When we told him—and only him—someone had controlled the speakers of Brent’s office, he was very intrigued by how they managed to do that so quickly.
“I could’ve done it,” he said. “But only if I’d already hacked into the system and had been right there with you guys.”
He looked so fucking excited about the prospect of learning how to do that, and I felt bad all over again about ending his time in college without warning. Especially since, as his father told me, he’d finally made some friends besides Bran.
So yeah, for him I’ll ask.
“Sure, of course,” Eli says quickly after sharing a glance with his father. “I’ll text you my handle, and he’ll know how to find me.”
“I have no idea what a handle is, but yeah, sure, let me give you my number.”
He smiles at me in a sheepish but sneaky kind of way—how he manages that is beyond me.
“That’s okay,” he says simply, and I’m stupidly confused for a long second before I get it.
“Right. You already have my number?”
“Uh-huh,” he says and bounces a little on his shoes. “I got it the other night to erase your GPS footprint before the Feds got there. It was a good idea to turn it off.” He speaks even faster now, more animated. “But it was still on when you got there, so I took care of that for you and for the two people you had cut the lines on the transformers down in the sewers.”
I stare for a long moment, honestly a little worried about how much information he has, so I turn to look at Harry accusingly and he lifts his hands in surrender.
“All I told him was to make sure no one could ever find out you’d been there.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Eli mumbles. “I know I can sound like a creep sometimes.”
Colby snorts loudly next to me.
“If there’s someone you don’t have to worry about sounding like a creep to...” He pauses to point his thumbat me, and for dramatic effect or some shit like that. “It’s this guy.”
“Ha,” Eli laughs loudly, then turns right back to shy. “In any case, I’ll get you the details soyour guycan contact me.”
“Thank you,” I murmur, still feeling like a tornado just passed through me.
“And I want to say,” Michael pipes up, looking right at Colby. “I’m really sorry about how you were fired, Colby. And that you were fired.”
“It’s okay.” Colby waves that off and I can see he actually doesn’t hold a resentment toward Michael.
That makes one of us.
“I want you to know I didn’t hear about it until a week later, and Rufus told me it was because you violated the code of ethics. I didn’t have any reasons not to believe him. Brent went directly to him.”
I guess that’s something . . .
“If you want to come back, I can assure you, the new head of ENN would love to have you.”
“Rufus is gone?” Colby asks, surprised.
“Of course! He fired you without cause and...” He pauses to throw an arm over Eli’s shoulder. “Eli here found he had a deeper connection to Brent.”
“Oh,” Colby says simply. “I—can I think about it?”
“Take all the time you need,” Michael says with a warm smile that makes me want to snarl at him. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we need to get back home because my step-son is in town for a game today.”
“A game?” Colby asks, then shakes his head. “Oh right, sorry. Your wife’s sons play hockey, right?”
“Yes, they do.” He looks so wholesome and proud of them. It’s really annoying. “Lex is coming in to play the Demons, so a long night with Jim in the owner’s box awaits.” The eye roll as he says his name tells me everything he thinks about the owner of the New York hockey team. I guess Michael’s not theworst. He jostles Eli a little and looks down at him with a big smile. “We’re excited to have him visiting anyway, aren’t we?”
“Y-yes, we are,” Eli says.
