The Arrival | The House of Voices #3

Thirty Eight - Catching Up

Catching Up

 

October:

Almost an hour passed before Gomez’s office door opened and Parish walked out. I stood up from the couch and walked over to him.

“What happened in there?” I asked him, nodding my head in the direction of the closed office door.

“He wanted to talk to me about my mom,” Parish answered, giving me a little shrug.

“Oh?”

He nodded. “Told me about how they met and the things they discovered. He was actually pretty nice. Intimidating, but nice.”

“That doesn’t really explain why Ace and Spade are so scared of him.”

“I have no intention of getting on his bad side and finding out.” He made a face. “And speaking of Ace and Spade, where are they?”

“I think they’re minding the shop,” I said. “Why?”

“Gomez wants to have a little ‘chat’,” he made air quote signs, already walking towards the front of the mansion, “with all four of us. I’m supposed to ask them to close the shop for a while and come into his office.”

“Any idea what he wants to talk about?”

“Not a clue,” He shook his head, turning out of the den and into the hallway. “Maybe they’ll know,” he jerked his head in front of us, where the sounds of Ace and Spade’s voices filled the air in the foyer.

“Are you going to be an ask-hole about this?” We heard her say.

“An ask-hole?” Spade’s voice sounded amused.

Parish and I stepped quietly into the converted lobby of the mansion to see Ace sitting on top of a heavy table laden with thick books and mason jars, petting a purring Tubman in her lap. Spade was beside her, leaning against the table and trying, and failing, to focus on polishing an antique brass pot.

Parish and I glanced at each other. Neither of them noticed the two of us.

“Yeah, you know, one of those people who comes to someone for advice and then doesn’t take the advice given to him,” she explained. “Ask-holes.”

Spade’s face turned from amused to indignant. “Excuse me, but I did not come to you for advice.” He said, pointedly looking away from Ace and rubbing furiously at the base of the pot. “You asked me how things were going with Sheryl, and I answered. Simple as that.”

Ace rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine, maybe you didn’t actively seek me out for advice, but hey, I gave you some very free, very good advice and you should totally take it.”

He sighed. “Ace, we—”

“—broke up, I know,” she interrupted him. She tilted her head to the side, looking at the side of his face now, instead of the back of his head. “But I’m sure she’ll give you a chance if you just called and explained.”

“Ace, I bailed on her three dates in a row. Personally, I think she had every right to dump me.” He raised an eyebrow, still looking at the pot. “Why is it so important to you that I call her, anyway?”

Suddenly looking guilty, Ace sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and turned to look at her feet. “I just… I just thought she made you happy, is all.”

With another sigh, Spade put the pot down on the table and twisted until his hip was leaning against the table and he was looking Ace in the face. “I liked her,” he told her quietly, “but not enough to want to pursue something that had long since run its course.”