Random warning: this one a is a litte shorter. Sorry I'm a day late! It slipped my mind haha :) Thank you for all the lovely comments and votes!! Please enjoy this chapter!! Vote and comment ;)

The response completely threw me off.

"What do you mean? Why can't you?" I asked, a bit saltily.

"Ben, be realistic. I have a job, a lifestyle and I think you forgot the fact that I have papperizi following me whenever I step outside. I can't just drop everything for speculation. And this isn't our obligation anymore. We don't do this kind of stuff, we aren't supposed to."

"But we should! We should, as good citizens of the United States, do this for our country!" I protested.

"We're not supposed to get in the way of the FBI, CIA or the US intelligence. It's not our job or responsibility anymore. If anything, tell Audrey. She's still in the CIA."

"I told her and she said she couldn't do anything about it. Something about politics. I didn't understand, but Erica, this is real! Joshua is evil and he's becoming a congressman!"

"Was," Erica corrected, "Joshua was evil. We don't know if he still is. For all we know he could be trying to move on in life with a new name, and put SPYDER in the past."

For some reason, that pissed me off the most. Erica hated Joshua for betraying her all those years ago. The only thing, if all else fails, we have in common is the fact we hated Joshua and the enemy organizations. Is Erica seriously saying she doesn't know they're evil?!

So it sent me over the edge, "Your making all these dumb excuses because you don't want to go!" I screamed, completely losing control, "You can't leave your posh little lifestyle with all your designer dresses and millions of dollars house and your private chef! All this BS. Don't you miss the life of espionage? The adrenaline? Beating up bad guys? Don't you wish for a second that you were a spy? How could you possibly move on? You were the best spy I knew!"

Erica let out a big sigh, "Of course I miss it Ben. Being a spy was all I knew for sixteen years! But after I decided to move on, I left that all in the past. I have a different lifestyle now. I can't just run away like you want me to. I'm sorry."

"You know what?! Fine! You want to stay here and let your butlers cater to your every whim, that's fine with me! You want to let a possible terrorist to get away, whatever! That's your problem!" I was completely seething. I stomped out of the common area and back out to the firing range. I was planning to leave dramatically but I then realized that I had to get Erica to open the secret door for me. So I sulkily waited at the bottom of the stairs.

Erica saw me waiting and smirked at me. She got up from the couch and breezed past me and opened the secret door. We didn't say anything to each other as we left the closet. Together we walked to the kitchen main area without saying a word. Scott noticed us come in and could tell something was off, but he politely didn't say anything.

"Scott, show Ben to the guest wing please. I'm going on my conference call I was going to reschedule so ring me if you need anything." She didn't even acknowledge me.

Scott looked sort of confused and uncomfortable but didn't say anything about our behavior.

"Alright, so let's get you settled in. I'll show you your wing." Scott led me to my wing (which was bigger than my entire apartment) and showed me around the mansion.

The house was centered around this beautiful living/kitchen/dining area which was all open concept. The living area was almost four stories tall and was super modern. Branching out of the living area was a bunch of wings. There was Erica's wing, two guest wings, an entertainment wing (with an arcade, movie theater and other fun stuff) and a housecleaning wing (with a service kitchen, many closets, rooms for house cleaners or helpers and oh right, a secret staircase to an underground bunker) and even two wings I didn't even know what they were. This is not including the "basement" with floor to ceiling sliding glass doors to an amazing deck with an infinity pool. It had a bowling alley, huge open bar and a great space for parties. Oh and don't forget about the helicopter pad on the roof. You know, your average house.

We concluded our tour back in the kitchen.

Scott leaned against the island, "Okay, well, that's the house. If you need anything, please let me know. Or ask anyone here, they all know this place in and out." Not in and out. I thought. They clearly didn't know about the underground bunker.

"Okay thank you so much. If you don't mind me asking, what do you do for Erica? I'm just curious." I was just getting a taste of the Hollywood life and I realized there's an entire staff behind one person.

Scott smiled kindly, "No I don't mind at all. I'm Erica's manager and assistant, along with Melissa. I manage her schedule, public appearances, though she likes to do her own approvals for that kinda stuff, but almost everyone goes through me. But I mostly manage the calendar, meetings and everything less important that I don't want Erica to have to deal with. I also try to do damage control for the press and tabloids but that's almost impossible. Once she bailed on this party for some singer because she was sick and the next day the news was saying they were dating and then have a big fight. It was ridiculous. And a major headache. I just try to help her with everything she needs. How do you know Erica?"

"We went to middle school together in Washington DC. We were really good friends and when she moved to New York, I never talked to her or saw her again. And now I figured was the best time to reconnect with old friends, especially Erica. I got evicted from my apartment. She and I were great friends and I wanted to see her again." I kept it vague again.

"Just friends?" Scott asked playfully, "Not anything more?"

I felt a blush creep up my neck. I didn't know what to say. But that was all Scott needed to see and he laughed.

"I'm just messing with you. Are you hungry? I was just going to call Maria to make me some lunch. Wanna join me?"

I felt weird that my food was going to be prepared by a chef. I was perfectly capable of making myself a sandwich. This felt too posh for me.

