Page 37 of Watch Over Me

Going out had been a fun idea, and he'd learned some new things, but he preferred being the person behind the scenes and he suspected he always would.

Besides, he never wanted to give up overseeing his field teams. Temporarily letting Jasmine handle them had been hard enough.

"You want a beer now?" he asked his brother out of the blue. "Or more water?"

Robert hesitated briefly, then nodded. "Beer would be good."

"Beer it is."

Maybe the invitation to hang out together longer was pushing their luck, but it seemed like the right time to take a risk.

Could've tried that last night, a voice at the back of his head told him, but he pushed the thought aside as he opened the fridge to take the beers out.

He'd wasted too much time today already, overthinking his every move, and he had better things to do now. Real things. Not fantasies of what could've been.

* * *

The next morning, he was once again rushing out of his apartment.

It wasn't as bad as last week—he'd prefer not to have another Monday like that one for a good long while—but Eddie still needed to hurry to the station in order to get to work at his usual time.

He shouldn't have snoozed his alarm again, that was for sure. But he'd gone to bed late and had some confusing dreams about James, Kalei, and Robert plotting something together and refusing to let him in on it. To make matters worse, he kept waking up every hour or so and struggled to fall asleep again.

That was apparently the price one paid for deciding to go out in the field for a change.

Never again, he promised himself as he ran down thestairs.Once was more than enough.

He slowed down right before the entrance door and walked out of the building at a quick pace, but not running. There was no way he'd be able to run all the way to the station unless he was running for his life, and even then, he might not make it.

He was already breathing a bit faster after a few flights of stairs, but he tried to slow it down now as he inhaled the sharp, cold morning air.

Looking down as he went, he only noticed he was about to collide with someone when the man's shoes appeared in Eddie's line of vision.

He came to a halt and was about to apologize, but as he lifted his head, the words died on his tongue.

The man was dressed in all black, with a baseball cap covering half his face, and he wasn't alone.

Another guy moved quickly behind Eddie and covered his mouth with some kind of cloth, gagging him, then the two of them pushed Eddie into a van parked near the curb—a van he should have noticed the moment he stepped outside.

But it was too late now. He didn't even manage to shout or put up any kind of a fight before one of the men put him in zip ties quickly and pushed him onto the filthy rubber floor that smelled like beer and cigarette smoke.

All Eddie could do was watch as the door was shut close, leaving him in a sudden darkness.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

After Sunday's self-reflection, James was eager to talk to Eddie and finally take the risk, but he knew doing it at work was a bad idea, regardless of the outcome. If it went well, he would want to do things they shouldn't do in the office, and if it went badly… Well,thatwould make the situation even worse than last week, when Eddie was angry at him and barely said a word that wasn't related to the job.

With that in mind, James resisted approaching Eddie first thing in the morning and instead spent some time hanging out in the kitchen, which was crowded as usual before the Monday morning briefing.

If he kept an eye out for Eddie, nobody had to know.

He realized it wasn't anything new, though. He'd been looking forward to seeing Eddie every day for months now.

Which meant he'd been in denial for equally long.Damn.

"Are you sleeping on your feet again?" Ryan asked, walking past him to the coffee machine to fill up his cup for the second time in under ten minutes.

"With all that ruckus going around?" James tilted his head to indicate the loud and crowded room. "Not likely."

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