Page 41 of Hollow Code
"She did say that," Neve said.
"You weren't there." Coulter shook his head.
"I don't need to be there. I know how she gives directions." Neve leaned into him. "Scout once told me to head toward the tall tree during an extraction. We were in a forest."
"It was the tallest tree." Scout shrugged. "Not my fault your depth perception is average."
Zadie laughed, and the sound rumbled behind Gideon’s ribs, settling deep inside his chest. He wanted to lift his arm and let his hand fall on her shoulder. Instead, he took another sip of his beverage. As comfortable as he felt in this room, with these people, he didn’t want to physically express his feelings. It was one thing to tease and another to put it all out there.
"I want to run a perimeter check in the morning," Neve said. "Scout, can we coordinate?"
"Already mapped three alternative routes." Scout picked at the label on her bottle. "One follows the creek bed north, one cuts through the old logging road, and the third loops wide past the ridge."
"The ridge route adds an extra hour and a half," Coulter said. "For what?"
"For the vantage point at the top." Scout shrugged.
"You can see the same terrain from the creek bed with binoculars." Coulter stood and stretched.
"Binoculars show you what's there. The ridge shows you what's moving. It’s different data," Scout said.
"That’s overkill, don’t you think?" Coulter reached his hand out and Neve took it.
Gideon enjoyed watching the group. They were like different parts of a machine, working in unison to achieve the same goal.
"Overkill is my baseline." Scout took a drink.
"More like you just want to stay outside longer," Wynn said.
"Exactly." Scout lifted her beer and smiled.
Zadie reached for her wine and her shoulder brushed his arm. The heat traveled through him like a current—elbow to chest, chest to gut, gut to the part of his brain that ignited a fire in the rest of his body.
"All right," Neve said. "I'm calling it."
"See you all bright and early." Coulter wrapped his arm around Neve.
Scout jumped to her feet. "I'm headed to bed too."
Darwin sipped the last of his wine. "It's good to have you here, Gideon." He stood. "I mean that."
"I believe you."
"Don't stay up too late." Darwin helped Wynn up, waved her in front of him, and followed her into the kitchen before heading down toward their bedrooms.
Zadie turned slightly to face Gideon. Her hair fell past her shoulders, thick and dark, and he realized he'd never seen her without the braid. It changed her face. Softened the edges that were always sharpened by the mission, the readiness, the constant state of operation she wore like armor.
"You handled the teasing well," she said. "Some people would've gotten weird about it."
He stretched his arm along the back of the sofa. Not around her. Just near. "It was all in good fun. And they care about you. You’re family."
She traced the rim of her glass. "What about you? Outside of Darwin, did you have people?"
"At Hyperion?"
"Anywhere. I mean, you disappeared off the face of the earth two months ago."
He turned the bottle slowly in his hands. "I had colleagues I respected. A few guys I'd grab a beer with if someone organized it. But I was never the one setting up social engagements." He set the bottle on the table. "Put me in a room with a problem, one other person, and I'm fine. Put me at a company happy hour, and I'm the guy standing by the appetizer table calculating the minimum acceptable time before I can leave."
