Page 177 of ClickBack

“Then you should know you need more information.”

I laugh, and Jarrett’s fingers settle against my knee beneath the table. He is talking to Cole about the morning visit, asking about a member of the training staff by name. Cole answers without making the conversation a sales pitch. There are practical things Jarrett wants to know that would mean nothing to somebody merely imagining him in a different uniform.

Denise asks me whether Rae heard anything more about the job. I tell her they promised to follow up next week.

“Waiting is the worst part,” she says.

“I’m trying not to ask her twice a day.”

“How’s that going?”

“I’ve reduced it to once.”

“You’re ahead of me. I ask one son, then ask the other if he knows anything.”

Jarrett looks over. “We know you do that.”

“Then answer the first time.”

She smiles at me, and I understand that she is teasing him because she can. She has been listening to both her sons talk about this city all day, and there is very little about the outcome she can influence. For tonight, she has them within reach.

After dinner, Nina brings out a box of dominoes. Denise claims a chair and points to the one across from her.

“I need somebody who intends to play.”

Ronan sits. “You called the right person.”

“We’ll see.”

I take the next chair. Nico takes the fourth before Javon can get there. Jarrett stands behind me, looking at the tiles while we mix them.

“No coaching,” I tell him.

“Wasn’t going to.”

Denise looks up. “Then you can watch from over there.”

He moves a chair beside the railing and sits where he can still see me. Javon joins him. I turn back to the table before Ronan mistakes my distraction for uncertainty.

He talks through the first round, announcing which choices he is generously leaving the rest of us. Denise plays without thanking him. Nico claims he has a strategy, then asks whether we are certain about a rule he has apparently been using differently all his life.

“You wanted to play,” I remind him.

“I wanted to play with honest people.”

“Then you should have asked who was sitting down first,” Ronan says.

I watch what Ronan passes over. By the next hand, I have stopped believing the speech that comes before his turn. He notices when I make him work for the play he wanted.

“Accountant,” he says, looking toward Jarrett. “You could’ve mentioned that.”

“You could’ve asked her.”

Denise laughs and puts down her tile. We all look at the table.

“While you were investigating her employment,” she says.

Nico leans back in his chair. “I’m being set up by somebody’s mother.”