Jemma's Pov:

I had a blast the last two weeks shadowing Michael and Mr. Carr at school.

 Unfortunately not the teaching crap. 

But the hanging out with Michael and Robby's boyfriend/teacher was great. It was so cute the way Robby and Jack AKA Mr. Carr would send secret smiles and looks to each other.

It made me think this is what it looked like when Michael and I were on the down low. 

It was sweet and cute and I hope those two can make it work for the long haul like me and Michael did.

Tina and Skip have been back for the last two weeks but Skip has to go back to the base during the week so he's only down on the weekends. Robby and his man have been by a few times and Michael has been helping me with my online courses as well as the accounting for the club.

I now think that a job as a teacher isn't really in my future. It's too repetitive and not to mention I occasionally had the urge to throw an eraser at certain student's heads. 

I mean seriously, who knew students could be such pains in the ass. Not to mention disrespectful. 

I'd probably get fired for losing my temper. It's hard to tell what was worse, the guys trying to hit on me before they realized who I was or the little shits that had major attitude.

The last two weeks gave me a new level of admiration for the teachers that actually taught and cared about their students yet managed to keep them in line without threats of violence. 

Michael and Jack have an unnatural amount of patients when it comes to their students.

Today is Monday and I'm finally working back at The Zone. Because of everything going on our weekly meeting went from lasting an hour and a half to a little over three hours. We finished almost an hour ago and now I'm comfortably parked in Pop's chair looking over the spreadsheets for the projected cost of the renovations Pops wants done. As well as the projected losses we're gonna sustain if we do a complete overhaul. A month of being closed will cost the club a pretty penny in lost revenue.

A knock on the door interrupted me and I called for them to enter without even looking up from the tons of printouts with row after row of tiny numbers.

"Hey Love, am I interrupting you?" Michael asked.

I leaned back and smiled. "No but I wasn't expecting you until after lunch. How was your meeting?"

"Sweetheart it is after lunch. I finished my meeting and stopped to pick you up something to eat because Blue texted that I might want to check if you were still alive because you've been shut in here for the last 4 hours. It's almost 3 Jems. You hungry? I brought your favorite."

I looked at the clock and sure enough it was that late.

"OOOoh you brought me tacos? Have I told you how much I love you? I'm starving hand 'em over and nobody gets hurt!" I joked

"All that hard work to win your love and all I had to do was stock pile tacos? Ya coulda let me know!" He teased handing me the bag of tacos and a blue raspberry slurpee.

He sat quietly laughing while I inhaled the first two tacos and sucked down half my slurpee. I leaned back with a happy sigh then leveled him with my serious no nonsense look.

"This is your fifth meeting in the last two weeks. Are you gonna tell me what's going on? I'm starting to worry that you're having issues with the school board or something."

"No Love, nothing like that. I've been planning on talking everything over with you but I wanted a little more information before that discussion. Which I got today. So how about a deal? You tell me what has you so stressed out and I'll fill you in on my meetings."

"Deal. Soooo Pop's has gotten a wild hair up his ass and has decided to have a crap load of renovations done here. As of now the projected timetable is a month. You don't even want to know what all that is gonna cost. That coupled with the club being closed is gonna easily cost six figures. Plus we all know that just because the contractor says one month doesn't necessarily mean it'll be done on time. Top all that crap off with Pop's deciding to open another club, and me being the lucky person to crunch all the numbers and well you can see why I think I'm getting my first migraine."

"From what he's told me, he already has like 4 clubs and they're all doing well. So financially this shouldn't be devastating. If he's got a good location and can get a fair price then it's worth the initial cost. Anything I can help with?"

"Mmm not right now, but I may need to pick your brain later. He's opening the new club in Killeen. Thinks all the soldiers from the base will make that club more profitable then this one. He's got a location but he's given me the reigns on almost everything else. So back to you. Spill Sex-Nip."

"Well two of those meetings were with a travel agent to tweak and finalize our trip. One was an old friend of mine. He wanted my opinion on a uhh thing he was working on. The next one was a follow up type thing. He uhh mentioned to his boss that I'd helped and his boss wanted to uhh discuss some things." He smiled his mega watt smile and I rolled my eyes.

"Wow, you're just dripping with information right now. How about you try that with a little more detail about the last three meetings. What friend? I thought I knew all your friends. What are the meetings about? Are there going to be more meetings? Ya know, the normal kinds of things a wife should know." I asked with an eye roll.

He sighed "Okay technically he's not so much of a friend as an old associate. He's still a counter intel agent. So I cant tell you exactly what they were about. But since you know what my old job was you can probably guess what kind of things we were discussing. Like I said, he mentioned it to a boss and well his boss pulled up my file. He's interested in possibly utilizing my unique talents. He asked if I was willing to rejoin the Army which of course I said no to that. He asked why I didn't accept the job offers I'd had from the private sector and stuff along those lines."

