“Good.” Bae cracked open his bottle and chugged half of it without stopping to breathe. I couldn’t take my gaze from him as he sat there shirtless. The smooth muscles in his neck rippled with a swallow as I traced the path. His chest, already wider than the back of the chair, expanded until it could swallow me whole. The white bat-shape marking appeared the perfect place to lay my head as he surrounded me.
I yanked my gaze from him, watching the floor as I returned to the table, computer in hand. Thankfully, the moment Bae placed his water bottle back on the table, he turned serious and began to discuss the mission. I slid into my seat, drawing their gazes, but I hid my face behind the laptop.
“How much do you know about this case, Tabby?” Bae tapped his fingers on the table, waiting for my answer.
“I, uh.” Their eyebrows rose, and my face reddened. I took a quick breath to centre myself and began again. “Director Cooper gave me the case file to read as we waited for you to arrive at her office. And since I helped with some of the breakthroughs of the coded material you brought in, I was already familiar with certain aspects of the case.”
Bae’s eyebrows rose higher, almost disappearing into his dark hair. Difficult, considering the fact his hair swept up and away from his face, giving him an adorable widow’s peak. Is he really questioning my word? And my knowledge?
The urge to show him up rose within me. And for the first time since I’d been around him, I embraced it. Not halfheartedly like I did with my dance, but more like when I spoke in front of people about technology and computers. I may not have been self-confident in a lot of areas of my life, but my intelligence, my integrity... that was a different case.
I sat up straighter, squared my shoulders, and stared directly into Bae’s dark brown eyes, noting in passing how his long eyelashes framed them and made me envious of their length. “Two years ago during a mission, Kasim noticed an old-fashioned dead drop between one of the Henchmen’s suspected men and a new player. Once your mission was wrapped up, Kasim caught his trail again and the three of you began to examine him in a closer light. This led you to discover an entirely new branch to the Henchmen’s finances that FUC was previously unaware of. Arin followed the money trail as best he could, but it disappeared into thin air. And not even other FUC tech guys could discover where it went. At that point, the three of you mounted an operation to discover where the files were being kept for this branch. That led you to the human office building in town and the offices of a music producer called Gospel Pipe.”
A small smile turned up my lips against my better judgment. Did these three know that Gospel Pipe was a euphemism? From the grins they sported, and the subtle movement Arin made toward Bae, who bit his lip, they knew all right.
I glanced out of the corner of my eye at Kasim, checking to see if his gospel pipe still stood at attention. It twitched against his pants, and my breath hitched. Would I even be able to swallow it down if I ever had the chance? Bad Tabitha, I scolded. It’s not nice to think of your teammates that way. Besides, you dislike these guys, remember?
The problem was that the longer I was in their presence, the more time I spent with them, the harder it was to dislike them. Especially Kasim after all he’d done to help me. But even Bae and Arin weren’t quite the stuck-up assholes I took them to be. Their ability to tease one another in my presence showed me that maybe they weren’t being as mean to me as I thought. Maybe they were trying to show me that they were willing to accept me? If so, I just wished they were acting a little nicer.
I cleared my throat and got back on track. “Once at Gospel Pipe’s, you discovered that most of his productions were low budget compared to the price that was paid. In a fortunate circumstance, the owner, a Roger Johnson, was killed in a hit-and-run a few days later while Kasim tailed him. This gave you both a new avenue to follow—who was behind the hit and run—and allowed Arin and you to enter his office, switching out his hard drive before the police had even established Roger’s identity. The hit-and-run has been a dead end so far, but now that we’ve broken the code on the hard drive, we’ve discovered that the next major step in the money laundering and acquisition occurs in the strip club. But we know that there are more layers since the money reported is too much for just a single strip club.”
Bae nodded and held a grudging look of respect. I wanted to stick my tongue out at him but resisted my childish urge. “Good. That means we don’t have to take the time to teach you that much at least.”
Pffft. With his pointed words, he pricked my new balloon of self confidence in front of him. I slumped a little in my seat but flinched the moment Kasim’s palm landed on my thigh. When he didn’t move, my tense muscles relaxed, allowing his warmth and confidence to invade. I flashed him a quick smile while Bae outlined how he would act as my manager and backup security and Kasim would take his normal role of background muscle and eyes. But it was Arin’s role that had us all chuckling while he protested.
“What do you mean I’m her makeup and dresser? And gay? What the fuck, man?” Arin slammed both his hands on the table, making my
