Page 14 of Baby One Last Time
“I don’t—”
“Not yet, Kessler.” TJ folded his arms over his chest. “Lee, something you’d like to share with the class?”
I wanted to kiss TJ at that moment, and not because he was ruggedly handsome and had arms like pythons but wasn’t crass enough to call them that. He was blaming the person who was really the problem instead of defaulting to me. I smiled, which drew his attention.
“We’ll get to you next,” he told me, and was immediately less kissable. Not that that was a bad thing, given my history of inter-office romance with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dickish, who now stood five feet away from me, silently taking it all in.
“No problem here, sir,” Mai replied.
“Drop the sir,” TJ said, “and the bullshit.”
There was a flash of color in her cheeks. “I’m also just trying to focus, sir—er, TJ.”
TJ turned toward me. Seriously? Did we not just establish I was not the asshole in this scenario?
“You believe your crewmate?” TJ asked.
I spoke through gritted teeth. “No.”
Mai shot me a lethal look. This was going to do wonders for team building.
“You’re calling me a liar?” she asked me.
If we were going to have this fight, I was going to win. “Either that, or you’re the least self-aware person on the planet. I hope it’s the first, because the second will make you dangerous as hell in the field.”
She turned toward me and flattened her palms on the table, telegraphing that she wanted to punch me. “I’m not the dangerous one.”
TJ took a step closer to the table, but I held up my hand.
“Let’s do what Wilder said and clear the air.” I leaned back, relaxed my shoulders, did my best impression of an open book. “Obviously, you’ve heard things about me. A lot of them might even be true. Although,” I glanced at Derek and then at TJ, “it would be nice if someone in this organization could get the office gossip under control.”
“I’ll bring it up with X,” Derek said. At least he smiled when he made the subtle threat to get me in trouble with our uber-boss yet again.
Mai didn’t mirror my relaxed pose. She crossed her arms over her chest. “I heard you got your last partner shot.”
“There was a lot more to it than that,” Jensen said.
At the same time, Bond said, “That’s not fair.”
“Plans sometimes go sideways,” Alder added.
If I were the crying type, I would have teared up, hearing all my old teammates cover for me. Penn and Sparks remained quiet, but they’d never worked with me and—I hoped—hadn’t yet formed an opinion about my past transgressions. Sparks watched the interaction carefully, as if she wanted to process it all, while Penn stared at an imaginary spot on the distant wall.
“Lots of plans go sideways when she’s on the job, don’t they?” Mai looked at Derek.
So, this was about more than the Aussie Asshole job and what had happened to Henderson. She’d been sniffing out rumors about my time with Derek, too. I wondered who her Deep Throat was. Someone in this organization had it out for me, but that was a worry for another day. First, I had togetto another day in the company, and for the time being, I couldn’t do that without a partner.
“Lots of plans go sideways, period,” Derek said. His voice was its usual deep, smooth timbre, but I caught the sharp edge of warning in it. I wondered if Mai did. “This isn’t a fucking Hallmark card shop.” Yeah, she definitely caught that, as did everyone else in the suddenly silent room.
“The thing about Kessler that you’ll come to appreciate,” Derek continued, leaning his back against the wall and crossing his feet at the ankles to give the illusion of calm, “is her ability to see the sideways shit coming and to make adjustments on the fly that will save your ass at least once, I promise you.”
“Exactly,” Bond said, and Jensen and Alder nodded.
Was that really how they saw me? I wasn’t detecting bullshit from any of them, and since bullshit detection was probably my only superpower, that was saying something. This time tears did prick my eyes, so I scowled and stared down at my hands in my lap.
“Show her why she can trust you,” Derek said to me.
Show her the dog and pony showwas what he meant. That snapped me out of my sentimentality.
