Page 22 of Chaos Destiny
Gage, plate empty, leaned back in his chair.
“Good?” I asked.
“For how long it’s been since I last ate?” He nodded, groaning. “Excellent. How long have you all been set up here?”
“Almost since the beginning, from what I understand.”
He downed the water in a few gulps and then covered a burp with a fist. “So, you haven’t been here long?”
“Long enough. I came up from Atlanta. It was already established by the time I arrived.”
“Before everything went to shit, I was supposed to be in Atlanta myself. My company bid on a contract to add a wing to the CDC campus, and we were invited down for a visit. The application closed at the last minute. I guess it’s clear why now.”
“What did you do before?”
“Commercial real estate…primarily.”
“And,” I scanned his frame, “that’s it?”
“Why? What’d you do?”
“What I do now. I’m a doctor. I worked in evolutionary microbiology and eventually segued into a discipline that included infectious disease, microbial genomics, and molecular epidemiology.”
He whistled. “Damn. That’s a mouthful. So, did you do any work on whatever this thing is?”
“Tried to. Didn’t work out. Obviously.”
“Still, you had to have been highly sought after.”
“Yes, but for what? To fail?”
He eyed me, one brow lifted as if he wanted to say more, but then he tapped his plate. “By the way, where can I take these?”
“You can leave them there on the table.” I pointed to the “dining table” with my chin. “I’ll have someone come and grab them.”
“You must be a big deal around here.”
I shrugged. “I have privileges.”
“Is it because of your expertise or your relationship with the Allen guy?”
“A bit of both.”
“You’re worried about Ari, but won’t he have a problem with you spending the night in another man’s room?”
“A man and hisbaby.”
“Two people could do plenty while a baby’s asleep.”
“You don’t have the energy to make love to a woman, remember?” I squeezed my eyelids shut with a quiet groan. “Sorry.”
He cocked his head to the side. “For?”
“You take the bed,” I redirected. “I’m fine with the floor.”
“No,I’lltake the floor. You sleep on the bed with Thandie, just in case she rolls. She’s starting to roll now. Me and Ari think she’ll start crawling soon.” He scanned Thandie with a soft, fatherly smile. “Also, don’t argue with me. You won’t win on this issue, love.”
Allen had offered himself to me like a roasting pig with an apple in its mouth. Yet, theideaof Allen using the word “love” and Gage tacking it on to the end of a sentence elicited two separate reactions.
