08:30 Miami Intelligence Field Office

“You look bored.” Mark said in that consistently monotone voice of his.

“What would give you that opinion? It certainly couldn’t be me reviewing the last two years’ worth of activity in the checking account of this half assed gangster. He’s literally not even trying to launder any of this money.” John couldn’t hide the disdain for his current project.

“Watch your language in the office Agent Lief. I don’t want this to be a hostile work environment. And this work is very important, they are building a case against this individual for defrauding the government.”

“Why is the Navy even bothering with this, the feds should be handling this garbage.”

“You don’t get to do fun work all the time. Where is Jess, she’s not normally this late?”

“Oh, my bad. I forgot to tell you when I came in that she was going to be late this morning, should be here anytime.”

“Stop, I don’t want to know anything more.”

“Roger that, oh hey, you review my vaca request yet?” John spun his chair around and looked at Mark.

“Yes, and I’m not approving two and a half months of leave.”

“How about a week on and week off till I leave for the Academy?”

Mark just frowned and shook his head. But his managerial sense couldn’t say no to this, especially since the young agent hadn’t take a single day of earned vacation in six years of employment.

“Ok, I’ll approve three weeks off. I recommend two weeks from now for one of the weeks. Please pick two more weeks.” Mark just shook his head.

“Why two weeks from now?”

“Little Miss Sunshine has that week off.” Mark walked off leaving John stunned.

Mark used sarcasm finally. John was surprised and a little happy that he actually knew what that was.

“Mark gave me a look, what was that about.” Jess smirked as she sat down across from John.

“I would say Mark’s a hell of a lot more perceptive than I thought he was, but that wouldn’t be true since you broadcast everything.”

16:15 Gymnasium

Work was over. Well technically it wasn’t but with forty-five minutes left in the day John said to hell with things and headed to the base gymnasium. He needed a good workout, something to blow off the steam and frustration that had been building throughout the day. He stretched and warmed up with some dumbbell exercises. After they were completed, he switched to the bench press and squat stations. His cooldown workout was using a few different resistance machines.

About an hour after he had started his workouts John had hopped in the pool and was swimming laps. John was ten or eleven laps in and heard someone whistling near the pool. He heard it again and realized he was getting cat called. Only one person would do that to him here.

“Nice suit, doesn’t leave much to the imagination.” Jess being herself in the worst possible way.

“And I’m about as wet as you were last night.” John said as he smirked and treaded in place.

As blunt and as outspoken as Jess was, her face got brightly red at his snappy comeback. John swam over to the side of the pool and climbed out. Then gave her a big wet hug. Jess wasn’t expecting him to react that way.

“You jackass.” Jess laughed.

She was too focused and looking at his crotch and didn’t think he was going to hug her.

“Mhmm. I’m off to the MEN’s shower.” John slapped her ass as he walked by.

“Good god, Friday cannot get here soon enough.” Jess said quietly under her breath.

Clearly, she was looking forward to it as much as John was. Jess was unaware John had her remark. There would likely be a noise complaint from her neighbors. John smirked then headed into the locker room. He wasn’t wearing a suit that could easily hide the erection that was growing in his trunks.

17:30 Miami Base Cafeteria

John was sitting alone at the cafeteria. The infamous Miami base cafeteria. The entire damn Navy knows the food is terrible here. There doesn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason why that’s the case either.

John shrugged and figured he’d try the food out. True to form this evening’s food tasted like shit. The chicken was dry and overcooked. The mashed potatoes were lumpy and tasted like cardboard. The asparagus was way too salty. Adding insult to injury was the god damn ice cream maker. It was broken and out of order. Desert was the driest sugar cookie ever made that felt like it was sucking moisture out of his body.

“I’m never eating in this god forsaken hall again.” He muttered as he walked to return his plates for cleaning.

A couple privates looked at him as he muttered that and just shook their head in agreement. This cafeteria was just a sad place to need to go to eat.

He stopped by the base store and purchased a bottle of Kilchoman 15-year-old single sherry barrel scotch. He hadn’t tried a spirit from this particular distillery. A little bit of research John did uncovered that they were a “newer” distillery from Islay. At being only about two hundred years old. He chuckled at that. A new distillery that was two hundred years old. He took his sweet time walking about to his room.

When he got back to his room, he opened the bottle and took a whiff. Jess wasn’t going to like this stuff, but that just means more for him. It was similar to the Lagavulin they had the previous night, but so much peatier. A fresh glass was taken out of the cupboard and a healthy amount was poured into a fresh glass. He took a sip.

“Good lord this is fucking amazing. And good god I’m bored.” Despite the boredom, John was in love.

John turned the television on and flipped over to one of the ESPN channels. Cornhole was on. He lived for competition. He rarely if ever watched anything on TV that wasn’t some sort of sports or competition related activity. Any time he saw a new sport on he always wondered how well he’d do were he able to compete himself. Virtually every sport, beginning in high school, requires drug testing and genetic baselining.

He was convinced that cornhole didn’t require such testing given the professionals that he had seen on TV. During the first commercial he sent a message to Jess that he was bored. She sent a response instantly.

‘Look, I am too, but if you do me like you did last night your gonna put me in a wheelchair.’

