“Not tonight, no. I need to go in and put in an appearance so my absence two days running won’t be as notable.” His lips twisted. If it hadn’t become crucial to the plan, he’d pull out of consideration for the Director’s position.
The mind-games and one-upmanship with Merritt, while something he might have once had fun with, were another distraction in the post-Lucas era of looking for answers before he knew the questions. However, Merritt had made it obvious that if he got the position they both wanted, he’d make sure Alex wasn’t assigned to the Council Meet delegation as Agent Liaison, which would scrap the original plan. It was Director of Councilor Security or nothing, and nothing wasn’t an option. They couldn’t wait.
“I’ll be back tomorrow.” Alex shrugged. “So have dinner with her. Answer her questions. Get to know her. Her, not your idea of her.”
“Oh, I’ve abandoned my idea of her,” Thomas said with a dry laugh. “And any notion of pursuing her myself. She’s just not my type.”
Alex raised his brow, a smile playing about his lips. As far as he knew, Thomas didn’t have a type. Like Alex himself, he availed himself of female company when and where he needed without the complications of emotional attachments.
“Really? Untapped power beyond words isn’t your type?”
Thomas cocked his head to the side. He pursed his lips. “I don’t know. There’s something off….”
“About Lena?” Alex winced internally at the sharp undertone in his own voice.
Before he could examine what made him feel so defensive, Thomas shook his head. “No, no. My expectation, I suppose. We waited so long to find a woman like her, and then—”
“If you tell me she’s not as amazing as you thought one of them would be, I’ll call you a liar.” She was breathtakingly amazing. A huge pain-in-the-ass, yes, but she was also amazing. That was the problem.
“No. She is. Even damaged and prickly. She’s just more than I expected. You don’t know, because you’re not here, but we can feel her. All the time. Her energy, her EM field, the amount of Dust she carries within her, whatever it is, it pulls all the time. She’s almost too much.” Thomas’s eyes narrowed.
How like us fickle humans.
Alex’s lips quirked up, and he told Thomas what had occurred to him.
“Let me guess,” his friend answered, a teasing note back in his voice. “There’s a poem for that.”
Alex laughed, not caring what his friend thought of his love of Stephen Crane. They were familiar enough with each other’s foibles to be comfortable expressing them. “I was in the darkness,” he began, quoting the poem.
“I could not see my words
Nor the wishes of my heart.
Then suddenly there was a great light—”
He stopped at the stanza break, grinning at Thomas for effect. “‘Let me into the darkness again.’ That’s what we do, you know. We stumble around until we get what we want, and then once we see exactly what it was we really wanted we’re terrified of it.”
“Ah,” Thomas said, “there he is, the warrior-poet I know and love. Take me to bed, Agent Reyes. Ravish me now.”
“You wish.”
“Ha. I know it breaks your heart, but you’re not my type, either.” Thomas laughed at him, shaking his head in wonder. “Seriously, why are you wasting your verse on me? That’s good stuff, man. You should be reciting poetry to women, not keeping it bottled up. But you haven’t. And you won’t.”
Alex was quiet. His face must have reflected the memory, because Thomas’s brows shot up.
“You didn’t? Really?”
“Shut up.”
“To Lena? I get the lure of the power, but really? She’s built like a boy.”
“Shut up.”
“She’s just so…tiny. And freckled.”
“I like her freckles.” He gritted his teeth, pissed that his friend had needled him into the admission. He didn’t have time for this. Any of it. “And not that I’m interested, but there’s nothing tiny about her presence.”
“Oh, no, she’s intimidating as shit. When she figures that out, she’ll be queen of the universe. I just don’t get the whole inspiring poetry vibe off of her.” Thom laughed again. “Congratulations, Alex. You can still surprise me after all these years.” He grinned in delight.
Alex pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s not like that. You had to be there. It was just…the moment.”
“Aww. You had a moment? That’s adorable.”
“Get out. Get out now.”
Thomas had gone from grinning to chortling laughter choking in his throat.
“Seriously.” Alex was indignant. He’d never mocked Thomas’s choices. Much. “Out!”
Thomas went. Alex could hear him still laughing as he closed the door behind himself.
Chapter 15