He shrugged and I took a long drink of my melted slurpee. I took a second to think all this through.

"Hmm..... Private sector? What exactly do you mean by utilize your talents? Are you planning on going back to all that... stuff? Full disclosure Michael. I know you're holding something back. Maybe because you think I'll freak or maybe because... hell I don't know. BUT I do know you're leaving something out." I spoke neutrally even though the thought of him going back overseas made me want to cry.

He walked around my desk and pulled me up and sat down pulling me onto his lap. I started to panic internally. It must be bad if he's trying to comfort me already.

Oh shit what if he does go back to the military or even the private sector and deploys? 

Shit. Shit. Shit.

 If he misses his old job, I can't be the kind of wife that keeps her husband from doing what's important to him.

 Ughh.

"Calm down Love. I know you're freaking out and trying to play it cool. This is why I wanted to wait just a little longer before I asked your opinion on all this. Breath, Sweetheart. It's not what you're thinking. I'm gonna lay it all out but I want you to know that if you don't want me doing it. I wont. I had a few job offers when I finished my last tour. From companies like Google and Microsoft. Huge corporations hire guys like me to prevent corporate espionage and crap like that. Cushy jobs and big bucks but definitely not my thing. There was also a few from private military/security companies. I doubt you'd know any of them. Blackwater is the most publicly known one. With those I'd essentially be doing the same thing and going to the same places as I did in the Army but I'd get paid a hell of a lot better. You know why I didn't re-up. So obviously that was out too. I had my degrees and a job offer to teach in a relaxed little town. So I took it, thinking I'd teach a few years and enjoy the calm civilian life before I made any of the big 'what now' life decisions. That all flew out the door when you stormed into my life."

He dropped a kiss on my head and took a quick drink before continuing.

"Back to the now. He offered me a few options for the future. Realistically I'm not going to be able to keep teaching after this year. I haven't had any problems yet, but eventually the school board will find out I married a former student a month after she finished school. Even though legally I didn't do anything wrong, my ethics will be questioned. I'm not that worried about it because like I said before, it's just a job and there are other jobs out there. General Peets has asked if I'd be willing to teach the advanced interrogation course at Ft Hood. I said I'd think about it."

"So you are joining the military again?"

"No. IF I take the job, it'll be as a civilian contractor. But I still have a while to decide and a few hoops to jump through. So what do you think?"

"Do you want to? When would all this happen?"

"Well... I'm not gonna lie. I wouldn't hate it. Sometimes I miss certain aspects of my old job and most of the things I learned are as deeply ingrained in me as breathing. I'd get to couple that with teaching. Which I actually enjoy. This is a way to still do my duty to our country but with none of the risks as before. It pays well and the health and retirement benefits are good. But if you're not okay with it then I'll pass. My clearance is still valid so that'll speed things up. But it wont be until probably June or July before I actually start. If I agree, they are gonna test me to make sure I can do as well as my file indicates."

"I think if it's something you want to do you should definitely go for it. We can rent the house out or whatever and find a place around there. It's only a few hours away so we can still come down and see everyone on the weekends. Plus Pop's is opening his club there in about six months so maybe he'll let me run that. All my classes are online so location isn't an issue except when I need to come take the finals for them but that's not an issue either."

"You're really okay with me going back to that?" He asked watching me closely.

I blew out my cheeks and crossed my eyes. He narrowed his eyes and watched me even closer. Ahh that kid and his human lie detection crap. 

Seriously how did I not see this as a possibility.

"Yeah I am. I want you to do what makes you happy. Now if you said you wanted to be traipsing around the middle east in the shit with Muslim extremists. The answer would have been a big fat capital FUCK NO. But as long as I don't have to worry about you rolling over an IED or being captured and tortured then I'm all for you teaching the next generation of GI Joes how to do what needs to be done."

"Are you sure? Because I wont get upset if you don't-"

I thumped his forehead and stuck my tongue out at him.

"Michael Allen Jenkins I said I was. So stop your worrying. I swear you're gonna go completely gray before you even turn 30.... Does that mean you'll teach me how to do all that crazy Jedi mind trick stuff? Like can you teach me how to look at a person and know if they need to fart just by the way their nose twitches or eyes squint? Oh or can you teach me to talk someone into believing I'm Cartman from South Park and they must obey my authority?" I teased.

He rolled his eyes. "Jedi mind tricks? Cartman? Damn Jems you're more of a geek then I thought you were. But no I cant teach you to hypnotize someone and you could always just wait by peoples butts to see if they fart. Haha Seriously you should do that to Skip the next time he's down."

I giggled and nodded. "Ohh I'm so gonna do it but you gotta play along like we're serious. I wanna see how long it's gonna take him to do or say something stupid."

He laughed. "Knowing him, it wont take long. You wanna take all this home and I'll help with it and then my favorite former TA can help me grade the pop quiz I gave yesterday."

"Sure thing, let me just grab my crap and we're outta here."