12
Everything except Tank went back to normal.
It had been a few weeks since Flo had divulged the news of my ‘engagement’ and Tank was talking to me as little as possible. He was even going so far as to be in the office with me as little as possible. You couldn’t call him out on it since, when we were forced to be in the same place, he was polite and nice and – outwardly – nothing different than if he just happened to have something on his mind. But his sudden growth in off-site meetings and lessons spoke volumes.
I hadn’t brought it up with anyone because that wasn’t what we did. Also, to be honest, I was a little miffed the bloody idiot was being so precious about the whole thing. If anyone had a right to be miffed, it was me over his behaviour. Surely.
For the most part, Tank’s disapproval made diddly in the way of impact on my life.
I’d seen less of Mrs Fortescue by the very nature of my spending more time with Leah as her date for the fancy parties and functions. But I’d made sure to carve out some time for my benefactress – as Chaos called her – whenever I saw her. As far as I knew, she was the only person outside the team and Anna to know the whole thing was a sham. I hadn’t meant to let it slip, but when she outright asked me if there was something fishy going on, I just couldn’t bring myself not to be honest with her.
She’d laughed, of course, and wished us luck.
Which is where I was at when I walked back into the office after a mid-morning consult. I found Rollie and Chaos on break in the conference room. Nico was in his office and – surprise, surprise – Tank was nowhere to be seen.
“You like her,” Rollie said with a wry smirk.
I’d be an idiot, even for me, not to know who he was talking about.
I shrugged. “She’s all right. Good fun.”
“No. You like her.”
I scoffed. “What do you mean, ‘I like her’?”
“I mean, you like her. Like, more than it’s all just pretend like her.”
I raspberried my lips. “She’s a top shag, but that’s it.”
“Uh huh. That’s why you’ve got that stupid grin on your face like Chaos has.”
I threw a look to Chaos, who was watching us with interest. My best mate stayed suspiciously silent. There was no leaping to my defence or reminding Rollie that all I was capable of was shallow and meaningless connections destined to end poorly. Not even half-heartedly or jokingly. Something smelled fishy – as Mrs Fortescue would say.
“I don’t have any stupid anything.”
“Except maybe that brain in your head,” Nico chipped in as he walked by on the way to his office with his extra giant caffeine refuel.
“If you haven’t got anything useful to say, you can shut up,” I informed him.
He paused and looked at me over the rim of his glasses. “Oh, my input is useful. You just don’t want to hear it.”
“Really? And what is this useful gem you’ve got to say?” I asked.
He pointed at Rollie with his coffee mug. “He’s totally right. You have a massive emotional boner for this chick.”
I was so at a loss for words to remind them how stupid they were for suggesting such a thing, that I actually spluttered. Completely unintelligible words, spluttered. When I finally managed words, I can’t say they were much better.
“She’s… I mean… We have fun. But I don’t… It’s not like… No. I don’t.”
Nico nodded like I’d just made his argument for him and walked off. Chaos snorted like it was involuntary, and I scowled at him.
“Have you got something to say, oh illustrious leader?” I asked him sarcastically.
Chaos shook his head as he picked his mug up and shrugged. “What could I possibly have to say?” he asked nonchalantly before taking a sip and looking around the room like he was waiting for more entertainment.
“Uh, you could back up your best mate?” I replied. That was obvious. Wasn’t it?
Chaos shook his head again and was doing so badly at holding in a laugh that he looked about ready to dribble coffee down the front of his perfectly ironed shirt. “My hands are tied, mate,” he finally got out once he’d swallowed.
“What exactly does that mean?” I asked as Rollie whooped in glee.
Chaos kicked his head towards Rollie as he lifted his mug again. “I don’t lie to you.”
“Except when you’re shagging his sister,” Rollie offered.
“Not helping,” Chaos and I said in unison as we pointed at him, then turned back to each other.
“That was on Amber. She wanted to be sure before we told everyone,” Chaos reminded the room.
“Whatever,” I said, having more important things to focus on than the reminder of that momentary betrayal I was – 99.9% – over. “What do you mean you don’t lie to me? How does that mean you can’t back me up all of a sudden?”
“Because, dude’s right,” Chaos answered with the kind of apologetic shrug that’s not at all apologetic. “You’ve got it bad.”
“Nico was right,” Rollie said.
Chaos nodded. “What was it? Emotional boner.” He nodded again. “That’s what you’ve got.”
“An emotional boner?” I scoffed. “I haven’t heard such wank in all my life.”
