Page 10 of Glitter

I rolled my chair back to smoosh her into the small space behind my desk. “Henry was a witness,” I explained quietly, leaning into her personal space so what I was saying wouldn’t travel. “He stayed with me afterwards to make sure I was okay.”

The frown darkened on her face, and her finger stopped tapping. Instead, it began clawing at her arm. “Tell me why heneededto stay with you afterwards in the first place.”

I pursed my lips and matched her frown with one of my own. “It’s honestly not that big of a deal. Fucker was just a bit drunk and mouthed off a bit. That’s all.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re leaving something out?”

“Why do I get the feeling that you’re being obnoxiously overbearing?”

“Because I care about you, you dingbat.” She reached out and flicked me on the forehead. “And sometimes you forget that.”

I leaned back from her, rubbing at the spot she’d flicked. “I don’t forget.”

She sighed like a disappointed mother. Damn, she was nailing this. “Yes, you do.” She turned back to the monitor. “So, you’re looking for Henry because…? You wanted to send him a thank you gift basket filled with puppies and rainbows?”

I scowled at her. “Don’t be ridiculous. Where would I even find rainbows small enough to put in a gift basket?”

“Hm, true,” she said absently, scrolling through the tabs I had opened. “Plus, we don’t even know if he likes dogs.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Um, when did this become awesituation?”

“Um, when I approached you in our first year of college and told you to get that stick out of your ass and help me with an experiment.”

“Oh, yes. The one where you sentme, the most obvious gay guy in the history of gay guys, to ask a woman out on a date.” I shook my head at the memory, even though a smile was returning to my face. “How’d that work out for you?”

She sighed happily, looking up into the middle distance. “Perfectly. Sharon and I spent all that night getting to know one another in the most intimate of ways.”

“Eww. Gross.” I scrunched my nose up teasingly, only for her to playfully shove me, which ended up with both of us laughing loudly.

When we got shushed by one of our colleagues, we quieted down and she returned her focus to the monitor. “There are six Henry’s here.”

“Mm,” I said, nodding. “And frustratingly, none of them have images.”

“To be fair, none of the entries in the staff directory have pictures.”

“Not helping.” I pointed at the screen. “Each of the Henry’s work in a different department of Eckersley’s. Pharmaceuticals, research and development, engineering, cleaning, finance, and shipping.” I looked at her with wide eyes. “I didn’t even know we had a shipping department. What the hell would we ship that would warrant an entire department?”

She cocked her head to the side and blinked at me like an owl. “Focus, Blue.”

“Who are you, the fun police? Jesus.” I rolled my eyes at her, only to have her scoff at me. “Anyway.Like I was saying, there are apparently six Henry’s that currently work for Eckersley’s. I’m assuming thatmyHenry is one of the six, considering that he was in the lobby on Friday night. Ooh! Plus, there was this guy who came by later, who Henry calledboss.”

Amy’s face perked up, and she cracked her fingers above the keyboard like she was about to go to battle. “That would help narrow the search parameters. What was his name?”

I frowned as I thought back over the interaction, then cursed. “I don’t know,” I whined, running my fingers through my hair. “Why is this so hard?”

“That’s what he said,” Amy muttered automatically, letting her hands settle in front of the keyboard. She chewed her bottom lip. “Well, at least you have a starting point. You could always email each of the Henrys and ask them if they were in the lobby last Friday night.”

I choked on air. “I can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Because!”

Utter disappointment flooded her face. “As much as I agree with simplifying our results to get the point across to those not as scientifically minded as us, I find your oversimplification in this instance frustrating, to say the least.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you use far too many big words sometimes?”

“All the time,” she said, tossing her long hair over her shoulder. “The loudest and most common culprit is sitting next to me right now.”

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