“Same here,” I remarked, “on both counts.”
“Anyway, let’s talk about tomorrow for a sec,” my father proposed, turning serious. “There’s someone I think we should talk to, so be ready bright and early.”
I nodded. “Sounds good. Who are we going to see?”
“Let me hold that in reserve for tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t want you dwelling on it too much.”
“Ha!” I chortled. “And you think I won’t dwell on it now that you’ve mentioned it?”
“Yeah, it is kind of a catch-22,” he admitted as Electra came back with a couple of slices of pizza on a plate.
“Hey,” she said to him as she placed the pizza in front of me, “you’re not leaving, are you?”
“Yeah, I have to take off,” he declared. “Me and Jim have an early start tomorrow.”
“You mean we have an early start tomorrow,” she corrected.
Alpha Prime looked at me, and I just shrugged, saying, “You’re the one who dragged her into this.”
My father threw up his hands in capitulation. “All right, I’ll see the two of you in the morning.”
With that, he gave Electra a hug and a kiss on the forehead, and then I walked him to the door and saw him off.
Returning to the breakfast nook, I saw that Electra had put away the board games.
“You heading home, too?” I asked before taking a bite of the pizza she’d brought me.
“Do you want me to?” she asked coquettishly.
“What I want is to stay on your father’s good side.”
“Why is everything with you always about my dad?” she pouted.
“It’s not,” I countered. “Occasionally, it’s about Esper.”
She laughed at that. “Okay then, why is it always about the adults I live with?”
I sighed. “Look, I want us to get back to the point where we were before, but – everything else aside – it’s going to be difficult if those two don’t like me.”
“Wouldn’t your time be better spent on making me like you?”
“Nah, because if Vir and Esper like me, I can get you on board,” I quipped. “Speaking of Esper, have you heard from her?”
“Nope,” Electra answered, shaking her head. “But she’s off on assignment, so we may not hear from her until she gets back.”
I simply nodded in understanding. Whatever mission Esper got sent on, she was probably operating under radio silence until it was completed.
“Anyway,” Electra continued, “why don’t we continue this back in the theater room?”
As she spoke, she picked up the plate of pizza she’d given me and began walking away.
“So, you want to continue our date night?” I quizzed, following her.
She giggled. “It’s not a date, and what I really want is to finish the show we started before Alpha Prime showed up.”
“So you do want to continue our date,” I teased.
I kept needling her about our “date” as we headed back to the theater room, occasionally taking a bite of pizza as we walked. On her part, Electra laughingly denied each time that it was a date.
Once in the theater room, Electra took control of the remote and squeezed in next to me again on the recliner, while I finished off the pizza. It was only at that point that I began paying any real attention to the show. Electra appeared to find it engrossing, but to me it was incredibly boring. In fact, I started to doze almost immediately, and within minutes I was fast asleep.
Chapter 37
I woke up alone in the recliner. Looking around, I noted that I was still in the theater room, although the screen was now off. I frowned, trying to recall the previous night; the last thing I remembered was sitting in the recliner with Electra, watching some awful horror show.
Now that she had come to mind, I reached out for my ex empathically, and picked up her vibe almost immediately. I frowned. From what I could sense, she seemed to be in a room that had been designated as my mother’s office. (My mom had been a midlist author of superhero romances.) Curious as to what she was doing in there, I was about to teleport to her when my cell phone chirped to let me know I’d received a voicemail message.
I pulled the phone out and saw that I actually had two missed calls: one from Myshtal the night before, and one from my father just a minute or so earlier. (In fact, it was probably Alpha Prime’s call that had woken me up.) I also saw that they had both left me voicemails.
Myshtal’s message was fairly straightforward: she was just calling to check in and would chat with me later. My father’s message was similarly direct: he was on his way and would be at my door within thirty minutes.
Yawning, I stood up and stretched. I’d had to shapeshift again when Electra sat next to me, so I quickly morphed back to my normal frame. I then did a repeat of the previous day, teleporting to my room and racing through my morning routine and shower at super speed. I then dressed and teleported to my mother’s office.
Although her back was to me when I popped up, Electra – without turning around – gave me a hearty, “Good morning.” She had obviously sensed my bioelectric field – an ability that let her know when others were near.
“Hey,” I said in response. “What are you doing in here?”
Electra, who had been standing at my mother’s desk and leaning over, stepped to the side, revealing a laptop. Her body had previously been blocking it, so I hadn’t even known it was there.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she began, “but I woke up kind of early and was looking for something to do.”
“So you spent the night here again,” I noted.
“Yeah, but I already talked to my dad, so try not to make a thing of it.”
I barely avoided letting out a groan of exasperation, but managed to simply say, “Okay, fine. Now, how’d you find your way in here?”
“After I freshened up in the guest room again, I was looking
