Random Sh*t Flying Through The Air

Book 2: The Frost Files

by Jackson Ford

Genres: Superheroes; Humorous sci-fi; Cyberpunk

Synopsis

'LIKE ALIAS MEETS X-MEN . . . I LOVED IT!' Maria Lewis on The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind

Full of imagination, wit and random sh*t flying through the air, this insane new Frost Files adventure will blow your tiny mind.

Teagan Frost's life is finally back on track. Her role working for the government as a telekinetic operative is going well and she might even be on course for convincing her crush to go out with her. But, little does she know, that sh*t is about to hit the fan . . .

A young boy with the ability to cause earthquakes has come to Los Angeles - home to the San Andreas, one of the most lethal fault lines in the world. If Teagan can't stop him, the entire city - and the rest of California - could be wiped off the map.

'Ford delivers a fantastic follow-up to The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With her Mind with this tale of earthquakes, superpowers and culinary ambition' Publishers Weekly

'The suspense, the danger, and the rocket-fuelled pace are all turned up to 11 in this more-than-satisfying sequel' Kirkus

Praise for The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind

'Proceeds at breakneck speed through almost 500 pages of madcap adventure' Guardian

'Fast-paced and a lot of fun to read . . . a modern action movie that just happens to be in book form' The Fantasy Inn

'A drunken back-alley brawler of a book' Robert Brockway, author of The Unnoticeables

'Ford's breakneck pace keeps the tension high, and the thrills coming the whole way through' BookPage

'A fast-paced, high-adrenaline tale' Kirkus


The Frost Files novels:
The Girl Who Could Move Sh*t With Her Mind
Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air
Eye of the Sh*t Storm

Release date: July 7, 2020

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 544

Sample

Ninety-nine per cent of traffic stops are completely routine.

Rudy Daniels knows the stats. He’s been doing this job for a while. All the same, that pesky one per cent is never too far from his thoughts, close as the sidearm on his left hip.

Not that he’s worried about this stop. In his learned opinion, it fits squarely in the ninety-nine per cent. He caught a glimpse of the driver as she shot past in her red pickup – she’s not the one per cent type.

Daniels pushes the accelerator, coming in close behind her and blipping the siren. The pickup swerves slightly, as if the driver had been on the verge of falling asleep. There’s the flash of an indicator, and the truck comes to a stop on the hard shoulder, the tyres sending up a burst of fine desert dust.

Daniels brings his cruiser to a halt twenty feet behind the pickup. He squints into the harsh afternoon sun, reading the plate, scratching it out on his notepad in case the driver decides to take off. Not that he’s expecting it. The worst he’s ever encountered on this particular road was the time a couple of kids got into a drag race, and thought they could outrun him. Spoiler alert – as his daughter Kyla would say – they couldn’t.

He keys his mic. “Dispatch, Charlie C3.”

Connie’s voice comes over the line cleanly. “Copy Charlie, what’s up?”

“Got an 11-95 out on the 10.”

“Anything serious?”

“Naw. Just letting you know what’s what.” Daniels reads her the pickup’s plate from his notepad.

“Goddamn slow-ass computer,” Connie mutters. “Sorry, Rudy. Give it a second to run.”

Daniels sighs. If he waits, he’ll be here for ever. “I’ll go have a look-see. Doesn’t seem like trouble.”

“Copy that.”

He grabs his hat from the dash, slipping it on as he clambers out of the cruiser. He wishes he didn’t need it – he’s six-two with shoulders like a linebacker, already scary enough without his shades and the wide-brimmed Highway Patrol hat. But both are essential out here, in the shitting-hot, baking hardpan of the Arizona–California border.

The sunlit sky above is completely empty. So is the highway: no traffic in either direction. Daniels adjusts his nametag, making sure it’s visible, knowing it is but doing it from habit anyway. Traffic stops go a lot easier if the subject has a name to hold onto. He’s heard of other patrolmen, even LA cops, taking their badges off before they head into action. It’s the kind of thing that makes him curl his lip every time he hears about it. God above knows, he’s not perfect, but even the thought of it makes him angry.

