Chapter Eighteen

I woke up the next morning and found Grant already gone. I hoped last night wouldn't make him weird around me, but either way I was glad we'd had the conversation. I felt like I understood him better.

I rolled out of bed and ate a banana in the kitchen, then pulled out my phone to call Grant. Hopefully he took his phone with him this time.

It rang a few times and I couldn't hear it in the hotel room, so I hoped that meant Grant had it.

"Hello?" asked Grant, picking up.

"Hey Grant!" I said happily, "Thanks for taking your phone this time."

I could practically hear him rolling his eyes.

"You're welcome. Now what do you need?"

"Where are you?" I asked.

"Coffee run," he answered.

"I hate coffee."

"Yes, I remembered the cream," he said, fake laughing at the end.

"What?" I asked. I thought for a second (like seriously, what conversation was he having?), then I remembered that he had to maintain his cover. "Shoot, never mind, I get it now. Am I gonna have to drink coffee as part of my cover?"

"Yeah."

"Damn. See you when you get back."

"Alright, I'll hurry."

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"So, where are we going today?" I asked once Ward got back. Since we were in the privacy of our hotel room, I dumped my coffee and made tea instead.

"Around town. We're just going to wander today and see if we can pick up any conversation bites that might give us a clue as to where the orb is and, more importantly, who's looking for it," he answered.

"Sounds good," I replied. Grant hadn't mentioned anything about last night but he wasn't acting weird either, which I was relieved about. It was a huge leap in our friendship to talk about all that stuff, but it also wasn't easy, so I was glad that there wasn't a period of awkwardness that we had to go through.

After getting dressed, Grant and I strolled out of the hotel together and into the streets. It was beautiful, but the best part was that it was warm.

"It's so warm!" I noted as we walked.

"Yeah. It's a nice change from Greenland."

"No kidding! I mean look! I'm wearing a dress!" I pulled at the hem of my skirt to emphasize my point. "I was wearing winter jackets to bed in Greenland."

Grant just laughed. "I gotta admit, it does feel nice to have the sun on my face."

We walked a little farther, hand in hand, just taking in the warmth of the sun. Then, I saw a moped go speeding by.

"Uh...Mark!" I exclaimed, barely remembering to use Grant's cover name as I pointed excitedly, "We need to rent one of those!"

"What? A moped?"

"Yes!"

Grant looked at me like he expected me to say 'just kidding!' or 'never mind!' but I kept a dead serious expression on my face.

"Alright. Fine, let's go," he said, rolling his eyes but smiling as he pulled me down the street. I ran to catch up, grinning like an idiot. It felt like something out of a movie!

Cut to half an hour later and Grant and I were cruising down the streets of Spain on a baby blue Vespa. I'd never really driven anywhere with Grant before and to be honest, he was kind of scaring me.

"Dude, we're sightseeing, you don't have to go mock-ten," I said just in time for Grant to go speeding around a big truck. I looked behind us to see the driver giving us the middle finger. Good to know that  it was a universal gesture.

"I don't want to ride behind some idiot who doesn't know how to drive," Grant countered.

"I would argue that you don't know how to drive." Before I could continue, he took a corner at mock 10 and I had go hold on to him for dear life to keep from falling off.

Irrelevant side note, he had like an eight pack. Like, I don't really care, I was just surprised and felt it was worth noting. But seriously. An eight pack.

"Look Slater, you're the one who wanted to go for a ride on this thing," he reminded me.

"That's true, I just didn't realize that we'd be practicing the tactical driving skills we learned at the Academy. I thought we were going for a cruise."

He scoffed. "Fine. Let's park and eat at the next café. We need to start digging for some information anyway."

"Sounds good."

****************

I sipped on a Horchata de Chufa, a popular drink in Spain, as Grant and I watched people go by on the street. It was warm, so we were sitting outside, and if I tried I could almost forget that we were on a potentially-deadly mission.

"Have you heard anything from our friends?" I asked Grant. Our friends was a thinly-veiled code for Coulson and Garrett.

"Nothing yet. They might check in with us tonight, but we just got here."

I nodded thoughtfully and sipped my drink. We'd been sitting for a while, but we hadn't heard much. The problem with being in such a big city was that we were much less likely to happen across the handful of people who might be talking about the orb.

We sat at the café for a couple hours, then headed back out on the Vespa. I was still terrified of Grant's driving, but we made it through the day.

The next week or so was much of the same. We did touristy stuff, took pictures, and tried to get around as much of the city as possible. We crossed paths with Phil and Garrett a few times, so we had hope that we'd cross paths with someone talking about the orb too. It wasn't until halfway through week two that we finally got something.

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We were at the beach (because beach) taking a break from the water. Grant and I were having smoothies after playing in the ocean, and this time we actually had bathing suits.

"This is nice," I said, sipping on my apricot smoothie.

"Agreed. It's nice to take some time off school and just spend time together." Hearing Grant say things like that threw me off for the first couple days, but now our cover was my default.

"So... do you want to build a sandcastle or something when we're done with our drinks?"

"Sounds good." See, that was the difference between Grant and Mark. Grant wouldn't have agreed to build a sandcastle if he didn't have to for his cover.

We sat in silence as we finished our smoothies and were about to get up when we heard someone talking a few seats down from us.

"Sí. El orbe está en el puerto."

Grant and I froze, trying not to look suspicious.

"Bueno. Vamos esta noche."

Neither of us could turn around to look at the men speaking without giving ourselves away, but it sounded like one of them got up and left. After waiting a few minutes to avoid looking suspicious, Grant and I paid for our smoothies and walked away.

"Looks like I'm gonna have to take a rain check on that sandcastle," I muttered once we were out of earshot.

"Definitely," agreed Grant, pulling out his phone to call Garrett. I just hoped we wouldn't be adding to our near-death experience tally.

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A/N: The dudes above said "Yes. The orb is in the port."

"Good. We'll go tonight."

Sorry if there are some errors in the Spanish, I haven't studied it for very long yet.