“I did. I guess I should have specified that the ingredients need to be added slowly,” I giggle.
“Well, obviously,” he chuckles, gesturing to himself.
After snapping a quick picture to send to Sue, I walk over to him. “Come on, I’ll help you clean up.” Grabbing a dish towel, I gather up the flour off the island. “Wipe the flour off your head and neck over the sink.”
After he’s dusted what he can out of his hair and shirt, Zander wipes his face and neck down with a wet cloth. I grab the mixing bowl and scoop out the contents into the garbage. “You’re throwing the whole mixture out?” he asks.
“Yeah. There’s no way to tell how much flour is missing, so we have to start over.”
“Well, damn,” he grumbles.
I smile at him. “It’s not a big deal. We’ll start over, and I’ll keep a closer eye on you this time. Can you grab a broom? I’ll wash the bowl.”
I stay beside Zander next time, and he mixes up a batch of cookies successfully. We get them in the oven, and then he requests we bake snickerdoodles for Troy. We have four dozen cookies by the time we finish. Zander goes to grab a shower while I watch the last batch in the oven. I shoot a text off to Sue with the picture of Zander covered in flour, and she gets a good laugh out of it.
He takes me to a local barbecue joint for lunch. I choose the barbecue chicken, and Zander orders the ribs. Barbecue in the South, I discover, is vinegar based, which is still good but surprising and much tangier than I’m used to. I try one of his ribs, and both are delicious. I much prefer the northern mayonnaise-based sauce, though. He tells me stories about his summers with Mara and Philip as we enjoy our meal at an outdoor picnic table.
We decide to put the fire pit together in the afternoon. It takes a couple of hours to get the grass cleared, the ground levelled, and the actual pit built with the stones. We place the Adirondack chairs around it and end up cooking hot dogs for supper over the open flame and making s’mores.
That evening in front of the tv Zander puts on the second Marvel movie. It’s been a surprisingly good day.
I call Sue from bed when I wake up on Sunday morning. I tell her about everything I’ve been up to since we spoke last. After breakfast, I spend some time outside under the live oak tree.
Zander joins me after a few phone calls about his work and shows me where there used to be vegetable gardensin the backyard and encourages me to start my own. He saved a bunch of Mara’s gardening stuff that he’s going to show me tomorrow. We visit a beautiful plantation and gardens in the afternoon, and I learn my great grandma helped with the flower gardens years ago. We take a tour and buy some fresh produce before heading home.
Chapter 19
Zander drives us to his workplace Monday morning with a covered plate of snickerdoodles. He wants to show me the office and needs to do some paperwork. We pull up to a one-level structure with a few parking spots out front and a larger parking lot on the left side. It’s a red-brick building with a few shrubs in pots along the parking area. The front looks like a typical office building with three large tinted glass windows and a glass door along the front facing the road. There are two trees on either side of the door with empty flower beds surrounding the trunks. Zander uses his thumbprint to open the door. There’s an open entrance area in front of us with faux plants on either side of the door. Wood looking tile flooring and a large industrial mat are underfoot. Soft grey walls surround us.
“Here it is,” Zander says. “That’s a meeting room on the right for clients and a washroom. Straight ahead is my office, and Troy’s office is on your left.” We walk down the hallway on our right next. “On your right is a conference room. The left doors are employee rooms, and the gym is on your right with locker rooms,” he explains, opening the gym door. It’s a full workout room with all the typical equipment you’d find, including 3 treadmills.
There are a few guys inside on various machines. Zander waves at them and leads me across the hall. It’s a large, open room with armchairs, a couch, and tv on the wall. A small kitchen is on the left side. “Son of a…” Zander mutters, shaking his head.
I turn to look where he’s staring and see a large framed print of Zander and his penguin hanging beside the tv. I can’t help but let out a laugh. “Troy told me he had plans for that picture.”
“He obviously needs more work to do,” Zander grumbles, but there’s a small smile on his face.
We move to a heavy-looking steel door at the end of the hallway between the lounge and gym. “This is a room only Troy and I have access to,” he tells me as he uses a retinal scanner to open the door. There’s a desk area on the left, a small fridge and a few servers. Drones and laptops sit on shelves, and there’s a locked file cabinet. Another heavy door is on our right. Zander enters a code on a keypad, and he opens the door to a small armory. The armory contains organized guns, ammunition, bulletproof vests, tasers, and handcuffs. “Wow,” is all I can manage.
Zander grins at me as he closes the armory again, and we walk back down the hallway. “We also have a helicopter and small plane at the Mt. Pleasant airport.”
“Hence the transport part of Finn Enterprises,” I nod.
“Exactly,” he replies as we enter his office. It’s spacious, with a large dark wood desk and two black leather armchairs facing the desk. Typical padded business chairs line the right wall, and there’s a large indoor window facing the front door. “Okay, so I have some paperwork to read through and sign. Want to hang out here?”
“Yeah, that works,” I nod. Setting the cookies on the desk, I take a seat in one of the side chairs in Zander’s office and pull up my email on my phone. There's an email from the high school. Clicking on it, I read through the standard welcome letter and see an attachment containing a list of available classes and another with a list of extracurriculars. Looking around the office, I see a printer on the far side of the room. “Hey Zander. I got a list of classes from the school. Can I print it off on your printer?”
“Yeah, of course. We’ll connect you to the building’s Wi-Fi, and then you can search for the printer. It’s listed as Zander’s office.”I do a Wi-Fi search and find Finn Enterprises. Zander writes the password down and slips it to me covertly, as if we’re trading state secrets. I shake my head at him. After I get the Wi-Fi setup, he takes the paper back and shreds it. I raise an eyebrow at that. Smirking, he says, “Can’t be too careful around here.”
“Aren’t most of the employees ex-military?”
“Most, but not all. I’m just messing with you. The room at the back is where we keep all top-secret information that only Troy and I can access.”
“Wow,” I say, raising my eyebrow.
“Don’t forget, we have government contracts and deal with the rich and famous around here. One reason we have such an excellent reputation is that we take great care to ensure confidentiality and discretion.”
“That makes sense,” I agree. Opening the documents, I select print and retrieve the sheets from the printer. Zander informs me about the office supplies underneath. I thank him and pull out a few drawers to find a pen, a highlighter, and grab a dark green clipboard from the stack below the printer. Clipping on the sheets, I head back to my seat. The classes listed are a wider selection than what we have in Virginia, so I grab my phone to bring up the school website to view the details of each class. Highlighting those on the sheet that are the same or close to what I was already taking.