The truck has New Mexico plates, yellow on blue. The window is already down, which is good. The driver’s hands come into view as he approaches, still tight on the wheel. No rings – just a single gold bangle on her left wrist. The hands are veiny, fingers thin, the skin baggy around the knuckles. Daniels can’t properly make out the interior yet, let alone the driver, but the hands tell him plenty.

The rest of her comes into view as his eyes adjust. She’s younger than her hands suggest – a lot younger. Early twenties, maybe. Bleached-blonde hair with the brown roots showing tied up in a messy ponytail. High cheekbones, a splash of freckles across tanned skin. Daniels would peg her for a college senior heading out on Spring Break, if it wasn’t for the hands. And her eyes. They’re a little too big for her face, and she’s blinking too much.

For a second, Daniels is on edge – if she’s high, this is going to get a lot more complicated – but then he relaxes. She’s just nervous.

“Afternoon, ma’am. I’m Officer Daniels, California Highway Patrol. You coming from Arizona?”

“That’s right.” Said with a little upward tilt of the chin, like he’d accused her of something.

“May I see your licence, please?”

She starts, digs in her purse. Daniels flashes a quick smile at her passenger, the little boy sitting on a booster in the front seat. His tanned skin is dotted with freckles, untidy brown hair hanging down past his neck. He’s wearing an oversized white T-shirt with a bright hot-air balloon on the front, advertising the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. His head, which is a little too large for his scrawny body, is bent towards the iPad on his lap.

Usually, kids get interested when Daniels asks for a licence, ask if he’s a real police officer or if he can arrest them. Yes I am, and only if you’re mean to your mom. The answers are ready, but the boy barely glances at him.

“Here,” the woman says.

Daniels squints at the licence. Amber-Leigh Schenke, and she looks as nervous in the photo as she does in real life. “You folks on vacation?”

“That’s right. We’re visiting LA. I wasn’t speeding, officer…”

“No, ma’am, you weren’t speeding.” He leans down, hands on his knees, looking across the car. “What’s your name, young man?”

The young man in question says nothing. He ignores both of them, fingers tapping at the tablet screen. He’s reading an ebook, and not one with pictures. His finger traces along the text, his mouth moving silently. Daniels blinks – the kid can’t be more than four. He’s reading already? At that age, his Kyla had only just figured out the sounds of the different letters.

“Say hi, Matthew.” Amber-Leigh rests a hand on the boy’s leg. He doesn’t look up.

Daniels has always relied on his gut in the past, relied on it to send up a little warning signal when something isn’t quite right. It’s just given him the very slightest twitch.

He lets it go, annoyed with himself. His brains must be cooking. He’s stopped hundreds of drivers since he started the job, and he recognises the type. Law-abiding, nervous-as-hell, head filled with scare stories about rural cops.

“Well,” he says, hitching his belt, “you might not know this, being from out of state, but your son’s too young ride in the front seat.”

“He can’t?”

“No, ma’am. Against the law in California.”

“I want to sit up front,” Matthew says. He has a thin voice, high and reedy. He still hasn’t looked up from the iPad.

“He likes to sit in the front,” says Amber-Leigh.

“Sorry. No can do, my young friend.” He taps the pickup’s roof. “Better move on over to the back.”

“We’re sorry, officer.” Amber-Leigh glances at her son. “Would it be all right if he stayed? I’ll drive real careful.”

Rudy Daniels frowns. He’s not in the habit of letting traffic stops negotiate with him. And technically, he should be writing her up – something he wasn’t intending to do, until she started arguing with him.

His stomach rumbles. There are some nuts in the cruiser’s glove compartment, packed by his wife, who says they’re good for his cholesterol. Daniels happens to think that they taste like salted sand, and he’d be better served by a burger over at the diner in Ripley. He’ll have a salad instead of fries, though, to keep Stella happy.

He hands back the licence. “Just put him in the back seat, OK?”

