Page 43 of Sawyer

“I’ll see you for lunch.” Sawyer nods to him and then turns to us. “This is worse than any walk of shame, ever.”

“Did you forget so soon, Sawyer?” The words spill from my mouth, uncaring of where we are or who is listening. “You won’t be walking away.”

She throws her arms up, and in a huff, stomps off.

That’s fine. I love watching her walk away.

Sawyer

I firmly believe that with the right shade of lipstick, you can bullshit your way through any situation. Red is my power color. I wear it during press conferences and when I’m feeling vulnerable. Pink is a soft color I revert to if I’m not feeling extreme emotions. It is that gamma expectation color, the one many in the service industry wear. Let’s just say I don’t wear that color too often.

The color I wear when I want to remind myself that I am in control of my destiny, my fate, and my emotions is far more sensual.

My nipples’ color.

A while ago, I fell down a social media rabbit hole in which these women tried the nipple lipstick shade challenge, so I marched my ass to the nearest apothecary, because they make the best makeup, and picked out the shade I wear on my lips right now.

It isn’t subtle, and it isn’t extreme. It’s a shade that reflects my innate power, and on days like today, when I feel like every action is out of my control, it gives me my power back.

But it’s just a lipstick color…

It’s never just a lipstick color, just like a blow job is never just a blow job. A bitch only sucks dick because she wants to.

As I walk to the boss’s office, my heels clacking on the stained linoleum flooring, all three men follow in my wake. My coworkers’ eyes fall on me, and they stare.

Let them look. Let them speculate.

Winking at my work nemesis, I step into the boss’ office. A thick cloud of burnt coffee saturates the air. I’d love to say it’s his scent, but the boss is a beta. That is actually burnt coffee I smell.

“Sawyer.” His muddy brown eyes focus on the three men who enter the dingy office with me. “And company.” He raises a brow before slumping in his one luxury—his office chair. For a long time, it was a joke that he would pick up a desk from someone’s trash pile and then drop hundreds on an office chair, but he spends most of his days locked away in here, delegating. “Shut the door, would ya?”

I glance at the secondhand chairs, not really wanting to sit, but I also know Noah, and he won’t begin this conversation until I park my ass in the dirty gray chair. “Sir?” I question, giving him a title I rarely use. Most of us don’t even call him by his given name.

Behind me, I can feel one man bristle at that, and I bite my cheek to keep from laughing.

“Drop the bullshit, Sawyer.” He scowls while mussing up his brown hair. “Where the fuck have you been?”

So he’s going with dad mode. This is easier to handle, and it’s a relationship we easily fall into, even though he’s probably the same age as Rumor.

“Following a story as I usually do,” I hedge, because there is always someone listening.

Ever so slowly, he rises, walks to the window that looks out over the newsroom, and closes the blinds. He moves around, closing them all one by one and barely giving the guys a second glance.

Then he surprises me further when he pulls out a little device and slaps it on his desk.

“Oh, now this just got interesting.” Sin glances at the device and back at me with a sly smile. “May I?”

“Go for it.” My boss sits back in his seat, the dark circles under his eyes deepening.

Sin presses the top of the little device, and a blue circle lights up before blinking rapidly. My boss holds up a finger for us to wait.

It’s subtle, but the noise that comes out is high-pitched, so I almost miss it. It makes my ears feel stuffy, like I’m coming down with a cold.

“Where were you?” my boss asks again, crossing his arms.

I have never seen him pull this device out in all the years I’ve worked here.

“We went to Haven to find out about the murdered gammas,” Rumor speaks up.

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