Page 18 of Watch Over Me

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Right as he saved the progress of the transcription program, Eddie heard the door open behind him and, a secondlater, Jeremy greeting everyone before approaching him.

"You ready?"

"Yeah, I'm done for now."

Truth be told, he'd been ready an hour ago and gotten a bit too worked up from the various scenarios running through his head, which resulted in busying himself with monitoring the transcription of the last week's files—a task so boring he usually put it off for as long as possible.

"Any last minute questions?" Jeremy asked once they left the comm center.

"Aside from questioning my sanity, not really, no."

Jeremy smirked. "Well, we all should do that every once in a while, I think."

"Do you?" Eddie tossed back.

"Not as often as I should, given the company I keep," Jeremy said in a grave voice as they walked up to Martinez, who was leaning against the railing, waiting for them.

Eddie chuckled, but Martinez spoke up first.

"That would hurt the good senator, if he heard you," he told his partner with an exaggerated sigh.

Eddie had met Pascal Tirado a couple times at most at the company's get-togethers, but the man was a frequent topic of teasing Jeremy had to endure at work. The only person who was getting more of that was Martinez himself, ever since he'd started dating Justice Krasinsky.

All thoughts about the guys' famous partners went away, however, once the three of them got to the parking garage and Martinez opened the freaking car door for him.

"What are you doing?" Eddie asked, incredulous.

Martinez frowned, then looked between the door and Eddie.

"Force of habit, I guess. We usually have a third person in the car when they're a client." He didn't let go of the door,though, and waved Eddie in. "Get inside already, enjoy me being a gentleman."

"I'm not sure you know what a gentleman even is," Eddie heard Jeremy mutter as he got into the backseat, but then the door closed, muffling their voices.

He only saw Martinez rolling his eyes with a smirk, and then circling the car.

Once they'd left the garage, Eddie picked up the tablet to scroll down the files he'd read three times already.

"This meeting shouldn't take long," Martinez said, and Eddie glanced up, catching his gaze in the rearview mirror. "We usually go over the basics with the client, including the schedule and the scope of the assignment. Since it's rare that we do any cyber security, we're covering our bases here more than anything else, so if they say no, don't take it personally."

"I won't." Eddie put the tablet away. They'd talked about that yesterday, but he appreciated the reminder. "To be honest, after thinking about it last night, I doubt they will let me into their system. That's where all their secrets lie."

"Well, even without getting in there, you'll be able to understand more about their work than we do, that's for sure," Jeremy said. "Maybe it won't be anything useful, but you never know."

As it turned out, Eddie was right—while Lavon and his VP smiled and nodded, and were generally pretty agreeable, they absolutely did not want him anywhere near their internal system.

"I'm sure you understand," Lavon told him with a dismissive wave of his hand. "In this business, we cannot let people see what we're working with."

"Of course," Eddie said. "We assumed as much, but we wanted to present you with all the options."

"It's not a cyber-attack we're worried about, to be honest,"the VP cut in. "But the physical safety of the mind that could change the game forever."

Wow, that was laying it on thick.

Struggling to keep his face blank, Eddie realized that listening to bullshit was definitely easier when he was back in the HQ, able to react however he wanted to.

Lavon pretended to wave the VP's words away as well, but his whole posture made it clear that he, too, considered himself a god amongst mere mortals.

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