"Yeah, and if I was gonna bet, you wrote the contract language in the first place."I smiled. "Might've done a bit of it. Sure looks familiar. How abou... you?" Routine stuff. Got the auxiliaries up, got us on a temporary feed to the new buildings, won't hit the big substation until we're ready to do some major equipment for real," he said."Sounds like fun." What I wanted to call you about, it's kinda gossipy, but your guy Jason and Cindy and Tina's sister, Susan, they're officially an item." No. . ?" John asked, Alice could practically see the begging look in his eyes now."Perhaps..." she replied noncommittally.Realizing that "perhaps" wasn't an outright no, John had to be satisfied with her answer.Alice gave him a mysterious smile, which increased his hopes that "perhaps" would mean a careful yes, but he seemed to have trouble reading what was on her mind."Give me a few minutes please, while I go change into my bikini. After that you can put on your swimming trunks and then you can. Zax said nothing as he waited for matriarch Linda to finish dealing with her Tal. This show of patience, despite the reason of his arrival, was not attributed to his decision to start mellow this time. No, it was something else that he picked on from the behavior and body language of matriarch Linda, which was also subtly apparent on her Tal, and made him curious.“Are you, perhaps, an expert in assassination?” Zax asked when matriarch Linda returned her attention to him from the Knole. You don’t have a father, and mother isn’t much better, just a house cleaner. You’re poor, and I don’t have to listen to you.’ I laid him out. Two punches and he was down on the ground. I gave him a bloody nose and a split lip. He never made a remark about my family again. Of course I got sent to the principle’s office and had gotten written up. I was grounded for a month and my mother never even asked me why I punched the kid. The kid lied and said that I just punched him, so that was what was.