you.”Shut up now,a little voice in his head screamed. But Nick was on a roll and when he got going, not even he could stop himself. “What are you going to do after you leave here? With all those muscles, maybe you should start a gym or something?” He waggled his eyebrows. “I’d join for sure.”
Agent Swanson swung the office chair to the far end of his desk.
“Sit.”
It was a command and Nick had to bite his lips together to keep from pointing out that he was not a dog.
He sat. Swanson stared at him. Probably wondering why Nick had bothered showing up at all. No one could’ve been more surprised than Nick when he’d gotten the call from the recruiter.
“What, exactly, is the SPAM organization?”
Nick hoped that was a safe question to ask. It had been nagging at him for several days. The recruiter hadn’t exactly answered it for him, just saying he’d “learn more during orientation.” Seeing as he needed the income, Nick hadn’t pushed the issue.
Outside the window behind Agent Swanson, Nick watched a cleanup team finish sweeping up and spraying down the pavement in the parking lot.
Agent Swanson looked too. “The damn cleanup squad never gets all of that stupid experimental foam out of the pavement cracks.”
Okay. So, this inexplicably weird first day just got weirder?
“SPAM,” Agent Swanson said, sitting down and reaching for a pad of bright pink sticky notes that he proceeded to strum likeone of those flip-art books, “stands for Special Processing and Management.”
“That means nothing to me. Is it some kind of governmental gibberish?”
Agent Swanson released a heavy sigh. Nick was used to people sighing around him; he’d stopped letting it bother him years ago.
“You have a latent power. It has something to do with time.”
Nick bit his lip while he did his best to process what Agent Swanson had told him.
“Being late is a superpower?”
“Not a superpower, not exactly. But a power. Maybe more of an influence. A subpar power.”
Not good enough for the regular branch, he guessed. Huh.
“So you’re a loser too?” Nick winced when he said the last word. Oops.
“No.” Doug was scowling at him, an expression Nick was not unfamiliar with.
“Why am I a loser, but you’re not?”
Swanson looked up at the ceiling as if he needed guidance. Nick was used to this too.
“I transferred from another branch.” He shot Nick a hard look. “I used to be known as Long Shot. I shot to kill. Couldn’t miss. Literally. Boom.” Swanson pointed a finger gun at Nick’s head. “Only I’m done with that aspect of hero-ing. My outlook on life changed. April had an opening here so I transferred over.”
Huh.
