Page 81 of Gates of Tartarus

“Yebo!” The door closes, and Jorge drops a kiss to the top of my head, breathing out heavily through his nostrils. Then he’s pulling out of me, and I mourn the loss, but we can’t risk anyone else coming to find us. Straightening, he extends a hand and pulls me to my feet. The other is unsteady as he cups my chin and kisses me tenderly. He takes a moment to hold me, cradling me like a newborn kitten, before sighing and kissing my hair again. “We’d better get back to the party. I, uhh, I owe you some newlencería.”

I can’t help it; I grin. “Uh-huh.”

“In my defense, you seduced me.”

“Uh-huh.” I start towards the door, sashaying my hips just a little.

He bends and picks up the scrap of lace: “It’s not my fault you’re irresistible.”

I give another swish of my hips and an arch smile: “Verytrue!”

That gets me a light swot on the bottom which turns into an appreciative squeeze. “Wicked woman!” he growls, and I laugh delightedly.

The others have already gotten stuck into the brandy when we rejoin them, after a quick nip to my room to, ahem, freshen up, and I don’tthinkanyone took note of our absence. I sink happily down into a chair and nibble on chocolates while the guys chat, letting their deep voices wash over me. I’m not quite sure how I get to bed at the end of the evening, intoxicated by those moments with Jorge, but when I wake up in the wee hours, I’m snuggled up next to Mr. Millefeuille. I yawn and let my eyes drift closed.

Naughty but Nice

Friday, 23 November – Kailani

Flashing the desk clerk a quick smile of thanks, I clock out and practically sprint to my bike. I’d gotten it back the day before, and even if she’s a bit worse for the wear, it’s nice to finally have her again. Though the bright little minihastaken a surprising place in my heart.A few years ago, you couldn’t even afford to eat sometimes, and now you have two modes of transport, I think to myself, a small smile breaking out across my face. I’ve come a long way from the ghost of a girl who worked nights at the diner. I’ve made a family for myself, people I can count on for the first time in my life. I have a job that is chaotic, surreal, and surprisingly interesting. I have co-workers who drive me insane but secretly I didn’t mind too much. I have people whoknowabout me, and don’t care. Life is, somehow, becoming more than getting through each moment to the next. Even with the recent tension on the team, things are… things are okay. I’ve come to some sort of peace with the fact that Smith and, by default, Donovan, don’t consider us friends. It had hit me hard at first, but after some introspection, I’m happy enough to have co-workers who respect and value me. And Jonah has made it clear as day that “fuck them, he and I are peanut butter and jelly.” Even the addition of one person to my little Gemma, Lachy, Deo grouping feels like a lot to be grateful for.

My excitement has been building all day, through tedious meetings and pointless briefings. All day, every day for the past week I’ve been subjected to pre-requisite classes for Babylon, including Thanksgiving for half a day, which had Gemma raging around the cabin. Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday, and the past three we had spent the entire day in pjs, watching the parade together and cooking a ridiculous amount of food for two. Lachy showed up the first year late afternoon to reset the fire alarm after a day of hard use, and we plied him with leftovers until he caved and joined us the next two years around 4:00pm. But the morning was just for me and Gem, for the little family we had built together, to appreciate the sister we had found in each other. This year I had been called in until noon and didn’t get back until almost 2:00 with traffic and city chaos. When I walked in Gemma had been sitting in pjs, staring at a blank tv.

“Finally!” she shouted, jumping up and throwing my pjs at me. “I taped the parade, haven’t started cooking a single thing, and have been waiting for your sorry ass to get home! Let’s doooooo this!”

I started laughing. “Are we trying to shove an entire morning into the two hours before Lachy shows up?”

“You know it, bitch! We’ll fast forward through any bad Broadway and terrible commentary, but we’re watching this while the turkey is cooking!”

We spent the next two hours curled up together with hot apple cider and huge fluffy blankets watching the parade and just catching up. The last few weeks had been chaotic for us both, and we definitely needed to reconnect. Lachy came over a little later than normal, not until almost 6:00. I got the feeling he had seen me arrive back late and wanted to give us our time before he crashed. We all stuffed ourselves silly and fell into Thanksgiving comas around midnight.

When my alarm went off this morning at 4:00 I wanted to cry. But I pushed through the day and the meetings and the droning on and on about HR policies, insurance paperwork, interrogation restrictions, and correct reporting guidelines. The last session of the day was an hour-long class about approved notetaking styles. I swear to God the only thing that kept me still was Hideo’s calming presence beside me while the instructor was explaining the permitted formats for notes. Right around her third warning that theonlyapproved style was the Cornell Method, I’d unintentionally started pulling emotions, and each time Hideo’s foot would knock into mine gently. He’d meet my increasingly frustrated gaze with a small quirk of his eyebrow and a turn of his lips. Around 6:00 she finally wrapped up the class, asking seriously if I thought we’d need a second one the following week. Before I could answer, Hideo moved forward, distracting her, and I hustled out the back.

