Page 49 of S.O.S. Perk

“I thought I might change things up a bit,” Perk stated.

“As in…?” Her voice immediately chilled.

Leave it to Sloane to be suddenly suspicious.

He’d nip that in the bud.

“I want the whole day together,” he clarified.

He could almost see her shoulders lower as he continued.

“And I don’t want you having to waste any of it by picking up breakfast. So, may I suggest we meet at the little Mom and Pop diner that’s just a couple miles from my parents’ cottage? We can ogle each other over food, then let the tension build until we can’t stand it anymore.”

“Uh, Perk? I’m not sure whereyou’recoming from,” Sloane demurred. “But if I let any more tension build, I’m going to snap into little pieces.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” he chortled. “So how about breakfast withnoogling?”

Now a snort came from Sloane.

“Impossible.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Perk rolled up in front of the Nelsin home, not hiding his presence this time as he marched right up and knocked on the front door.

A few seconds later it opened to a panicked looking Jeremy

“What the fuck?” the kid snapped out, peering beyond Perk at the long driveway. “Why are you here? You want to get me in trouble?”

An interesting choice of words. What kind of trouble could Jeremy possibly get into from having a visitor?

“What do you mean?” Perk asked snidely.

“My, uh, family discourages drop-ins,” Jeremy scowled.

Perk brushed off the kid’s concerns. “Then it’s a good thing I have the schoolwork you missed today in my car to make this look legit.”

“Are you fucking nuts?” Jeremy replied. “That’s a lame-ass excuse. My parents aren’t stupid. They know I can get anything I need for school, online.”

“Are they home?” Perk tried to peer in through the door, unsuccessfully.

“Nope. But my Mom will be here soon.”

“Then don’t worry about it,” Perk came back jauntily. “Because what I’ve got is a chart your Chem-group has been working on; something that can’t be completed by you via computer.”

Perk held up a finger to forestall any more naysaying, turned and trotted to his car. From his back seat he retrieved a two by three-foot poster he’d managed to snag from a person in one of his classes who’d mentioned having to get it to Jeremy.

He’d magnanimously offered.

Yeah, Perk had been dropping the kid’s name all over the place today, trying to shake something loose, and had gotten lucky. With the uncompleted project, he’d had a concrete reason to go to Jeremy’s house to allay any parental concerns in case they got nosy.

When Perk returned to the door with the large, unfinished poster, Jeremy looked a little less sour.

“Fine. Give it to me, say what you need to say, then go.”

Okay.The kid still wasn’t exactly welcoming.

“What? You don’t want to hear details on how I got rid of Kaelyn?” Perk taunted, handing over the chart. He knew Nelsin had to be jonesing over how Perk had accomplished the hit.

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