“Is there no way we could—?”

“Have a good day, ma’am. Drive safe now.” He gives the pickup’s roof another tap, turning to head back to his cruiser. By now, Connie’s system will have turned over. Odds are Ms Amber-Leigh Schenke doesn’t have any violations, but—

Officer Rudy Daniels gets three yards from the pickup before the ground opens up and swallows him.

One moment, he’s mid-stride, mind already on his burger, wondering if maybe he should skip the salad and just have the fries anyway, Stella isn’t going to know. The next, there’s nothing but air beneath his foot.

It’s as if the ground is the surface of a pond – one that’s just had a heavy stone dropped into it, right where Daniels is standing. A depression forms instantly, a huge hole that grows deeper by the second. The displaced earth rises on either side of it in two enormous waves, the rocks and dirt and dust rushing outwards and upwards. He falls face-down into a gaping pit, mouth open in a scream that doesn’t quite make it out of his throat. His left wrist snaps on impact, a horrid burst of pain ripping up his arm. His ears ring, and above the sound, there’s a horrible, shivering roar.

Daniels rolls onto his back, gasping, getting a split-second glimpse of sky beyond the rearing waves of dirt. He has time to think one thought – a memory of playing on the beach in Santa Cruz with Kyla, holding her tight as they bodysurfed – then the earth crashes down.

Plumes of white dust drift away. The only evidence of what just happened is a vaguely ovular depression, as if a giant had briefly ground the sole of his boot into the dirt. There’s no sign of Rudy Daniels. His cruiser sits quietly on the shoulder, blinkers on, engine ticking as it cools.

In the pickup, Amber Schenke has her hands back on the wheel, ten and two. Knuckles white.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she says, staring straight ahead. Her voice is brittle.

Matthew shrugs, still not looking up from the iPad. “I didn’t want to sit in the back.”

After a moment, Amber turns the key and pulls away.

Oh, I fucked up.

I fucked up bad.

Sweat pours down my forehead, sliding into my eyes. I wipe it away with a knuckle, but that just makes it worse. Goddamnit, how could I be so stupid?

I lick my lips. OK. I can fix this. No biggie. I already have everything I need. Holding my breath, I manoeuvre the little wedge of metal into view, floating it through the air with my psychokinesis. Just as well – my hands are way too sweaty to hold it right now.

“Come on, baby,” I whisper. “Momma needs a new pair of shoes…”

Moving very, very freaking carefully, I wedge it into the gap. Wiggle it gently back and forth.

With a slight skritch, the metal spatula slips underneath the burnt rice, levering it up from the non-stick surface of the pan.

I almost squeal with anxiety, hardly daring to look. When I do, I let out a relieved groan. I didn’t scratch the pan. It’s the one good piece of kitchen equipment I own, outside of my knife, and I really didn’t want to fuck it up because I don’t know how to make paella.

I’d already transferred the top layer of unburnt rice to a fresh pan, so at least I have that to work with later. I keep at it, gently prying up the edge of the burnt crust. Yes, I know you’re not supposed to use metal on non-stick. I’ve lost my plastic spatula. It’s somewhere, in the messy clusterfuck that is my apartment, and I haven’t been able to find it.

The key to a good dinner party is to cook something you’re familiar with. That way, you can do it on autopilot, casually reducing sauces and sautéing onions while chatting to your guests and looking like a total pro.

So of course, for tonight’s dinner, I got it into my head to cook a dish I’ve never attempted before. Paella. It’s Spanish, and it’s yummy. Chicken, mussels, peppers, chorizo, jumbo shrimp. Bound together in creamy, al dente risotto rice, stained yellow with saffron. It’s one of my favourite things to eat in the world. Even the ones I’ve had here in Los Angeles, which is obviously not Spain, are pretty badass.

After reading the recipe, I figured it didn’t look too difficult. I don’t exactly know why I thought the best time to attempt it would be on a night I’m trying to impress a certain someone, but I did. I’m smart like that.

