and it can withstand up to napalm, Quinn.”
“It’s like someone had it made with you in mind,” he replied with his most wicked smile.
I bounced back to the couch, took the pen, which was made of some dark, lustrous wood, and tested the leather notebook to determine it fit in the bag with room to spare. “Oh! I bet my gun will fit in here, too. And my wallet, and I bet I could fit something for lunch in here, too.”
“Bailey, do you really think I’m going to let you pack lunches when I can take you out to eat most days of the week? We can have dates every day if we do that. Anyway, we both got those weird bento boxes we can use if you really want to take lunch to work.”
The idea of daily lunch dates with Quinn hadn’t crossed my mind, and I stared at him with wide eyes. “But won’t that be expensive?”
“Salary,” he reminded me.
I blinked. “Oh. I can afford lunch dates now, can’t I?”
“You could afford lunch dates before, Mrs. Millionaire.”
Right. Outside of buying an excessive number of coffee machines for the station, I had barely touched the money I’d received as my danger pay for leveling 120 Wall Street so the gorgon dust infecting the building couldn’t spread. “I guess I can, can’t I?”
“You’re brilliant with budgeting, Bailey, but you can afford to come to lunch with me. And trust me when I say this: you’ll be grateful to escape for even half an hour on a bad day. Our job isn’t easy, and I doubt it’s going to get easier. It’ll be good for us, because we’ll be working together. It’ll be hard, but it’ll be good.”
Things worth doing were often difficult. “What else should I put into my bag if lunch doesn’t need to go into it?”
“Your laptop will fit, as will your phone. I might have to get one for myself, honestly. It looks really convenient for when we’re sporting four hooves and a fur coat.”
“We’ll test drive the bag looking into this gorgon and rabies problem. Did you get a bag or something?”
“I have a manly messenger bag which is also immune to fire-breathing unicorns, but I don’t know if the strap is big enough to get around my neck when I’m a cindercorn.”
“Show me!”
Like my bag, which was designed to accommodate me while a cindercorn, Quinn’s was black and fireproofed to survive my wicked ways. His was a little wider and lacked the third strap meant to keep it snug to my body and prevent the bag from getting in the way of my legs. “Mine isn’t quite as elaborate as yours.”
“We can add a third strap to yours, and it’ll be fine. My third strap can be removed, too. All we’d need to do is add a clip to secure it to your saddle if it’s not being worn around your neck. Honestly, the strap should be fine as long as it’s snug enough on your neck so the bag can’t bang into your legs. The handles on both look sturdy enough we can carry them in our mouths if needed. We’re nose breathers, so it’s not like we need to open our mouths when we run. We’ll fiddle with it until it works.”
“Mine will definitely fit gloves, bags and any other tools we’ll need if we find anything that might count as evidence. We’re going to have to work on your evidence handling skills, Mrs. Cindercorn.”
“It’s not my fault the bomb squad hadn’t swept better. If they hadn’t left a bomb up there, I wouldn’t have played around with the evidence. Or pulled the wires. Or decontaminated the exterior. Basically, don’t do anything I did with that bomb, and I’ll be mostly okay.”
“Sadly, you’re right.”
I stuck my tongue out at him before resuming my exploration of my bag, stuffing both of my laptops inside because I could. “This is nice!”
“Before we leave, we can go make use of your gift cards, too. One of the group gifts should have enough for a new leather coat if you want one.”
I sucked in a breath, as leather coats fell into the domain of wishful thinking unless Quinn showed up with one and tricked me into wearing it. “For me? But it’s your card, too!”
“As my cops know what style of leather coat I like, they bought the coat. You watched me look it over for ten minutes, remember?”
Oops. “I was busy looking at you and not