AgentSmith had been extremely reluctant to let my leave request stand, but as Cruise was still myofficialsupervisor, at least until the following Monday, and I had put in for time off months ago, he had to concede. Though I didn’t actuallyhaveto apply for vacation, since I was a contractor – Icouldjust not accept cases – I had learned the hard way in the past that Cruise didn’t respect my need for downtime. Not that he didn’t think I’d earned it, but that if it weren’t officially on the books, he thought he could push it off. So we’d agreed on a system where I applied for vacation, even though he couldn’t actuallygiveme vacation, and we both pretended that it meant something. Even so, I knew how often people usually grabbed me for “one last thing” as I tried to leave, so I gathered my gear at top speed, trying to avoid everyone and everything. Clocking out with the desk clerk was my last stop before sweet freedom. As I approach my bike, I look backwards towards the building one more time, feeling oddly guilty that I haven’t said goodbye to Hideo, but the pull of time off is too great, so I turn back to face my ride. Beside it, out of freaking nowhere like a damned ghost, stands Smith.

“Holy hell!” I scream, surprised out of my mind by his sudden appearance. “Jesus, Smith, you’re going to give me a heart attack!”

He grins at me unexpectedly, and I have to remind myself to breathe. He has such a masculine face, hard and sharp, with slightly hooded eyes, a slightly crooked nose, and deceptively full lips. There is nothing soft about him at all. He has the air of a ring fighter, muscles rippling beneath his skin, heavily tattooed up both arms, looking as though he could rip off your head with one hand while not breaking a sweat. It’s rare to see anything that indicates that Smith has anything in him that is gentle or soft. So when he grins at me, icy eyes lighting up in amusement, features relaxing into an almost affectionate sweetness, my knees actually and very embarrassingly give out, and I stumble forward. He’s literally breathtaking, and the sudden change makes me stupid.He’s whiplash personified.

All week he’s been carefully considerate, re-setting the tone of the team day by day. Though Hideo and I have been swamped in Babylon-required classes, we’ve still had morning meetings and briefings as a team. Smith has taken them firmly in hand, and while the easy, friendly air of the weeks prior had been changed, he’s been making a concerted effort to keep things respectful and, if not friendly, at least congenial. There’s no more pre-meeting chatter in the conference room – rather, Deo, Jonah and I hang out near the coffee cart until right before we’re due in the room – and when we’re all there, it’s nothing but work. It’s different, not bad, per se, and if I hadn’t had a brief flash of what it could have been like, I would count myself lucky to be working in such a positive environment. I have to remind myself of that every time Smith raises a disapproving eyebrow when Jonah and I pass notes like third graders.

“Taking off already, Reed?”

“I… what... Cruise said…”Holy Jesus, Kai! Speak like a fucking human being! This is the man who made you take a class on notetaking! With that fortifying thought, I pull myself together. “Smith, don’t be an ass. You know I have this time off. I wassupposedto have today off too, but some fucker made me come in to make sure I put the ‘i before e, except after c’ or some shit.”

He lets out a sharp bark of laughter, and I swear to you on my grandmother’s grave, if a laugh could make you want to marry someone and have his fat little babies, this was it. His eyes still glinting, and voice shaking slightly in amusement, he comes closer, dropping his voice slightly as he approaches.

“You didn’t appreciate the classes I set up, Reed?”

I shake my head resolutely, rolling my eyes. “Oh yeah, super informative. I was stoked to give up a day of my vacation time to sit through sixty-eight minutes on the importance of submitting correct insurance paperwork. Especially when I’m not an actual Babylon employee andam not actually getting insured. Since, just to remind you, I’m only signed on for a month, and then am finito.” I raise an eyebrow slightly, staring him down, but the asshole doesn’t have the grace to look even slightly ashamed.

“I do things by the books, Reed. To be part of Babylon, you have to take the required background coursework, whether or not you feel it’s applicable to you.”

Waving him off, I try to edge around him towards my bike and sweet, sweet freedom. It’s like trying to move around Mt. Everest, but I give it a shot.

“Well, no problem, it’s all good. See you next Tuesday,” I say breezily, not letting a hint of my growing confusion and frustration seep into my words. Yeah, he was a freaking golden Viking of a man, but I have plans, and even Sven Svenson here can’t distract me from my goal. For long, at least. Because then he rolls his shoulders back and flexes slightly like he'sbeen sitting for a long time and is just now standing for the first time in a while, and my mind derails completely.

“The rest of the team is ordering in dinner. You should stay. It's good team-building time. We’re waiting on some new, possibly significant intel. Babylon said at some point this evening.” He pauses, then adds, “I’m even bending and letting them have a few drinks with it since we’ll be working late.”

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