“Probation.”
“No women. This is the worst,” Wolf says as we turn the corner.
“It’s not prison. I’m sure we’ll have some free time.” Declan’s phone pings.
“Did Hammer say camp or glamp? Maybe it’ll be at a luxury spa,” Chase says.
“You’d like that,” Wolf ribs.
Chase’s phone beeps and he swipes to his email. “I just got the travel info from the secretary. I think this is a school of some sort. Finishing school.”
“Like old-school etiquette?”
“Like sipping tea with pinkies turned out,” Chase says.
I elbow him, wanting this to be taken seriously.
“What? I had three sisters. You’d better believe they made me sit in on their tea parties. Maybe this isn’t going to be half bad...” Chase says.
“But it’s not the same as the field time and practice that’s going to get us ready for the season,” I say.
“It says here that we’ll still be training. They’re sending some specialist or something.” Chase skims the email.
“Yeah, I feel special,” Wolf says darkly.
Chase claps Wolf on the shoulder. “Good. We have just enough time to go home, pack, and meet up to take the flight to the finishing school in a remote country called Concordia. Ever hear of the place?”
Declan nods, but the others remain silent.
As for me, I couldn’t find the country on a map, but the follow-up message from Ted suggests that I’m going to need to find a compass and my wife, fast.
6
EVERLY
When the beverage and food cart comes around, Manimal returns squarely to his seat but doesn’t spare an apology for encroaching on my personal space. Goodie and I chat some more about Concordia and their world-famous chocolate cake.
“I’m more of a cookie gal.” I go on to tell her about the Cookie Dough Diary. “When I was in college, I had a demanding professor and a very full second semester.” When I think about my more recent problems, I almost laugh at myself, but creating the Cookie Dough Diary was the best thing I could’ve done because it still serves me now.
“What did you study?” Goodie asks.
“I majored in business with a focus on hospitality services and minored in Victorian history. One practical, the other?—”
“A delight?”
“Exactly. One day, I needed comfort and I always found that in cookies and milk.” I stage whisper, “Cookies and milk from a store. Don’t tell anyone, but up until that point I’d never turned on an oven.”
“How’d you make it to college without doing that?”
“Don’t ask,” I mutter across Manimal’s sawmill snore. I don’t like to talk about the cold and modern house I grew up in, the cook, the nanny, or the general lack of cookies in my young life. “So I got all the ingredients, made the dough, and?—”
“Don’t tell me you couldn’t turn on the oven,” Goodie says.
“No, it was in my dorm’s common room and wouldn’t work. It was plugged in, but I guess there had been shenanigans the weekend before when some genius tried to defrost frozen bottled beer in the oven and blew the thing up.”
Goodie laughs. “Did you eat the cookie dough?”
“Sure did.”
