Page 5 of The Marriage Mission

"Yup," said Noah, taking another step back. "Which is why I need to get back to it."

"Just know she's a bomb waiting to happen. If you need shelter, I'm just over here."

"Right." Two more steps and he was out of the kitchen.

Noah heard the laughter and camaraderie of the staff behind him. He didn't hear Fish's voice, but he knew his presence was there. There had been a time when that kind of talkativeness and chiding happened in their unit. But that was before it all blew up. It was no wonder both of them had gone quiet.

He didn't need any new friends. Certainly not a girlfriend. His past still clung to him, a shadow that followed each step he took toward a new life in this small town. But as he passed by the open door of the chef's office, his gaze involuntarily swept inside, and something within caught him off guard.

The office was a small, well-lit space just off the kitchen's main hustle. Pens and pencils were sorted meticulously in cup holders, organized by color—a rainbow of functionality. Papers weren't just stacked; they were aligned with precision, each one either filed away in labeled folders or placed in strategic lines on the desk, as if they were soldiers on parade. There was a calm, controlled aura to the room that resonated with Noah. It soothed the part of him that was frayed—the same part that craved structure in the chaos of life.

Drawing his eyes away from the serene office, Noah turned his attention to the task that had brought him here: the wiring. Where Jacqui's office was a realm of order and calm, the wiring behind the restaurant’s main service panel was a tangled mess of neglect, a snarled web of cables that reminded him of DIY home renovation nightmares. Cords snaked over and under each other in a haphazard fashion. Colors blurred together in a muddled confusion that made his fingers itch for order.

Noah knelt down, tools in hand, and began the meticulous process of detangling and reorganizing. Each wire was to be traced back to its source, tested for integrity, and labeled for future maintenance. As his hands worked, his mind, which had been clouded with the remnants of past battles and recent loneliness, began to clear. The physical act of sorting, stripping, securing, and sleeving the wires became a meditation. Here, in the solitude of his work, he wasn't a former soldier with a troubled past; he was just a man, fixing what was broken one wire at a time, finding a new purpose in the simple, satisfying work of restoration.

ChapterFour

Jacqui's heels clicked against the tiled floor of the small receiving room. The rhythm of her pacing matched her racing heart. She paused outside the office door but didn't touch the handle. Instead, her gaze locked in a silent battle with Trudy, the receptionist seated behind her cluttered desk. The air between them crackled with tension, an unspoken rivalry that had become a ritual over countless visits.

Trudy was under the false impression that the woman on the other side of that closed door was her best friend. Trudy was wrong. It was just that the door wasn't on Jacqui's side today.

The clock on the wall ticked away, each second stretching out, amplifying the suspense that hung heavy in the corridor. Jacqui shifted her weight from one foot to the other, her posture rigid, ready to spring into action the moment she got her chance. Trudy, seemingly unfazed, met her stare with an icy resolve, her fingers poised above her keyboard like a gunslinger ready to draw.

The office door finally swung open. It reminded Jacqui of those late night science fiction movies she and Bunny would watch during sleepovers where neither girl would sleep after seeing the ill-fitting, poorly imagined, yet still nightmarishly realistic costumes of the space aliens. The spaceship's door would always open with a whoosh of smoke, perhaps to indicate a change in atmosphere.

The closed office door opened, releasing a wave of air-conditioned coolness into the tense hallway. Both Jacqui and Trudy leaped forward. It was a mad dash, a split-second race fueled by a childish rivalry. And Trudy, who had been on the track team in high school, made it there first. The tall woman blocked Jacqui's way with a smirk.

From within the office, a voice cut through the tension, authoritative yet amused. "Let her in, Trudy."

Jacqui didn't bother hiding the triumphant, albeit smug, look she shot Trudy as she breezed past the receptionist. She loved the fact that the once star of the track was now sitting still in an office chair. Victory was sweet, even in these small battles. Stepping into the sanctuary of the office, her demeanor softened immediately upon spotting Bunny, her lifelong friend, first cousin, and now city official, standing by the window with a knowing smile.

"Hey, BFF," Jacqui said loud enough to be heard on the other side of the closed door.

Bunny quirked an eyebrow. "What are you, five? You have got to get over this feud with Trudy."

"Just tell her I'm your best friend."

"You're my best friend."

"Wait, let me open the door so she can hear you."

"Jacks, what do you need, babe? I'm up to my eyeballs in city business. We've got a water main break on Third that's causing chaos. The budget revisions are due by Friday, and I just got off the phone with a very upset resident about the new park zoning. I'm juggling like five meetings today. So what's up?"

Looking at Bunny was like looking into a mirror. Well, sort of. Where Jacqui's hair was blonde from her mother's side, Bunny's hair was a deep brown from her African American mother. They'd both inherited their fathers' eyes. Jacqui's dark eyes called to her father's Chinese ancestry while Bunny's pale grey eyes called to her father's Swedish heritage. Their smiles were almost identical. Likely because Jacqui's mom and Bunny's dad had been siblings.

Bunny's presence commanded attention, not through volume but through the quiet confidence she carried, a confidence born of being the eldest in a family of girls, of having shouldered responsibilities far beyond her years. It was a trait Jacqui knew well. They were two sides of the same coin—leaders by necessity, overachievers by nature.

Beyond the exterior, beyond the accolades and achievements, Jacqui saw her best friend. The girl who, like her, had spent her childhood looking after her younger siblings, juggling homework with household chores, and dreaming of a future where their efforts would bear fruit. Bunny's successes, much like Jacqui's, were not merely personal victories but a tribute to their shared ethos of hard work, determination, and the silent promise to lift as they climbed.

"I need you to put on your accountant hat for a minute."

Bunny raised her right eyebrow at the request. "Did you not hear the part where I balanced the city's budget last week? A job that belongs to the mayor. Yet he says there needs to be revisions."

"You should be mayor."

Bunny raised the other brow.

"It's... it's been tough, Bun. The wiring's a nightmare, the city's on my back about code violations, and don't get me started on the staff turnover."

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