Page 9 of Baby One Last Time
His face went blank. Unreadable to me, and I can read almost anyone. It’s one of his superpowers, evading my scrutiny at the most inconvenient times. “Tell me you’ve been submitting the invoices for your living expenses.”
I shook my head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about right now. HEAT is supposed to pay my living expenses? Why?”
“So you can live somewhere safe. Minimum time is six months. Given your position on tactical ops, you should get at least a year. Wasn’t this information in your out-processing packet?”
I thought back to my last day at HEAT’s LA headquarters, where I’d completed my training just nine months earlier. “I sat through the HR spiel, had my security out-briefing, handed over all my badges and weapons, and was shown the door.”
“Didn’t they send paperwork with you? All the information should have...”
I glanced left, toward the corner of the room with my bed, dresser and nightstand, and he followed my gaze to the top dresser drawer where I’d stashed the green folder without looking at its contents.
“HR told you to read that paperwork for a reason.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why are you so bull-headed?”
“I’m not.” Okay, we both knew that was a lie. “That’s not why I avoided reading it. It...” Hurt too much? Was one more gut-punch that reminded me my career was over, I had failed, and someone had nearly died?
“This wasn’t safe.”
I glanced at the windows, both of them, and the door. “I have reinforced locks I installed myself. I’m six flights up and there’s a doorman—”
“You mean a kid who’s asleep on the job, and I’ll bet his nightshift counterpart is at least as bad.” He closed his eyes and took deep breaths until the anger left his face. “You’ve been a walking, talking security risk for the past month.”
That jarred me out of my wound-licking mindset. “A security risk? So that’s why you’re so upset.”
“It’s one reason. Ex-presidents, even the shitty ones, get Secret Service. Ex-agents, even those asked to leave, get the resources to protect themselves while the classified intel they learned at HEAT is still valid.”
“That was…Christ.” I slid to the floor, overwhelmed again by how shitty I could be at my job. “I should have realized that. I should have asked.”
“And HR should have been clearer. And somebody should have caught that the company wasn’t getting invoices from you.” He ran a hand through his thick, silky hair. I wanted to do the same, which wasn’t helping at all.
I closed my eyes so I could think clearly. “I’ll tell X when I see her, take whatever punishment is due.”
“No. This is on me. I’ll handle it.” I heard him stand and walk toward me.
When I opened my eyes, he was on his haunches a foot away from me. “Cynth, you could have been kidnapped, tortured. Killed.”
I glanced at the nightstand. “I keep a gun by my bed. I’ve gone into bad situations with less protection.”
“With less weaponry, but not less protection,” he corrected. “You had backup. A team.”
And him. At least back in the days when I was good at my job. When we were good at it, the best the company had ever seen. But I was over it. I was overhim. I had to be or I’d get someone else shot.
“Your last job with the company—”
“I don’t want to talk it.” I lurched to my feet. “And if I ever do, the HEAT therapist calls to check in with me once a week.”
He stood, propped his hands on his hips, and stared at the floor. “I’m glad you have someone to talk to. Someone…” His voice trailed off and he nodded, as if dismissing whatever else he’d planned to say.
He stepped away from me and turned in a circle, looking for something. His gaze landed on my go-bag, the standard-issue HEAT duffel every agent and ex-agent kept at the ready with changes of clothes, cash, and a couple of government-issued fake passports. “I’ll start carrying your stuff to the truck while you pack. Take everything that’s yours. You won’t be coming back here.” He shouldered my go-bag, then turned back to me. “Cynth, about earlier, at the hotel.”
“No.” I headed for my dresser. “One condition of me coming back to HEAT is that we never speak of our out-of-control hormones and the stupid mistake we almost made.” Another in a long line of them.
“It was never just about hormones,” he said. “Not for me. Not even that first night in Vegas.”
“You mean when you were lying to me to recruit me into HEAT.” I grabbed a handful of tee shirts and slammed the dresser drawer shut. “We were playing with fire and we knew it. Bad habit of mine.”
I wasn’t only referring to us sleeping together that night on the technicality that I hadn’t yet signed my contract with the agency. I was also thinking about the secret I’d shared with him about the dangerous fire I’d caused with my carelessness when I was a kid.
The next time we met, weeks after that night in Vegas, we were colleagues, bound by a code of conduct we followed to the letter. But the late-night conversations didn’t end, and before we knew it, we were spending our long hours alone at swanky hotels—on the job—sharing confidences. Hugging and holding hands when no one was watching. Kissing goodnight in the wee hours of the morning. Like good friends, we’d told ourselves and each other.