Paella needs to be cooked over fire, in a wide, shallow pan. That’s how you make sure the rice is soft and squidgy on top, and crusty and awesome on the bottom. I do not have a fire, or a special paella pan. I have a shitty four-ring burner in my postage-stamp kitchen.

My mistake was turning the heat too high. The pan couldn’t cut it. It’s baking hot around the stove, and as I dig in with the spatula to get the rest of the burnt rice, a couple of drops of sweat launch themselves off my forehead and land right on top of the only properly cooked shrimp in the entire pan.

Perfect. Just what every dish needs. Teagan’s secret sauce.

I push the spatula in deeper, going past the edge into the central part of the paella. “Come on, you stupid piece of shit.”

The burnt crust does not come on. The burnt crust is a little bitch and stays put, even with my pinpoint-precise mental movements of the spatula.

Yes: having psychokinesis – PK, as I call it – is really useful in the kitchen. It doesn’t help with actual ingredients – I can’t lift anything carbon- or hydrogen-based, so food is a no-go. But it’s great for implements. Not that I can reveal my ability to anyone. If I ever do make it into a professional kitchen – something that is absolutely going to happen, by the way – I’ll be on my own.

Of course, to cook for a living, you probably have to know how to make decent paella. Right now, I am so fired.

It might be better if the meal actually looked nice – trust me, a glowing pan of orangey-yellow paella is an orgasmic sight. Mine is… not. It’s an off-white sludge of creamy rice and proteins and overcooking peppers. As it turns out, you need a ton of saffron to make any real difference to the colour, and saffron is fucking expensive. Shockingly, the government agency I work for wouldn’t let me expense four grams of the stuff.

I run my finger down the oil-spattered page of the cookbook next to my stove, take a swig of beer. It’s my third, and I only started drinking an hour ago, but screw it. I put the bottle down and go back to scraping, which is when the smoke alarm goes off.

What the actual fuck? I know I let the rice burn, but the thing can’t be that sensitive. Except… Jesus, there’s a lot of smoke. My little apartment has high-ish ceilings, and it’s all collected there, turning the air hazy. It looks like someone hot-boxed the place.

I send out my PK in a wild burst of energy, hunting for the off switch on the alarm. As I do so, my foot lands on a wet patch on the kitchen tiles. I grab at the counter for balance, arms whirling. My flailing hand just nicks the half-full beer bottle, knocking it off the counter to shatter in a bazillion pieces across the floor.

I stand, breathing through my nose, listening to the blaring alarm, doing my best to think very hard about nothing at all.

I somehow manage to shut the noise off, and grab a dustpan and mop out from under the sink with my PK to handle the shattered bottle. Then I go back to scraping, keeping what’s left of my poor mind on the beer clean-up.

PK is great for multitasking, but I do sometimes my wish my parents had given me other abilities. Super-powered cooking skills would have been nice. The ability to sense burning before it begins. Not exactly useful when you’re trying to create the perfect soldier, but definitely more applicable to everyday life.

The central part of the burnt rice still won’t budge. It’s tempting to just rip the stove and oven out of the wall with my PK and send them smashing through a window. I can do it, too. I used to think I could only lift around three hundred pounds, but a few months ago I discovered I was… Well, let’s just say I’m a lot stronger than that now.

There’s a knock at the door.

No way is it seven-thirty already. It can’t be. A look at the oven clock tells me otherwise. Goddamn it, he was supposed to text when he was getting close.

I grab my phone from its charger by the fridge, and of course, he did. I just didn’t hear it because I was too focused on not destroying dinner.

There’s a horrible moment of frozen panic, where I’m not sure if I should keep cooking, open the windows for the smoke, answer the door, get him a drink or just fall over.

I settle for the door. I badly wish I had time to smarten up – when your crush is coming over for dinner, these things matter. I’d planned to put on something a little less gross than the 2Pac tank I’m wearing, and fix my hair. I’ve been growing it out lately, and it’s pulled back in a short, messy ponytail, black strands going every which way.

