“Thank you.” I salivated over my stack of pancakes swimming in syrup. “We appreciate the fast service.”
“It would have been quicker if your friend here hadn’t ordered half the contents of my fridge.” Her laugh was bright and warm. “Frank thought we must have gotten a school bus of fieldtrippers in.”
“I took a good look at everyone else’s plates on my way in.” Clay dialed up his charm. “Everything looked so good, I couldn’t choose just one thing. I had to sample it all.”
“Oh, you.” A bright flush lit up her cheeks. “Watch yourself around this one.”
With his simple coffee, Asa watched our byplay as if it were a better meal than what sat on the table.
“Well, I’ll let you get back to your visiting.” She pinched my cheek. “Holler if you need anything.”
Once she was out of sight, I rubbed the tender skin, which was sore from an excess of pinches.
That was the problem with eternal youth. I could pass for midtwenties, though I was probably her age. I had kept the round cheeks of my childhood, and their always flushed appearance made them irresistible to grandmotherly types. Pair that with wide blue eyes and wheat-colored waves that hit me mid-spine, and I could pass for a kid fresh out of high school.
The camouflage had served me well, and make no mistake, it was camouflage. Nothing about me had been left to nature or to chance. I was the culmination of generations of selective breeding that resulted in power, beauty, and intelligence wrapped up in one girl-next-door package.
I was brittle black and charred inside, with a charcoal briquet for a heart. How no one saw it shocked me until working for the Black Hats taught me that most people only saw what you showed them.
Out of safe topics of conversation, I veered toward the dicey. “How is everyone else?”
“The same.” Clay dug into his bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. “Immortals don’t change much.”
“True.” I picked at my pancakes with my fork. “Days, weeks, months, years blur in the office.”
Black Hat didn’t hire its agents. It blackmailed, kidnapped, bought, stole, traded, or threatened them.
“Ace is the only newbie,” he continued. “He’s been with us…eight years?”
“Seven.” Asa sipped his coffee. “How long until I’m no longer the newbie?”
“Until we get another newbie.” Clay bit down with gusto. “Probably another decade or three.”
Asa studied me over the rim of his mug. “How long were you the newbie?”
“Five years.” I set down my fork. “One of our agents went rogue, and Clay and I hunted him down.”
We killed him when he resisted arrest using deadly force. I picked his heart out of my teeth for days.
“She was promoted on a technicality.” Clay sucked on his teeth. “Some newbs have all the luck.” His eyes laughed at me. “Makes me sick.”
It made me sick too, the reminder of that first kill on the job.
“Are you going to eat that?”
Jerked from my grim thoughts, I found Asa staring at me. “You want my pancakes?”
“They look good.” He turned the mug in his hand. “You’re not eating them.”
“I seem to have lost my appetite.” I pushed the plate over to him. “Please, help yourself.”
A piece of egg fell out of Clay’s open mouth as he watched Asa settle in with my food.
Eyebrows on the rise, I invited him to inform me what the big deal was, but he got back to chewing.
“There you are,” a warbly voice called across the restaurant. “Hey, darlin’.”
An elderly man with dark skin shining with sweat toddled over with a twinkle in his eyes.