Approval

Con tries to chuckle, but ends up coughing instead, making his voice sound even worse. "Yeah, I'll be alright. Takes more than this to take me down." He pauses just a moment. "Tell you what, Kat...you wanna do something for me, have Jason come by here over lunchtime or something with some advil and some cough drops...maybe tell him to pick up a can of soup too...I don't have anything in the house at the moment that would do me any good."

Still lying down, he pauses, reaching over his head for a glass of water on the end table, but ends up bumping it instead, sending the whole thing to the floor. It bounces into the coffee table just right to shatter it, sending pieces of glass into the carpet. "Aw great." He coughs again, wincing as the motion scratches his throat. Twisting around, but not getting up, he reaches onto the floor in an attempt to pick up the glass while one hand is still busy holding the phone. Going for the sharp-edged pieces, he miscalculates the distance and winds up slicing his palm. "Oh, for crying out loud." He withdraws as blood trickles from the fresh wound and runs down his arm. Finally he sits up and looks around, but nothing to stop the annoying bleeding is in sight, and he ends up pressing his palm on his jeans instead.

He sighs. "No..." he shakes his head, changing his mind. "Never mind. Don't bother Jason. He usually stops by in the evening - I can wait. He's got enough to worry about." He looks down at the blood that is staining his jeans, and rolls his eyes. "I appreciate you calling though...I'll try to call you again tonight to touch base."


"Jason! It was downright stupid!"

Jason sinks lower in his chair, seeing the newspaper on Reese's desk, with the picture of JetStream from the night at the park. "Look, nothing happened, alright!"

"First off, why did you do it, and second off, why didn't you make arrangements for someone to watch your back?"

"I had my own reasons," Jason defends. "And they don't know about where I work or anything...I didn't want to scare them."

Reese sighs deeply and leans back in his chair, studying his young employee. "Jason, you're one of the best I've got....you do realize that the stunts you pull are driving me insane."

Jason almost cracks a smile, but resists. "My apologies."

Reese shakes his head and looks at the newspaper thoughtfully, his tone calming down. "Didn't know you were that into the whole music thing...says here you were quite a hit... did you have fun?"

"I had more than fun," Jason answers quickly. "Which is why...I was wondering... JetStream wants me to join them for all their events."

Reese's eyebrows raise. "You think that's wise? They don't even know about your background."

"I know...I would have to tell them and see how they react. They may not want to take the risk."

"How do you know you can trust them with the information that you work at TJY?"

"If my perception and judgment isn't good enough, Susanne has already run a background check on them, and they're clean."

Reese chuckles and shakes his head. "So what are you asking? You want to quit TJY?"

"I couldn't do that," Jason states quickly. "It's not like the band is on the road all the time or anything - they stick to local events, and they all have other jobs they hold down too. I would just need...maybe not so many hours here."

Reese grows solemn. "You're the best, Jase...I don't want to lose you."

"I'll tell the guys that work here is priority. If I'm on a case and can't make a gig, they'll just have to go on without me. If they don't want to do it, they may turn me down anyway. Either way, TJY stays my priority. It has to."

Reese leans forward to rest his arms on his desk and taps a pen on some papers while he thinks. "You really want to do this, don't you?"

"Yes."

Reese sighs again. "I guess I'd rather have you here most of the time happy, then all the time and miserable." He shrugs. "See what the band says. If you sign on with them though, I'm going to insist that someone be at all your events to keep an eye out."


Jason leaves Reese's office, feeling much more positive than when he'd gone in. Maybe there really was a chance this could work...