I take a deep breath, tell myself to calm the fuck down, and open the door.

The book’s gotten boring. Matthew’s already figured out who committed the murder. Part of him is pleased that he managed to outsmart the writer, even as he’s equally annoyed that there’s no point in finishing the story now.

For the first time in hours, he lifts his gaze from the iPad, blinking. It’s gotten dark outside the truck. Clouds have just started to gather, deep and black, scudding across the sky. The dashboard clock reads 6:02.

“I’m hungry,” he tells his mother.

“OK,” Amber says carefully, not taking her eyes off the road. “There’s some chips in the back, I think?”

“I don’t want chips. I want a tuna sandwich.”

“We’ll be at San Bernardino in a little bit. We’ll stop for some dinner there.”

“I don’t want it in a little bit.” His voice has gotten louder. Why does she always try to calm him down? “I’m hungry now.”

“Baby, don’t get mad. I’ll find you some food soon, OK?”

She should have gotten snacks. He can’t buy food – he’s too little, even if he knows a lot more than most grown-up people. The annoyance turns to anger, boiling up inside him, his chin trembling. A tear pricks at the edge of his left eye. He lets it drop – grown-ups hate it when kids cry.

He reaches out with his mind, grabs hold of a small rock from the side of the road. It’s harder to do if he’s in a moving car than if he’s standing still, but he manages to snag it, whipping it at the window as they rumble past. It collides with a crack, making his mom yelp.

“Baby, please…”

In response, he grabs another rock, cracking the back window. “I’m not a baby,” he yells.

“Mattie, I’m sorry, I—”

A chunk of soil spatters across the windshield on her side, and she has to fight not to swerve. Matthew’s anger grows and grows. He’ll make her get out the car and stand still so he can teach her a lesson. The thought of pelting her with dirt, of finding the smallest, sharpest rocks he can, fills him with a slippery little jolt of glee. It’s the kind of glee most children feel when they do something bad, when they draw on a wall or pour a full glass of milk on the floor. Most children have the sense to back away from it, aware that they’re taking a risk – not just the wrath of a grown-up, but something much more primal.

Deep inside Matthew, there’s a twitch of worry – a little vestigial tail, weak and helpless. The worry that this time, he might have pushed it too far. He ignores it, as he always does. He’s done way worse than this before, and hasn’t gotten in trouble, not really. Not even at the School. Definitely not with Amber.

Thinking of the School makes him angrier. Matthew wishes he’d stayed. So what if the government was coming to shut the place down? He wouldn’t have let them. Ajay and the other teachers knew what he could do – they’d tested his powers a bunch of times. He was the smartest person there, everybody knew it, so he didn’t get what the big deal was. He shouldn’t have let Ajay talk him into running.

He howls, tears gushing down his cheeks now, mouth twisted in a snarl as his mother begs and pleads. Dirt and rocks hammer the car, cracking the rear window, scudding against the tyres. No one else can do what he can do, no one else knows how, they’re not smart enough. What would happen if he threw something bigger? Concentrated a little bit more, grabbed a rock or a boulder, smashed it right into Amber’s stupid face? Is she saying he can’t? Does she really think he won’t do it?

A building looms out of the darkness. A gas station, just ahead, the awning visible around a sloping hillock. Amber gasps with relief. “There! We’ll stop quick, OK? Get some dinner.”

For a moment, Matthew wants to keep going. Just smash the car to pieces, see what she does. But he is hungry. He wasn’t making that up. Slowly, the anger fades. Not gone completely – just smaller now.

Maybe they’ll have toasted tuna sandwiches.

Despite the fact that they’re in the middle of nowhere, the gas station is a big one, a huge Chevron sign perched on a massive awning. The concrete apron is old, worn in spots, but clean. There’s movement behind the windows of the station’s store, a clerk stacking a shelf already loaded with potato chips. To the right of the store, a man wearing overalls tied around his waist fiddles with a cage of propane tanks. A green Toyota idles at the pumps, the driver getting ready to pull away.