"I am hungry, but I can prepare my own food, I don't need someone to do it for me. Thank you though." I said, trying to be polite.

Scott waved his hand dismissively at me, but was focusing on his iPad, "Too late. I already rang for Maria. Don't worry about seeming spoiled or whatever. And that's Maria's job anyway. Plus she's super sweet and would probably love to make you something."

Before I could protest, an older italian lady came into the living/kitchen area from the service wing. Her eyes completely lit up when she saw me, even though we had never met before.

"My, my, who is this?" She beamed brightly and approached me, "I didn't know we had company!" She immediately gave off this kind, homey, grandma feel to her. Her positivity was infectious.

Scott chuckled, "Maria, this is Ben, a childhood friend of Erica's. Ben, this is Erica's personal chef, Maria Rossi."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Rossi." I stuck my hand out to shake but she bypassed this and went straight into the hug. I can't say I was unhappy about it.

"Oh please! Call me Maria!"

I smiled, "And thank you for coming to make us something. I can prepare my own lunch, it's totally fine."

Maria headed into the kitchen and started to get pots out, "Nonsense. I should thank you, it gets so boring without anything to do! So what are you hungry for?"

"A chicken caesar salad would be wonderful. I have a call in a half an hour with potential partners." Scott replied.

"I'm good with anything." I said.

"Alright Scott, I'll whip that up real quick. And Ben, how about some fresh pasta? It might take an hour but it'll be worth it! I still use my grandmama's recipe!"

Scott nodded, "You should do it. Best pasta ever. And thank you Maria." With that, Scott sat down at the large island and kept tapping away at the iPad.

"Sounds good, thank you so much! I've never had fresh pasta before either, only the hard pasta, so this is exciting!" The look Maria gave me the moment I said I've never had fresh pasta was surprising. She was giving me a look like I'd murdered someone.

"You, you've never had fresh, handmade pasta?!" Maria was shocked, "Well now I'm going to teach you!"

And that she did. It was really fun actually. She taught me to knead the dough and roll it out. We had a fun time and I forgot about my problems for a few hours.

But after I ate the wonderful pasta, the best pasta I'd ever had by the way, Maria had to go home and pick up her son from school. So I was back to doing nothing. I know Erica is done with her business call because she came out an hour ago and smiled at us, not saying anything. She was just grabbing a granola bar I think.

I had no idea what to do. Although this house had a bunch of cool stuff, like a bowling alley and movie theater, I felt awkward doing any of it. Erica owned all of this and I felt weird using it while we were at a difficult place. So I just went to my room.

It was a beautiful room with a view of downtown LA and a bathroom bigger than the living room at my apartment. Scott kindly put all my stuff in the closet and hung up my jacket. I decided just to hide in here until... Well, I don't know. I realized that I didn't have a reason to be here anymore. I told Erica my plan, she shut it down, I screamed at her in her own house and we both left the bunker. There was no reason to stay here anymore. Wow. That hurts. I came all the way to LA just to go back home. Back to my mediocre house and mediocre job and mediocre life.

I decided to go to the living room and grab my phone I left on the counter when I first walked in. I went back to the living room and saw Scott on his iPad, of course. I went to the counter but my phone wasn't there. Thinking that was weird, I spoke up:

"Hey, Scott. Sorry to bug you, man, but have you seen my phone?" I asked him.

His face flushed red in panic for a second. He quickly recovered though. That was odd. Maybe he was worried he'd get in trouble with Erica if he lost it.

"I have no idea. Why?"

"I need to book a flight home. And I put it on the counter," I frowned. I specifically remember doing that.

Scott looked confused, "Maybe our house cleaner Stephane moved it. I would check your room. But about the flight, I can arrange that. I would be happy to do something else than this work. So you're not staying the night anymore?"

I shook my head, "Probably not." I liked how Scott didn't pry.

"Alright, I'll get that all sorted out for you. Hopefully you find your phone!" With that, Scott went back to the iPad.

I went back to my room and looked through my stuff. Sure enough, my phone was in my jacket pocket. And for the next few hours, to avoid any awkward confrontation, I watched movies on my phone. Weirdly enough, the random movie I picked off Netflix had Erica Handler in it.

A few hours later I heard a knock at my door.

"Come in!" I thought it was Scott with my flight information, but it was Erica.

I had mixed emotions seeing her here but she came in and sat at the desk.

"Look before you say anything, I would like to say that I'm sorry. I prioritized work over everything else, including our friendship, which was unfair, and so I would like to say that I want to restart. And I also want to tell you that that conference call I was on cleared my entire schedule for the next two weeks. I'm going with you , Ben. This Joshua thing is real and terrifying. I also miss the entire world of espionage. It would be good to let off some steam and beat up some bad guys. Plus, I can have free time and not worry about the responsibilities I have now. I'm free for the next few weeks. I want to join you on your adventure. But more importantly, I want to spend more time with you. I've missed you Ben." Erica looked at me with a kind smile that made me forgive her for everything.

I was going to interject with my own apology, but she cut me off.

"But if we're going to get Joshua and catch him, we need a team. Let's get the spy school kids back together!" Erica grinned.

I could only grin back.