“And the fact that you shot up every alien in sight.” He leaned against Cliff as they approached the main doors. It waslighter outside, and the sun was trying to peer through the clouds. “Maybe we could ride the go carts before we go.”
Cliff snickered. “I don’t think so. You’ll leave me in your dust, I know it. Besides, I’m getting hungry, and I don’t want to eat here.”
“Okay. And just for the record, I’d probably let you win.” He dodged a swipe and raced for the car, with Cliff right behind him. He got caught just before he opened the car door. Dade laughed as Cliff held him tightly, lifting him off his feet.
“You can’t win everything.”
“No?” Dade smiled.
“Yeah, I got you this time.”
Dade met Cliff’s gaze. “Yeah, you did, but who says I didn’t want to get caught.” He drew closer. “I know what you want to do, but a couple of my students from last year just arrived, and they don’t need to see their old teacher getting kissed within an inch of his life in the parking lot.” He lightly patted Cliff on the shoulder. “But feel free to do exactly that once we get home.”
“Good idea.”
Dade climbed into the car before his former students could see him. They stopped in town for lunch at Miseno’s for their great pizza, then they continued back to Dade’s apartment, where his neighbor was just stepping away from his door.
“Hey, Emily. What’s going on?” She seemed frazzled.
“I have to go to my mother’s, and I was wondering if you could look after Grace for me. I’ll be back late and can pick her up in the morning before you go to work. I hate to take her with me. It’s a lot of time in the car, and she is not a good rider.” She really seemed worried.
“Of course. Just bring over her things. Cliff and I will be happy to watch her.” He smiled as he turned to Cliff.
“Thank you,” she said, hugging him before hurrying away.
“It looks like you’re going to get your wish,” Dade told him as he unlocked the door. Emily returned with Grace, an older poodle mix. Dade knew that Emily had had Grace since she was a teenager and that Grace was over ten. Dade took the bag of food, treats, toys, and her leash, as well as Grace’s bed, and set them on the floor.
“I really need to get to Mom. She’s having one of her episodes.” She kissed his cheek and hurried off.
Dade closed the door and set about getting a dish for water and putting out Grace’s food. He also placed her bed on the floor near one of the registers so she would be warm. Cliff sat with Grace, and the two of them watched the proceedings.
Once everything was set up, Grace carefully went to inspect everything, nibbling on some of her food before taking a place on the sofa right next to Dade.
“I take it you’ve dog-sat before?”
“Yeah. Once for three days while she was on vacation with her sister. Emily works for one of the arts organizations in town, and she loves it. But her family is in Northern Virginia, so visits are quite a drive. She’ll get down there, see to her mother, and then start right back. I could probably take Grace to school. The kids would love her, and she would stay behind my desk. Last year it would not have been an issue. But this year I have Tracey, and she is very allergic to dogs, so that isn’t a possibility.”
“The nice thing is that if she isn’t back, I could take Grace to post with me. She can sit under my desk while I make phone calls. It’s not a problem. The general has said that it’s okay on occasion to bring dogs into work as long as they are well-behaved and we aren’t out in the field. So, you can tell Emily that she doesn’t need to worry. Grace will be well taken care of until she gets back.” And just like that, Cliff’s kind generosity came through again.
“I’ll message Emily and tell her,” Dade said, and sent her a text right away. Then they settled on the sofa, with Grace finding a place next to him. “If we’re going to watch movies, we need popcorn and Cokes.” Dade hurried to get proper movie supplies.
ChapterEight
The followingweek, Cliff was swamped with work. Problems seemed to creep up around every corner, and he was constantly putting out one fire after another. The days got longer and longer, and on Thursday night, he slept on the sofa in his office so he could keep an eye on things. He’d showered and dressed in a clean uniform before anyone else came in, and was at his desk, ready to clean up the last of the mess.
Dade messaged him before class, asking him how he was doing and inviting him for dinner. Cliff responded that he was hopeful he could make it as long as he got the issue with their inventory system cleared up.
“We spot-checked the system with the actual inventory,” Lieutenant Grant said after a crisp salute. “I chose twenty items at random, and nineteen of the twenty were an exact match. The last item was off by one, so it’s within normal expectations, sir.” He was so nervous. Cliff had been riding him all week to get the data restored and verified after the outage. It had taken longer than it should have, but the job was done. “I also verified and updated our procedures for backup and recovery. We switched to a hot backup. It will slow down the system slightly, but it will also mean that we can recover our data to the hour rather than on a daily basis. I wrote up everything that we did and what I recommend doing. It’s in your inbox now.”
“Very good,” Cliff said, looking up from his screen where he had been reading the report. Scanning a summary of the situation and going back through documentation, he knew that the source of the issue was a decision made by his predecessor. “I’ll review everything and get your final approval by the end ofthe day.” He wanted to smile, but nodded instead, and Grant left his office.
Finally, things were looking up. He sent a message to Dade to tell him that he should be over for dinner and then got back to work.
At the end of the day, he checked in with his colonel and went home, the end of a hard, but productive week. He got out of his fatigues and showered before going to Dade’s in comfortable clothes.
“How were the kids this week?”
“Halloween is tomorrow. We had our party today, and the kids were bouncing off the walls. They had so much sugar and are so excited for tomorrow that all I could do was get them to do some art projects, and I managed to have each of them write their own Halloween story. It kept them busy until it was time for the party.”
