“So, Neil,” he began, “tell me what you think about our team. Be straight with me, dude, I want to hear what you got to say.”
Neil smiled. “Well, I’m not sure exactly what to say about you,” he said. “I mean, even by your own admission, you’re an enigma. A man with no emotions? That’s almost scary, except that in this situation, I think it makes you the right guy to have in charge. Then you got me—I’m just the computer hacker who has to try to figure out what it is you need to do before you have to do it. There, again, I’m the right guy for that job.” He took a drink of his root beer. “Now we get to the little hottie with the lead foot. Sarah’s got some kind of issue with you, and I’m not sure what it is. She almost acts like she knows you, but I’ve dug deeply into her past, and I’m pretty sure there’s no connections between the two of you anywhere. Maybe it’s just that you remind her of someone, and if I had to guess, I’d say it’s her father. From what I’ve been able to gather about him, he wasn’t always the nicest man to be around, and I don’t think he cared a lot about her feelings. If he wanted something done, she had to drop whatever she wanted to make sure it got done.”
“Really? That could explain a lot,” Noah said. “If you run across anything else, let me know, would you?”
“Of course, my King,” Neil said. “Now we got to look at the real pain in the ass, the guy with the stupid name. Who on earth names their kid Moose, for crying out loud?” He waved a hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s just a nickname. Once again, I did a little digging and found out that his real name is Milton. What kind of parent does that to a kid, either, now that I think about it? Anyway, Moose has got it in for you because of what happened to you in Iraq. He wants to pretend he’s some kind of super soldier, but the reality is that he punched out his commanding officer over something stupid. It’s a wonder he didn’t end up in Leavenworth, with you. Anyway, he didn’t, and now he’s been assigned to us. If there was one thing that Queen Allison did to us to really give us the shaft, he would be it.”
Noah nodded. “Okay, he doesn’t like me, we know that. How do you get along with the other two?”
Neil shrugged, waving his bottle around in the air. “We all seem to get along fairly well, or at least we have on the few occasions when we’ve been together. Although, to be honest, it seems to be a little better when you’re not around.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. Let me ask you a question, and I want a straight answer. Do you think it would do any good if you told them to back it down?”
Neil’s eyes went wide, and he began to laugh. “Okay, now you’re starting to worry me because you sound a lot like an idiot. Noah, they think of me as just some kid who happens to be good with the computer. They’re not going to listen to anything I have to say.”
Noah grinned at him. “Okay, okay, it was worth a shot. I’m just trying to pull this team together, make it work like a unit. With Sarah acting like she’s scared of me, and Moose wishing he could bury an ax in my forehead, I’m finding it pretty hard to do. Can’t blame me for grasping at straws, can you?”
A car pulled in, and Noah looked around to see Sarah and her new Camaro. So far, the only time she’d even given him a smile was the first time he’d had them all to the house. He had opened up the garage and let her see the Corvette, and for a few minutes, he had seen an entirely different person. She definitely loved cars, and that one caught her eye. Unfortunately, it hadn’t lasted. She had gone back to being her quiet, unfriendly self just moments after he closed the garage again.
She got out of her car and made her way over to where he and Neil were sitting near the grill. “Am I too early?”
Noah shook his head, and pointed to the cooler full of pop, beer and ice. “Nope,” he said. “You’re right on time as far as I’m concerned. Grab a bottle, join us guys. We’re contemplating the secrets of the universe over here.”
Sarah reached for a bottle, and Neil took advantage of the moment to lean close to Noah’s ear. “Did you catch the eye roll?” the boy asked, and Noah tossed in a chuckle, right on cue. Sarah came over and sat down in another chair.
“So,” she said, “secrets of the universe, huh? I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that I think that was probably a pretty short conversation. Am I right?”
“Ouch!” Neil said. “Do you always have to keep your claws out and sharp? Has it ever occurred to you that some of us might just want to be friendly?”
Sarah glanced at Neil, then flicked her eyes to Noah. “Sorry, Neil,” she said. “That wasn’t necessarily directed at you.”
Noah looked her dead in the eye. “Okay, so what is it that I did to you in a past life that makes you so determined not to be friends with me in this one? Any chance you can let me in on the secret?”