Chaos & the Geek (Grace Grayson Security #1) - Elizabeth Stevens Page 0,8
hated Amber?” Rollie asked, grinning around his pen.
I shook my head and rearranged again. “I never hated her. We just never–”
“Speak. Acknowledge each other. Get along,” Hawk offered, and I glared at him.
“The Fortescues?” I tried.
“No,” Nico said again.
“She’s staying with me as long as she needs to. Like Hawk said, fuck knows someone may as well make use of it,” I said. “He doesn’t care. Why do you sorry lot?”
Rollie was still grinning and Tank was doing a poor job of hiding a smile. Nico would have been smiling, no doubt, if he’d not been focussing on fifty things at once on his laptop as well as the conversation.
“It’s just an interesting turn of events,” Rollie said. “No more late-night post-job parties. You’ll have to actually wear clothes in your own damned house.”
“I can’t say I make a habit of walking around naked,” I answered. I was too used to being ready for action that I was naked as little as possible.
Rollie’s grin somehow got wider. “Why wear clothes when you don’t have to?”
I huffed a laugh. “Yeah. I well remember, mate.”
“Look, there are a lot of things that scarred me back there. But Rollie’s naked arse has to be the worst,” Hawk laughed.
Even as we all laughed with him – or smiled in my and Nico’s cases – we all knew that wasn’t close to the truth. But sometimes the only way to give your demons less power over you was by telling yourself they already had no power over you.
“Fortescues?” I asked again.
“Go on, then,” Nico said and that was our cue to move on.
Did it matter that I was the CEO of this company on paper? Did it matter that I was the unspoken leader of this merry band of misfits? Did it matter that I’d led them when we were back in special ops?
No.
Around this table, we weren’t even equals. They all decided they were superior to me and Nico was somehow the one who called the shots.
Not that I cared really. We might not be shot at on an hourly basis anymore. We might not need months of hospital care and rehab after a job anymore. But our job was still stressful and any reprieve I could give my men would only mean that they worked better overall.
“Right. So, Mrs Fortescue desires security for Friday. Can anyone fit her in?”
They all stared at me with barely concealed hostility, annoyance, or humour. I knew Rollie was one heartbeat away from a not entirely inaccurate inappropriate comment, but he was trying to decide how well his following argument was going to go down if he led with that.
Rollie opened his mouth, but Hawk beat him.
“I was hoping I could do Champers Day with Amber?” he said slowly, like it cost him some effort to admit that. Given that Rollie sniggered, it was probably not unwise on his part.
“Champers Day?” Tank asked before Rollie could shift his inappropriateness to Hawk’s little sister.
Hawk shrugged. “She aced a major milestone in her thesis and she and that slag were supposed to celebrate. Except said slag was riding her boyfriend. I told Bert I’d celebrate with her as soon as I was free.”
“We should all celebrate with her,” Tank said evenly, and we all looked at him. “Come on, we all know Farrah’s going to side with Dannie.”
And we were back to teenage gossip.
It was perhaps a fault of our many years of brotherhood that we knew so much about each other’s lives. But when it was just ten of you in a tent for fuck knew how long with barely any electricity, let alone any other mode of entertainment – newbies learnt quick that wanking lost a lot of its appeal after weeks and with only nine other blokes for company – we ended up talking. Talk was inevitably about the people we missed at home, so we related our letters basically verbatim to each other to pass the time. It was our version of a soap opera.
“True, those bitches know nothing about loyalty,” Nico added, and we all turned to look at him in surprise.
“I’ve got a favour for Nelson on Friday, though,” Rollie said.
“Saturday?” Hawk asked.
“I’ve got a…thing,” Nico huffed.
Tank said, “I’ve got Falkner Saturday,” but we were all focussed on Nico.
“What thing?”
“Like a date thing?” Rollie pressed. “Because I also have a date.”
“No one’s asking you about your date,” Hawk told him as I said, “Leave O Lord alone.”