At that moment, Matthew feels a twitch, deep in his gut. It makes his eyes go wide, banishes the anger and hunger.

“Stop the car,” he says.

“Just going to park, baby.”

“STOP THE CAR NOW!”

She slams the brakes, face twisted in confusion and fear. Matthew leaps out before they’ve even come to a halt, popping the door and shooting across the grey tarmac.

He’s always been able to feel the ground – the dirt, the rocks, the soil. He can feel them all in his mind, like he’s holding them in his hand. He’s so used to it he barely notices, but this… this is different. This is big. Bigger than the biggest rock he’s ever lifted. It’s like the ground is calling to him, from very far down. He’s never felt anything like it before.

The Toyota has just begun to pull out from the pumps, and it comes to a screeching halt as Matthew crosses its path. He ignores the driver’s angry hand gesture. He just sidesteps, sprinting for the edge of the concrete apron. Behind him, Amber comes round the other side of the truck, shouting his name.

He skids to his knees, hands exploring the desert dirt. There’s not a breath of wind. The tears on his cheeks haven’t even dried yet.

“Matthew!” Amber reaches her son, coming to a halt a few feet away.

It’s energy. Not the smooth, even energy he gets in a rock, or a clod of soil. It’s pulled tight, stretched like guitar string. It’s deep, almost too big for him to wrap his mind around. He’s directly over it.

“What—?” Amber stops, coughs. “Sweetie, what’s going on?”

The propane guy shouts something from back by the building. Matthew ignores him. “I can’t even feel the end of it,” he says. “It goes on for ever.”

The energy line runs north to south, going further than he can touch. For the first time in his four years of life, Matthew feels something other than joy, or anger, or annoyance.

What he feels is awe.

Genuine, ice-cold awe.

“It’s deep,” he says. “It’s real deep. But I think… OK, I’m just going to try something…”

He places his hands flat on the ground, lowers his head. Around them, the loose rocks in the topsoil begin to shake.

A lot of lawyers don’t know how to dress down. Nic Delacourt isn’t one of them.

He’s wearing a crisp, grey V-neck T-shirt over dark jeans. It’s been threatening rain all day, and it looks like it just started: a few drops glisten on his bald head. Yes, we do occasionally get rain in LA.

Nic coughs from the smoke. “Bad time?”

“Perfect, actually. Come on in.”

He waves a hand in front of his face. “Think I’ll stay outside. Where there’s air.”

“Shut up.” I pull him into a hug, making sure to keep it quick and friendly. His shoulders are tight under his shirt – he’s toned, rather than ripped, but he spends a lot of his spare time outdoors. Nic’s a surfer, and snowboarder, and rock climber, with a knack for finding the best spots to do those things in.

But listen, you think you’ve had awkward break-ups? Try this. Girl has psychokinetic abilities. She works for the government doing bad-ass secret-agent shit, and they refuse to let her reveal those abilities to anyone. That means she doesn’t dare have a boyfriend because said abilities go haywire during sex. (Oh, your teenage years were awkward? Imagine tearing your room apart every time you masturbate).

Then, a really cool guy she’s friends with asks her out, and she has to be a dick and say no. Then she’s framed for murder, and has to go on the run. She ends up asking the cool guy for help, and in the process, reveals her powers to him.

Cue major freak-out, I’m-living-in-an-Avengers-movie, holy-shit-superheroes-are-real, blah blah. It didn’t help that right after, we got ambushed by a group of special forces commandos, and I ended up wrecking Nic’s apartment in the escape. That was before we all got chased down Wilshire Boulevard by one of the commandos, a psychopath named Burr who had a real hard-on for taking me out.

Anyway, he got over it – Nic, I mean, not Burr; Burr is a flaming ass-clown who will never get over himself, let alone me. The day was saved. Well, saved might be a little strong. I made it out, but lost another friend in the process. Our wheelman slash grease-monkey, Carlos Morales. Also known as Chuy. Also known as the asshole who fucked us over, framed me for murder and nearly got us all killed. Also known as my former best friend in the entire world.

