Discovery (Science of Psionics Book #1) by Dave Renol (sad books to read .txt) 📗

for information. I smiled ather attempts. She was good, but all I had to do was to keepignoring them and continue on with inane chatter.

Shortly past noon we went inside to change.We planned to meet the boys after their golf round for lunch at theclubhouse. They were still out on the course when we arrived, so wegrabbed a couple of drinks from the lounge and picked a tableoutside. Shortly thereafter we saw them heading our way, talkinganimatedly about their game.

Mark and Sid sat down with us after giving usour respective hello kisses, while Carl detoured to the bar to graba round of drinks. The loser after eighteen holes always had to buythe first round of drinks at the nineteenth hole.

Returning, Carl passed out the drinks andsaid, “You should have seen Mark today. I swear he has horseshoesup his butt.”

“Yeah,” Sid agreed, “Every time he slicedinto the woods, he managed to get a lucky bounce back to thefairway. Not to mention the fact that his putter was on fire today.He totally kicked our asses.”

I threw a sharp glance up at Mark, who lookedback at me for only a split second before turning his eyes downguiltily. “The little bugger,” I thought to myself. “Hecheated and used his new ability!” They chatted amiably abouthighlights from their game until our table was ready in the diningroom and we moved inside. After a nice lunch, we all headed back tothe house. Mark and the boys went to take a quick shower while Saraand I went to change into bathing suits. We had planned to relax inthe hot tub so the boys could soak their muscles out from theirmorning outing.

I made a pitcher of iced tea, another oflemonade, and brought them both out to the tub where Sara wasalready soaking. I slipped into the water across from her, sighingas the hot water started to relax my own tense muscles. I wasnervous about the big reveal tonight and had to curb my impatience,wishing that it was over already.

As we all chatted and gossiped, I noticedthat Sid kept prodding at Mark in the same manner as Sara had donewith me earlier, trying to get a hint about our big announcement. Ifelt that Mark was a bit better at his evasions than I was. Carlkept mostly silent, but paid careful attention, hoping to garner aclue of his own.

When we had all felt sufficiently soaked, wegravitated over to the patio table to let the afternoon sun dry usout. After about an hour, the sun had left us in shadow and wedecided to move inside for a while. Mark went into the kitchen toget some things ready for dinner later, Sid and Carl went to theliving room to watch a football game, and Sara challenged me to agame of cribbage.

By the time it was getting close to dinner, Iwas down three games to one. I was normally a better player thanSara, but had trouble concentrating today. By mutual agreement, weall helped haul our dinner supplies outside. Carl drew the shortstraw and pulled grill duty. While he got things ready to cook ourburgers and shrimp skewers, the rest of us laid out our condimentsand side dishes.

After dinner, the boys did the cleanup whileSara and I relaxed with a drink. Finished with their chores theyrejoined us outside, Mark bringing the game box for our Risk setwith him. Things went smoothly for a while as we all focused on ourstrategies. After a good round where I knocked Carl off ofAustralia and took it for my own, Mark turned to me and said, “Wellplayed. Why don’t you fetch us all a round of beers whilewaiting for your next turn.”

Gulping at his slight emphasis on the word‘fetch’, I looked up at Mark and saw him give me a slight nod.

It was time.

Chapter 8

Mark: The Secret Revealed

All through the day I was nervous and unsureon how to let the cat out of the bag. I kept throwing furtiveglances over to Linda, and was a little jealous at how calm andcomposed she appeared. I was close to blurting out the truth whenshe figured out that I had used little psionic nudges to assist mygolf game this morning, but restrained myself in time when sheappeared to let it slide.

Even as we all soaked in the hot tub, I foundmyself unable to fully relax as I ran multiple scenarios through myhead on the best way to broach the subject. It was almost a reliefto get out of the tub and I eagerly jumped on the chance to getsome time to myself doing prep work in the kitchen.

I found myself stretching out the time thework took. I would stand around the table where Linda and Sara wereplaying cards or watch some of the Raiders game with the guysbefore retreating back to the kitchen to think … anything to delayhaving to take the plunge.

I heard Sara claim victory on the latest cribmatch just as the football game ended. Figuring that this was asgood a time as any, I called everyone together for dinner andplayed a quick game of ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ with Carl and Sid tosee who would be tonight’s BBQ master. Carl lost. While Carl set upthe grill, the rest of us hauled our supplies outside and set upthe table.

Dinner went well, but because I was sodistracted, I couldn’t have said if I ate burgers or boogers. Itwas the boy’s turn for cleanup duty, but since I had spent most ofthe afternoon doing prep work, the other guys took pity and did thebulk of the work. For once, I wished that cleanup would have takenlonger. Five or six years might have been good.

Despite my wishes to the contrary, our workwas finished in short order, and we were free to rejoin the ladiesoutside. To give me a bit more time to think, I grabbed our Riskgame on my way out and threw down the gauntlet, which was eagerlyaccepted by all. We soon had a heated game in the works, with Sidand me battling over the Americas, Sara and