“Sweetie,” her mom said, “your father and I aren’t lonely, and we don’t need the money.”
Gabby hung up with a promise to think about it. Justin poured another glass of wine. “Are you sure you’d have to watch her? I’ve met Granny. I’m pretty sure she could watch all y’all.”
Justin might be right. Granny was a pistol. She’d defected from Moscow long before Gabby was born. Gabby had picked up a few words as a child, mostly things likeder’mo(shit),yebat’(fuck), andYa ub’yu tebya(I will kill you). Granny had been asking Gabby to help her escape from the old folks’ home since moving in, as if it was a prison.
A plan formed in her mind. Sienna’s mom could take care of the rides to horseback lessons. Her grandma could be here when Lucas got off the bus. This could be the perfect opportunity to learn how to make her grandma’s famous piroshki. Grandma was eighty. If the kids didn’t hang out with her now, when would they?
Justin asked, “My only request is that she stops trying to set me up.”
Gabby laughed at the memory. Her grandma just couldn’t believe he was gay, because he was “too handsome.”
Granny was going to either turn the house into a three-ring circus or be the answer to her prayers.
Circus or not, Gabby looked around the dinner table with anew sense of contentment. She was surrounded by love—Justin, her kids—and for the first time, she had something of her own, something that had nothing to do with the family. The EOD needed her. Valentina had said they were only using her for her looks, but there was a flip side to that. She had the leverage. The EOD needed her to complete this mission. And she was getting a job and training in the deal.
With a secret tucked behind her ear like a flower, Gabby didn’t feel just happy or renewed, she felt downright sexy. It was good to be mysterious.
Mr. Bubbles hopped up for a pet and made a big show of sniffing her pants. No one else knew a thing, but he could smell the gunpowder on her.
Sunday morning, EOD headquarters
On Sunday morning, Gabby walked into HQ a little less wide-eyed than the day before. Her attitude wasn’t all the way down to “just another day at the office,” but at least the EOD wasn’t giving her nervous diarrhea, verbal or actual. It was a #blessed, diarrhea-free day. Also a gun-free day. After shooting up the range, she was back to the training gym. She needed to focus on escaping sleeper holds because she couldn’t be trusted with a weapon. She was as bad as Lucas with a Nerf gun, except a hundred times worse because the bullets were real.
Gabby wanted a gun, though, so she was going to master self-defense and prove herself worthy.
The bone-jarring clatter of dropped free weights echoed through the gym. Markus was the source of the noise: grunting, lifting, dropping a bar of weights that was probably as heavy as a smart car.
“Morning, Markus. I brought smoothies.” She was starting today right, with some protein, fruit, and a powdered 3G boost that the teenager at the Jamba made sound like a healthy alternative to meth. She didn’t get any additive for Markus because he didn’t need any help.
“Thanks.” He wiped his palms on his pants and accepted a spinach pineapple concoction.
“I wasn’t sure if you were a spinach or strawberry smoothie kinda guy.” That was a personality test. Gabby fell squarely in the fruity flavor camp—drinks were red, salads green.
“I like anything I didn’t make.”
“So I was thinking,” she said, “could we just pretend yesterday never happened?”
Markus sucked down a big gulp of smoothie. “You’re in training. You try, you fail. That’s how it goes.”
Gabby pointed at his right eye, which wasn’t full-fledged purple but was definitely bruised.
“This?” He gestured to the eye. “Means you did a good job. You scored a point. Go harder on the real bad guys.” He held out his hand for a fist bump. “I’m just relieved you didn’t break my nose.”
“Although they might let you in the field if you weren’t so pretty, right?”
He snorted. “Probably. Alice would just say it gave my face character.”
It would. He would probably just end up looking more rugged.
Over on the mats, they went through stretches and a routine similar to a kickboxing class she’d taken once or twice. “Not bad,” Markus encouraged. “You’re getting it.”
“As long as the bad guy holds still for at least a minute while I line up my kick and maybe take a second stab if the first doesn’t land.”
He shook his head. “You have to start somewhere.”
Markus was right. She took a deep breath and tried to focus on her goals (get gun). “Embrace the adventure,” Gabby said inthe same tone Sloane Ellis used. If nothing else, she was following Sloane’s advice.
“Divorce is a new beginning.” Markus said the next line in the mantra in the same tone Sloane used.
