Page 5 of A Very Happy Thanksgiving
“No, but you were still an accessory to— Uh, I gotta go.”
Huh. Echo was renowned for hanging up abruptly, but not usually mid-sentence. Weirder still was when Jez glanced at her phone thirty seconds later and said pretty much the same thing. What were those two cooking up? Not turkey, clearly, but they’d known each other since they were teenagers, while the rest of us had only met when our team—officially Point Team Golf, colloquially known as the Choir—was formed. I’d transferred across from Point Team Bravo, and the reduction in testosterone was…refreshing. We had Priest—who was technically our boss—and Marcel reasonably well-trained when it came to putting down the toilet seat, but wet towels still got left in random places. Actually, the towel thing was only Priest. Marcel tutted and picked them up the same as we did, although he put them in the laundry hamper and bitched about it while everyone else dumped them on Priest’s bed.
And speaking of Priest…
He materialised on the terrace like the sneaky fucker he was and beckoned, but when I sighed and made a move in his direction, he shook his head.
“Not you. Storm.”
Her turn to huff. “Talk about shitty timing.”
“Just ask Echo for the video later.”
The two of them disappeared inside along with Jez, and I slurped the half-melted margarita Barbie had made for me. Marcel had vetoed our suggestion for taco Thanksgiving, so really, he’d brought the turkey debacle on himself.
“I’d love to be a fly on the wall—no pun intended—when Storm turns in her report on this,” Barbie said, stretching out on her sun lounger and cracking her joints. Ugh. “How do you say ‘got eaten by a turkey’ in diplomatic?”
“Actioned deployment in a novel environment, thereby testing the unit’s ruggedized exterior, liquid resistance, and ability to perform when subjected to unexpected external pressures. Test failed, ah-ah.” I made a noise like a game-show buzzer.
“If you ever get bored with shooting people, you should become a lawyer.”
“Like my dad? No way.”
And besides, I hardly ever shot people. There were far more entertaining ways to kill a man. Not that I didn’t also take out women occasionally, but during my years in special ops, I’d come to the conclusion that there was an asshole gene passed down through the male line, and a not-insignificant number of douches inherited it.
Sin made a sudden grab for the turkey, and it jinked left. Right into the path of Marcel. Feathers and fake Frenchman—Marcel’s papa was from Paris, but he’d lived in the US his whole life—tumbled slo-mo into the pool, and what do you know? Echo was wrong for once in her life. Regular turkeys might be able to swim, but this one was stuck in the deep end, flapping. Sin dove in after it.
“Are you getting this?” I asked Barbie.
Her hand stayed on her smartphone. “Yup.”
“You think we should save Marcel?”
“Be my guest.”
“I said ‘we.’”
“I just blow-dried my hair.”
Marcel did know how to swim, but he’d begun panicking, and the turkey’s flapping wasn’t doing him any favours. I got to my feet and joined the fun. Only to get elbowed in the jaw three seconds after I surfaced.
Motherclucker.
“Keep still or I’ll leave you to drown.”
Marcel gulped in a mouthful of air and began coughing as I towed him across the pool. Sin joined us at the edge, minus the turkey, although she did have some nice souvenir scratches.
“We’re having beef for Thanksgiving,” Marcel choked out.
Seriously? “No way. We don’t have room for a live cow.”
“We could all have roast squash,” Sin suggested.
Marcel groaned, and I wasn’t sure whether that was due to the general situation or the prospect of having roast squash for Thanksgiving dinner.
“Whatever we eat, we can’t leave a turkey running around the place.”
“Agreed.” Sin tilted her head to the side, studying me. “I think you need ice for your jaw. It’s swelling already.”
