She casts a little grimace downward. “Your shirt is very comfy, Otis, but yeah, normal clothes would be good. Guess I can’t really work in my bikini, can I?”
I shake my head. “No, you cannot.” It comes out sternly. I try to soften my tone, adding, “You’d get chilly.”
And I’d get fucking turned on.
“Maybe, but it feels a really pleasant temperature here.”
“We ensure we keep things just right,” I answer, glad of something practical to focus on. “The thermal pumps keep the houses at a steady 24 degrees Celsius.”
She leans on her elbows and cups her chin in both hands, looking across at me quizzically. “How long has Jax been planning to bring me down here?”
“We first discussed it a few weeks ago.”
“It was a complete surprise to me. I hadn’t heard from him for well over a month.”
“I’m sorry. He should have given you advance warning.”
She shrugs. “Don’t apologize. It’s not your fault. Jax has been a complete wild card since we lost our mom.”
I nod. “Jax told me a while back that your mom died when you were kids. Sorry to hear that.”
She sighs. “Truthfully, we don’t know if Mom is dead. Not for certain. She just disappeared one night when I was nine and Jax was thirteen. We did everything we could to find out where she’d gone. My dad took it to the top authorities, but no-one had seen her. Not a trace. Maybe she ran away, or maybe they took her into custody or something.”
“Why would they do that?”
“I have no idea.” Her frown deepens. “Mom worked as an office cleaner, she never did anything wrong. She was a model citizen. Always smiling, always kind. She really loved us… she wouldn’t have left us by choice.” She sighs. “Before we lost Mom, Jax was a really sweet kid, y’know.”
I laugh. “Jax, sweet? Nah, doesn’t add up.”
“I know, right? Hard to believe now. He changed after Mom went missing. Though I missed her heaps, I got on with life because, well, I had to; the social services made sure I went to school. But Jax took her disappearance real bad. He stopped attending school, got into trouble a lot. He was caught trying to dig his way out of the dome, looking for her. That’s a very dangerous thing to do, and when he wouldn’t stop doing it, the authorities put him in a special school for troubled teens, and then from there he was sent to the Periphery to work.”
“What about you?”
“It was just me and Dad for years in our little apartment. Dad worked as an accountant all his life. I studied, got good grades, and looked after Dad when he got sick with cancer. I took a job straight from school so I could pay for his treatment.” She glances at me. “Smoking killed him in the end.” She sighs, her eyes clouding over. “That’s why I’ve always hated Jax smoking. At least he vapes now, which is an improvement, I guess.” She smiles across at me, but her eyes shine a little too brightly. “Enough talk of my shitty childhood. You’ve got work for me todo, I believe.” She jumps up and starts gathering our breakfast plates. “I can start by washing up.”
“You’re not here to do my cleaning,” I growl.
“Of course I’ll clean as well. I kept house when I was a kid so I’m a pretty good homemaker.”
Homemaker. I love the sound of that word, like she’s going to build a nest here with me. Bring the life and soul back to this old place.
I ruffle a hand through my short hair and say, “I’d be really grateful if you could sort out the papers in my office to start with.”
She nods, but still clears the plates and puts them in the sink. “Leave them, and come with me,” I say, striding out, and immediately I hear her soft footsteps pitter-pattering behind me
In the office, we stand together staring at the mess of papers strewn everywhere.
“It would be great if you could sort this shit into piles,” I say. “If there’s any papers covered in scribbled numbers and signs, like these,” I pick up a pile of notes covered in my untidy handwriting, “they’re coding I’m working on. I’ll get you some sticky notes and you can mark the pile, ‘Important: Keep.’”
“Any official-looking documents with an insignia of a crown with wings on the top of the page need to go in a file for ‘Sherriff duties.’”
“Same as your badge.” She stares at the big silver winged star on my chest.
“Exactly. I need to take all that stuff back to my work—they’re warrants and the like. I try not to bring back paperwork from the station, but sometimes it backs up, so I have to finish it of an evening.”
“Do you ever sleep?”
“Yeah, often at my desk,” I mutter.
