Dar chuckled again. "Well, she wouldn't let me rent her." She sighed. "But you better take good care of her or I'll reroute your paychecks to feed starving wolves in Oregon."
Mike was laughing so hard he was making the seat shake.
"You're so romantic," Kerry said, affectionately. "That's one of the things I adore the most about you, Dardar. Dinner went fine. We're headed back to Angie's house now." She slowed before the turn up to her sister's road. "You should try and get some sleep."
"Okay," Dar agreed. "Just wanted to find out how things went. Talk to you later, Ker. Love you."
"Love you too." Kerry closed the phone and put it on the seat next to her, aware of the sudden and almost awkward silence from her siblings. She let that go on for a few minutes, and then she glanced at them right before she pulled into Angie's driveway. "Least she got you two to stop fighting."
"Yeah." Angie sighed. "You guys sound so storybook married."
Kerry smiled, as she parked the truck turning off the engine and popping the door open. "That's probably the nicest thing you've ever said to me, sis. Thanks." She got out and Angie hopped out on the other side.
They looked at each other, and then they both slammed their respective doors, leaving Michael hanging upside down in the front seat.
"Hey!" he yelled through the door. "Hey! Help me out of here!"
Kerry and Angie bolted for the house, running up the sidewalk toward the front door as the horn started honking behind them, laughing as they headed for the door.
DAR WOKE UP as the early light shone through the window, her internal clock as dependable as it was at home despite the five hour time difference. She studied the outline of the sill, content to lay there wrapped around her pillow as sleep slowly receded.
Softly, far off, she could hear the sounds of the city. Horns and the sounds of machinery, no different than any other city she'd ever woken up in save the one where she lived. Out on the island, there was no real traffic, and if anything penetrated the soundproofed walls of the condo it was the roar of the ocean and the occasional hoot of a barge.
Or sometimes a mating peacock.
The peace there was something she'd come to appreciate. It gave her a period of space in which to live, and get ready for the day before she had to cross the water, and enter the insanity of Miami traffic and head to work.
Spending the morning with Kerry, going through their routine, the gentle banter, the morning run, or walking over to the gym in bad weather, talking together, or being silent together--she found with a start like that, her entire attitude at work had completely changed.
People used to absolutely avoid her. Dar realized that. She knew that she'd done a lot to foster the notion that she was likely to bite people's head off in the morning unless she'd at least gotten a gallon or two of café con leche into her, and that if you wanted anything, you'd better wait until after lunch.
Now? People actually approached her in the damned elevator on the way up to the fourteenth floor. Dar rolled over and stretched her body out. Sometimes some of them even smiled at her, and occasionally, when she was in a particularly mellow mood after one of their long joint showers, she smiled back.
Less coffee, less stress, less screaming, more fun. Dar smiled at the ceiling. Life was charming the hell out of her at the moment despite the fact she'd had to spend the previous night in a smoky pub. Stifling a yawn, she pulled the covers back and rolled up out of the bed and onto her feet, stretching her limbs out as she wandered over to the window and peered out.
Raining. Dar pondered the gray exterior glad she had her long coat handy. The meeting was not that far away, perhaps ten minutes. She reveled in the notion that she had a reasonable amount of time to order breakfast and shower before she had to get ready.
Nice.
She sat down at the sleek desk near the window and flipped open the room service menu, propping her head up on one hand as she studied its contents. After a minute she closed the book and touched the speakerphone keypad, dialing room service and placing her order with the amiable and cheery voice on the other end.
With that done, she opened the screen to her laptop and started it up, leaning back in the chair as she waited for it to boot. Since it was in the middle of the night back at the office, she really didn't expect there to be much mail but you never knew, and anyway, sometimes Maria forwarded her unintentionally funny jokes she'd come to enjoy.
The room was pleasantly cool, and she felt a sense of contentment as she watched some birds fly past outside the window, turning her head back only when her laptop beeped wanting attention. She keyed in her password and let it continue starting up her secured session to the office.
Mark had found them biometric laptops. They had a scanner attached that took fingerprints. Dar had tried one for a period of a week and ended up almost tossing it off the balcony on the 14th floor as the technology was just not ready for her.
Either that or she had weird fingerprints. Mark swore it worked for him. They were going to try retinal scanners next, but she figured if the stupid thing couldn't even read her index finger, they had scant chance of being able to read her eyeball.
"Technology sucks sometimes," she informed her laptop. "It's never where we want it to be, is it?"
The laptop bleeped back at her.
"Shut up." Dar leaned forward and reviewed her mail. As expected, there was nothing too urgent and she picked through them with casual interest, pausing to smile at a forwarded picture of a sunbathing cat from Kerry, and to shake her head at yet another request from Mariana for people to stop cooking fish in the building.
"Ah." She saw another one from the Mariana, and opened it. It was the softball team lineup, listing Kerry as captain and laying out the game schedule. She reviewed it, nibbling her lip as she realized they'd only be back from Europe a few days before the opening night. "Hm."
Mariana had told everyone that winning wasn't as important as participating. Dar understood that intellectually, but she knew full well that no one wanted to lose, least of all her, and really least of all her curiously competitive partner.
So. She opened a message and addressed it to Mark.
Hey. Make sure everyone shows up for those practice games since we'll be out here. I don't want to look like a jerk when we play the first one.
D
She reviewed it then sent the mail. That left the problem of when she and Kerry were going to practice, and she frowned. Maybe getting involved in the softball thing when they were traveling wasn't the best idea.
On one hand, she figured she could probably handle a game without much preamble, trusting what she thought of as a reasonable set of athletic skills and a cursory memory of the sport to carry her through.
Kerry, however, though she had good reflexes and could handle her body, really had nothing to go by in terms of knowing what to do in the game, and Dar had gone and volunteered her as captain.
"That was idiotic," she remarked to herself.
A knock came at the door, and she left the problem to sit as she went and answered it, letting in the room service waiter complete with a little wooden cart full of her selected breakfast. She signed the check and handed it back, then sat down as the waiter left and closed the door.
In the midst of opening her cereal box, her cell phone rang. Dar cursed, launching herself over the bed to the nightstand where the device was rattling, and grabbing it. She opened it and managed to get it to one ear without falling off the bed, but without time to see who it was. "Yes?"
"Hey honey."
Dar stuck her tongue out and stifled a laugh. "Hey."