In A Fix - Mary Calmes Page 0,1

months since Brann Calder, our former colleague, quit. They had become lovers soon after Brann started working at Torus, and the fact that they thought no one knew was ludicrous. The sexual tension had been knife-cutting thick, and a constant source of eye-rolling for the rest of us. I hadn’t thought it was serious, just the two of them having fun and letting off steam, but the way Locryn was living under a cloud of what came across as both anger and frustration, I now surmised it was far more serious than I’d given the situation credit for. Maybe it had been special for Locryn but not for Brann. Whatever the case, I truly only cared insomuch as the rest of us were left to deal with a surly, brooding, hair-trigger Irishman, while Brann was happy and in love off in Montana.

I had, in fact, landed my job with Torus thanks to others who’d left the company for similar reasons as Brann. Jared had explained in my first interview why those positions had been vacated, and I was utterly baffled, still, that good fixers could just up and leave, would choose to leave, for no other reason than they’d fallen in love with their clients. I was willing to entertain the possibility, though, that what had happened with Brann was a natural aftereffect of this job for some people, which required so much time and close proximity with the clientele.

Torus Intercession offered advocacy to people who needed someone to intercede on their behalf, but Jared had wanted the business to be more than just a security firm; he also wanted us to be fixers, arbiters, protectors, if needed. There was no job too big or too small, and I had done everything from watching over a sheik visiting Kentucky while purchasing thoroughbred racehorses, to making sure a bridal party was safe during a four-day wedding extravaganza weekend in Manhattan. The assignments ran the gamut, but the end goal always aligned with the outcome. Jared called it syzygy. He didn’t have to use that word, I personally felt it a bit pretentious, but what it all boiled down to was that we were supposed to leave a situation in better shape than when we had arrived.

Now, I had to wonder if Jared thought about there being a pattern there, as in when a fixer did their job well, the person who reaped the benefit of it naturally wanted to keep them.

Maybe I’d ask him someday. Or better yet, I could have Nash ask. I had a suspicion that Jared liked him best, after Owen.

The bottom line was, sleeping with someone you worked with seemed like a recipe for disaster to me.

“Why the hell do you think I’m mad?” Locryn barked, reminding me that we were having a conversation that I had momentarily vacated.

“It’s too early for this,” I informed him, trying, and failing, not to sound snide. “I have to get myself a cup of tea; shall I pour you some coffee while I’m there?” With him, the best thing was not to throw gasoline on an already blazing fire, so I stood silent and waited while he stewed and grew more irritated by the second, his square jaw clenched tight.

“Loc?” I prodded the bear.

“Fine,” he retorted defiantly, as though he were doing me a favor.

“Who made the coffee?” Shaw Pearce bellowed as I crossed the room moments later, careful not to spill either mug of hot liquid I was carrying.

“I did,” I answered, glancing over at him, smiling automatically—it was the polite thing to do, after all—as I placed my teacup on my own desk before walking over to Locryn’s and depositing his enormous mug of caffeine near his phone, out of harm’s way.

He glanced at it, checking the color, I was sure, to make certain it was close to a wheat brown, full of all the sugar and cream he required. “Thanks,” he muttered under his breath.

Lord, he was a pain in the ass. I needed to let him know that brooding only worked for tortured Jane Austen characters and vampires on the CW.

“Get me one, will you?” Nash Miller begged Shaw, sinking down into the chair at his desk, moving slowly, wincing, until he was finally settled, forehead pressed into his hand.

“You should’ve stayed home,” Shaw called back over his shoulder.

Turning to Nash, I ventured, “Too much to drink?” Not accusing him, as I would the others, because he was Nash and that just wasn’t like him. I