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He happily grasped it. “The main thing on my plate is a civil investigation into suspected hidden assets, and I’m not finding the evidence they need for this trial. I’m going to give it maybe two more days before I deliver the bad news. And then I have a bunch of background checks to work through.”
“At least you get to be your own boss,” Sean said. “Firehouse is nearly as hierarchical as the damn Navy.”
Which begged the question that they’d all asked at one time or another and never gotten a straight answer to—why Riddick had left the Navy before putting in his twenty only to get out and do the same job. The guy always played it off like he’d just gotten tired of the military, but people didn’t end up in the Warrior Fight Club if they’d well handled the transition to civilian life. That was part of what WFC was all about.
Most of the people who ended up there—both men and women—did so because they had injuries, mental health struggles, anger-management issues, or other problems reentering the real world. Because the thing was that the real world did not feel very fucking real after being in the middle of the shit in Iraq or Afghanistan. Or in the case of Spec Ops teams like the Rangers, in a whole host of other places that the U.S. would never admit.
Mo sucked some chili off his thumb and nailed Sean with a stare. “You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if you weren’t risking getting crispy every damn day.”
Sean shrugged and nodded. “Prolly.” He swallowed a bite of his dog, grabbed his beer bottle, and threw a questioning glance at Billy. “You like being a P.I.?”
The other topic it seemed like all of Billy’s thoughts and conversations led to lately. And he didn’t have any more clarity on it than he had all the other times a similar question had bounced around in his noggin.
“There are things I like about it. It’s flexible. It’s not the same thing every day. The structure of it is a lot like running an op. A really fucking watered-down op, but still…” Now Billy was the one shrugging. “And it pays the bills.”
But as the conversation turned to how the matches had gone down at Saturday’s WFC training and Noah’s Halloween party and how much the younger man had changed since he’d first joined the club, Billy couldn’t shake Sean’s question. Nor his own lackluster answer.
Was paying the bills all he really wanted to do with his life? When he had it to live and so many others didn’t?
Shayna was so excited about her first day at work that she started waking up at four AM and checking the clock to see if it was time to get up. She finally gave up on the whole project of sleeping around 5:30, a full half hour before her alarm was set to go off.
But she didn’t even care. Because she was chomping at the bit.
She showered and dressed in a pair of comfortable gray dress pants, a smart white button-down shirt, and a pair of dressy ballet flats, then she grabbed her folder of personnel papers, swallowed down some cereal, and packed a lunch. Billy hadn’t stirred during that whole time, so Shayna jotted off a quick note.
Hey Billy—off to work! Have a good day! –Shay
For a minute she second-guessed leaving it. Last night after she’d turned down his offer for dinner, she’d started feeling a little bad about her reaction to his seeing her photos. But when she’d went to find him to suggest they make dinner after all, he was gone. She hadn’t heard him leave, and he hadn’t said good-bye. And she couldn’t help but think that maybe she’d…what? Hurt his feelings? Or something? She didn’t know.
She’d spent the rest of the evening alternating between excitement over going to her new job this morning and regret that she’d worn so much of her emotion on her sleeve during that conversation with Billy.
She’d just felt exposed and even a little cornered by his insights into her work, like she might have to explain to him why she’d been in the cemetery and taken the shots in the first place. And that would lead to conversations she didn’t really want to have with him.
Or with anybody. Hell, even with herself, truth be told.
Not giving herself another moment for the ridiculous debate, she left the note and headed out the door.
It was way earlier than she needed to go, but she wanted extra time to find her way on public transportation and to scope out the neighborhood around the paper’s offices. She was half way down the block to the bus stop when she heard her name.
“Good morning, Miss Shayna.”
She recognized Reuben’s voice right away, and it lit a smile on her face. “Oh, hi, Reuben,” she said, finding him and his wiggly dog sitting on his front porch. “How are you and Ziggy this morning?”
“We’re moving a little slow, but we’re all right. You heading off to that new job?”
She nodded as she came to a stop in front of his gate. “First day.”
“You’ll knock ‘em dead.”
“From your lips, Reuben,” she said with a grin.
He pointed skyward. “He’s listening. Don’t you doubt it.”
“I’ll take all the help I can ge
t.” She threw him a wave. “Have a good day.”
“You, too, now,” Reuben said. Ziggy barked, and she heard the man tell him, “You settle down now. Shayna will give you a pet when she has more time.”