He responded back saying he wasn’t actually trying to hit on her. Which was the truth. He was simply stating that he was bored. Truth of the matter though is if she offered herself to him that evening, he’d jump on her. John sent her a reply.

‘Ok, I’ll give you that. But chances are we’d both have a drink and then clothes come off. That always happens with us. Not that I’m complaining when it does, but I suppose you need to work comfortably tomorrow. After work and Saturday will be fun though.’

John laughed. He messaged her good night. He finished his drink and then went to bed. He had to get rested up. Forensic accounting waited for no one.

Friday. 08:15 Conference Room 2A

“John, how’s your analysis coming along?” Mark asked.

“Should be done by the end of the day. I’m still at a loss why we are the ones investigating him but I suppose the FBI is too incompetent to handle it.”

Mark rubbed his forehead. “You can avoid adding your opinions regarding the case. When you finish, I have a couple different cases for you to investigate and review.”

John shook his head. “Roger that.”

“Jess, where are you at with your investigation?”

“Won’t be done today, looks like as of now I can be done by Tuesday at noon, but that’s contingent on the three banks that are stalling us in giving up their records. I’m going to reach out to legal once again and hope we can get a lawyer to lay into the banks to get the information we need.”

“I was hoping to have this case finished today.”

“So was I. We’re two weeks behind schedule because of the banks. Legal hasn’t been much help. I can add their boss in the emails but that doesn’t seem to help things any.” Jess shrugged.

“After this send me your request, I’ll bring it down to him myself.”

“Roger.”

“Damian, your up next.” Mark was running the meeting as efficiently as he always did.

The meeting continued like this for the next forty-five minutes. Half the cases were on time, half were behind. The legal department was the cause of most of the delays, this was nothing new in John’s experience. They simply worked at a different pace compared to everyone else, though part of that was outside of their control as they had to wait for Judges to sign off on their requests. After the meeting was done the agents left the room and headed back to their desks. A fair amount of grumbling could be heard due to legal not getting the agents what they needed.

When John got back to his cubicle he began working on his analysis. The wannabe gangster’s bank records were simple to decipher. That was the only redeeming quality about the case that was handed to him. John did remark that everyone, IRS, FBI and local authorities, were completely turning a blind eye to this man.

Jess was complaining about legal not pulling its weight from her cube. John shook his head and returned to his work. He wanted to get it done before lunch. Damian joined the chorus against the legal department an hour later. Just before lunch John had wrapped up his investigation. He signed off on it and sent it to Mark. Just before lunch he headed to Mark’s office.

“Bossman, filed the report and sent it off to you for final approval.”

“Saw that. I’ll have your new cases when you get back from lunch.” Mark looked up briefly from his terminal, but then immediately looked back down.

John turned around and was walking down the isle he had come from to head out to the main commons area of their office. Damian stopped him as he got by his desk.

“John, going anywhere for lunch?”

“I’m game for anywhere but the base cafeteria.” John smiled. “The food here is fucking awful.”

“Language!” Mark said from his office.

“Juan’s Fish Shack sound good?”

Jess jumped up. “Yup, are you driving?”

“Apparently I am now.” Damian shrugged.

Jess bounced out of her cube and clung to John’s arm. The concept of personal space was foreign to her. As was common sense, decency, appropriateness and a slew of other things. Jess was exceptionally happy and bubbly to have John around for the summer.

12:15 Juan’s Fish Shack

“How are y’all’s cases coming along?” John asked as he at a garlic biscuit.

“Fucking awful. Just before lunch legal said it’s going to be five days before we get the information from one of the banks. Should a miracle happen I’ll at least be able to get my hands on some data later this afternoon.” Jess took a sip of water.

“Not much different for me. The Banking Reform Act of 2182 basically makes any records request take weeks.” Damian sighed. “Never did fix the problems with the banks in the first place.”

“Never underestimate a bureaucrat’s ability to completely fuck up and complicate whatever they are trying to do.” John laughed.

“And yet you’re going to the academy.” Damian chuckled.

“Don’t remind me.” John looked down at his watch. “Man, I’m getting hungry.”

“I cannot wait till work is over.” Jess was smirking.

“Ok, I really don’t need to know what the two of you are going to do that I won’t be doing with my wife this weekend.” Damian was shaking his hands at Jess.

“It’s going to end in a noise complaint and her not walking straight.” John laughed.

“Too much information my man.” Damian laughed. “I’d be lucky if my wife lets me look at her changing clothes tonight.”

“Is it 17:00 yet?” Jess whined.

Shortly thereafter the server came back with the group’s food. They took their time eating. No one wanted to go back to the office and if they came back a half hour late so be it. Damian and Jess couldn’t get their cases wrapped up today even if they wanted too. John was more interested in eating than he was starting new case work.

Eventually they finished and paid for their food. Damian drove them back but somehow managed to avoid all the traffic. Mark gave them a minor warning for taking too long of a lunch but decided to drop formerly writing them up since it was a Friday.

Towards the end of their shift John and Jess figured out where to go for dinner. There was a restaurant near her place that she wanted to go too. John agreed to pay, he did have the money after all, and as a result of that Jess ordered the most expensive things on the menu. John shook his head at Jess’s actions. That didn’t stop anything from happening when they got back to Jess’ place after dinner. The cops were called three times, and they didn’t find loud sex even the slightest bit humorous when they took their statements.