Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
“We all hate Epsilon.” I stand up, abandoning the sock hunt. “So why is it that concerning that I wanted O’Malley to know I drove his car and put it away dirty?”
“Because it’s not like you,” Farrow tells me.
“It’s a big risk for petty revenge,” Oscar says. “And you work with SFE now. As much as we all hate them, you don’t need to give those guys a reason to fuck with you.”
“They’ll always find a reason,” I retort, heat coursing through me. “And what happened to Farrow finding their cry baby reactions funny?”
“Man, I wouldn’t be laughing if you got fired because of it.”
Oscar points at me with his phone. “You got lucky all Price did was dock your pay for a week.” He pauses. “He really must want you on his team.”
Yeah. He doesn’t act like it, but then again, I haven’t been the model bodyguard in my very short time on SFE. How long has it been? Hardly three days? I signed the paperwork the morning Greg died.
Really, though, I know Oscar and Farrow are right. I haven’t ever sought retribution at the cost of something this important to me. This job. My career in security.
But my boiling blood won’t lower to a simmer. “I’m never getting along with Epsilon, so what am I supposed to do?” I ask them.
“Be professional,” Oscar says like it’s so easy.
Farrow raises his brows. “Be professional? You know the shit they say to him, Oliveira?”
Oscar sighs. “Just ignore them. Rise above.” He’s clearly worried I’m gonna piss off SFE so much that they come at me like a freight train.
Farrow twists the apple in his hand. “Call me.”
It’s true that a lot of the Epsilon guys are afraid of Farrow. Especially O’Malley. I wish they viewed me as a fatal blow too, but I’d much rather enter any brawl with a friend than go at it alone.
Call him. I nod. “You asking me on a date? ‘Cause I’ve got a girlfriend.”
Farrow rolls his eyes again, and this time, Oscar laughs.
We’re all smiling by the time the cracked bedroom door flies fully open. And in walks Kannika “Frog” Kitsuwon in a slim, long-sleeve black velvet dress. Her heeled boots clank on the floorboards and she’s carrying an iced coffee.
Oscar eyes the beverage. “You do know it’s thirty degrees outside?”
“And I’m inside.” She swishes the ice. “Where it’s seventy degrees.”
Farrow grins at Oscar’s constipated face, and I laugh.
She leans a hip on my dresser and turns to me. “I need some advice.”
“You need more than some if your instinct is to look at Donnelly first,” Oscar banters.
I blow him a middle-finger kiss. He’s spouting truths though. I haven’t been exuding upstanding role model behavior lately. What am I gonna do? Advise her on how to piss off O’Malley? On how to steal Triple Shield’s vehicles to go for a joyride? That’s where I’m at right now.
Still, I quip, “It’s ‘cause you’re hard to look at, man. Been trying to tell you you’re ugly.”
“Only in your eyes, bro.”
I smirk, and Frog chimes in, “It’s the least Donnelly can do after he so very rudely did not call Luna’s bodyguards—aka me—to Thirsty Goose.”
“Sorry, Froggy,” I say again. I’ve apologized already to her and Quinn. I expected the coldshoulder, but they’ve been anything but frosty.
“You get a pass because you’re going through it. We’re all going through it.” She slurps her iced coffee, not elaborating. I wonder if she’s still spilling all her emotions to Scooter, the tattooist I vaguely remember from Old City.
I end up asking, “You still talking to your main man Scoot about going through it?”
“Scooter,” she corrects. “He’s still as nice as when we first met, and I told you he gets me.” So that’s a yes.
“You check the age on his ID?” Oscar asks her.
“He told me he’s thirty-four. So what?”
“He’s old,” Oscar counters, more protectively.
“You’re thirty-three. Newsflash, Yale boys, you’re all old by that definition.”
Oscar raises his hands. “But I’m also not letting an eighteen-year-old cry on my shoulder.”
“I’m nineteen—”
“Freshly,” Farrow states.
“—and why not comfort a nineteen-year-old when she needs someone to talk to? Why is that so awful?”
Oscar frowns. “That’s not what I meant—”
“What did you mean?”
Oscar eats air. I bet he has the words, just fears causing more destruction in his tender relationship with our youngest rookie. Farrow looks pained watching Oscar, and I chime in, “Think he means Scoot is trying to get in your pants by being a comfy shoulder for you.”
She groans. “Not you guys too. He’s not emotionally manipulating me. You don’t know him! Quinn doesn’t know him! Okay, so just stop throwing targets at a guy I know better than all of you.” She huffs. Then in our collective silence, she asks me in a tinier voice, “Is it unprofessional to give your client a Christmas gift if she can’t ever remember being friends with you?”