The less I think about him, the better.

Bad guys dead, injuries healing, back to normal. Psychokinetic girl asks cool guy out. Even kisses him. And cool guy turns her down.

Sad trombone.

Don’t get me wrong: Nic doesn’t owe me anything. He’s got every right to think things through, and make his own decisions. It just… sucked.

Shock horror, I don’t define my self-worth by what someone else thinks of me – definitely not what a man thinks. Never have, never will. And after Nic decided he didn’t want to be with me, I went through a period of real anger. It was a self-righteous, high-horse kind of anger. I didn’t need Nic, I didn’t need anybody.

It didn’t last long. Mostly because I missed him.

I missed hanging out with him. I hated not being able to call him up after I got a tip on a new food truck, or to zip over to the other side of LA to try out a new pho place.

And sometimes, two people can’t stay apart. Ask anybody who hooked up with an ex, even though they knew it was a bad idea. We started texting. Then we started meeting up for coffee. I was careful. He knew how I felt about him, and I didn’t want to scare him off. Tonight is the first time he’s been back to my place since we kissed.

I still want to date him. But I also know it’s going to take a while to convince him that we’d be good together, especially given what I do for a living. The old me might not have been so careful, but let’s just say that the past few months have taught me a little bit about being careful.

“Hope you like paella,” I say, stepping aside to let him in.

He wrinkles his nose. “I like it when it’s not on fire.”

“Shut up. I’ll deal with the food, you open a window. I’ve got awnings, the rain shouldn’t get in.”

“Can you turn the music down a little?”

“What? Oh. Sure.” I have two massive, ancient speakers in my lounge, currently playing some very loud rap. Jay Rock – the Follow Me Home album. I reach out with PK and turn the volume down.

“I brought beer.” He drops a damp cardboard box on the counter and heads over to the window.

“Is it that hoppy shit you like?”

“Different kind. Not as strong.”

“So I’ll be tasting hops for days then, not weeks.”

He gives an awkward laugh. For a few seconds, neither of us say anything.

“Here.” I toss him a beer from his six-pack, desperate to break the moment, and crack one for myself. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.” He takes a sip that is just a little too deep. The kind you take when you’re waiting for the other person to say something.

We crash on the ratty couch. Like everything else in here, it’s seen better days, and like everything else, I can’t bear to get rid of it. At least I managed to tidy the place. Sort of. I didn’t really have shelf space for all my cookbooks, so they’re currently in a stack taller than I am, over by my bedroom door. My plastic spatula is probably underneath them.

I draw my legs up. “How’s the caseload?” Nic’s a special assistant in the District Attorney’s office.

He rolls his eyes. “I see briefs when I go to sleep at night.”

“Fun.”

“Anyway, it’s the usual boring shit. What about you? How’s work?”

He tries so hard to make it sound like a casual question that it ends up sounding really awkward. Not exactly surprising. For most people, work is sitting in an office or drilling stuff on a construction site or waiting tables. For me, it’s using my PK to break into places and put tracking devices on briefcases and lift important objects out of moving cars.

“Work’s good. We’re prepping for a mission in a couple days.”

A flicker of a smile. “Paul still making you guys do moving jobs?”

“Ugh. Yeah.” The little outfit we work for has a cover: a removals company called China Shop Movers. Our logistics guy, Paul Marino, is the Daniel Day-Lewis of secret agents. He loves getting into character.

“He still dating…?” Nic frowns.

“Annie.”

“Right, Annie. I can’t believe that – they seem really different.”

“They are.” Annie Cruz is the point person on our ops, which is a fancy way of saying she’s my babysitter. She has a sense of humour so small you’d need an electron microscope to detect it.

“How do they actually make that work?”

“I hear he’s really good in bed.”

He forces another laugh, even more awkward than the first. Of course I had to make a joke about sex. Why do I even bother trying to stop myself?

“Hungry?” I say, desperate to change the subject.

“Kind of. I don?