“Wrong,” Chaos said. “We’ve come up with far more outrageous bullshit. This, though…”
“Is bona fide truth, mate,” Rollie finished for him.
“‘Struth,” Chaos said with another nod.
Fed up with trying to convince a bunch of morons, I huffed. “You lot don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said as I made to leave.
“You watch who you’re lying to, mate,” Chaos warned me. “Lying to yourself isn’t going to help any.”
“What would you know about it?” I shot at him.
“I’ve got firsthand experience with your sister.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t need to know about any experiences you have with my sister.”
“I’m serious, Hawk. I told myself I wasn’t in love with her and it bit me square in the arse.”
“More like got you a shot in the kidney,” Nico said and I looked up to see him walking by again.
“You can shut up,” Chaos said as I asked, “Have you got nothing better to do than offer drive-by quips right now?”
Nico looked around at us all and shrugged. “Yeah, not really.”
“Do you need me to find you something to do?” Chaos asked in his best boss voice.
Nico shrugged again. “Yeah, not really.”
“I’m just going to pay you to stand around and be unhelpful?”
Nico nodded. “It does seem that way, yeah.”
“How many of those have you had today?” Chaos indicated the giant mug Amber had given Nico because she, quote, understood the nerds’ need for caffeine.
Nico looked like he was thinking about it. “Uh…maybe four? Could be five.”
“This would explain the full sentences before noon,” Rollie commented.
Chaos nodded. “It would. It will also explain the mood-swing crash at about four.”
Rollie pointed at him. “Not wrong.”
“Hawk’s new emotional boner is surely more interesting than my caffeine intake,” Nico said sullenly.
“It’s probably less relevant to my immediate person,” Rollie countered.
“I dunno,” Chaos mused. “Looks to me like the dude’s on the verge of an epiphany.”
And, damn him, it kind of felt like I was.
I wasn’t about to profess my undying love for Leah. That was stupid. But – just maybe – I was feeling a little more for her than a meaningless fling. I wasn’t expecting it to last any longer than it needed, but I did enjoy spending time with her. She was funny and smart and she had a dirty streak to rival mine. It was like I’d found my best mate in a chick’s body…just with an actual sense of humour.
That was allowed. Right? I could definitely feel a little something for her?
And maybe this was just the stepping stone I needed. If I was turning into a romantic sap and feeling like maybe one day I’d be kind of interested in the sort of thing Chaos and Bert had, then I wasn’t going to want to rush into anything. I needed to work out how to go from one-night hook-ups to the whole forever thing.
Leah seemed like the perfect way to explore that without the risk of it blowing up in my face.
Step one was admitting I actually was capable of attachment of some kind.
I mentally checked that off the list, feeling less scared than I’d expected about such a revelation. I was kind of proud of myself. Thirty years on this Earth and I was possibly starting to grow up a bit.
Definitely less scary – and disappointing – than I’d thought that would be.
“Yeah, I think he’s moved onto the actual epiphany bit,” Rollie commented and I blinked as I looked at them in focus.
“What?”
“Lightbulb!” Nico chimed in.
“Shut up,” I muttered.
“Enjoying that emotional boner, mate?” Chaos asked, failing to hide his shit-eating grin behind his mug.
“I could maybe, possibly, be thinking about the fact I might indeed like her a little more than nothing,” I conceded.
“Ladies and gentleman,” Nico intoned, “Hallmark’s bestselling Valentine’s inscription next year.”
Chaos snorted and Rollie packed out laughing.
I appreciated a good dig, even at my own expense, but it wasn’t quite good enough for me to award it to the nerd.
“It wasn’t that funny,” I said, feigning more exasperation than I felt.
“Hallmark!” Rollie cried amid laughter and that set Chaos off chuckling.
Even the dour Nico’s eyes were shining and he was so very close to a smile. It was almost enough to make me relent. But it was also enough to make me double down.
So, instead of complimenting Nico on a good one, I shook my head and started walking to my office. “You guys are so immature.”
That elicited a strangled huff of an almost-laugh out of Nico as I passed him. I shot him a knowing look and he only looked at me utterly innocently, like he’d never be so undignified as to laugh at a joke.
I raised my eyebrows slightly and he flashed me his trademark split-second cheeky grin in response. It was the one that made his blue eyes shine infectiously. But it never lasted, reminding me that Chaos wasn’t actually – and never had been – the master of the poker face in this office.
I spared Nico a smile and left the two chuckle-heads behind as I went into my office with the intention to actually get some work done for once in that bloody office.