“What’s up, Chive?” Jensen grinned at Zeus, clearly pleased with himself for today’s nickname.
Jensen wasn’t just called ‘Baby’ because he was the youngest; it was also because the team had been nicknamed the Spice Doms by the submissives at the local BDSM club. All their call signs went with that. Their team leader, David Bowers, was Ginger. Their sniper, Claudia Delgado, who was also the only woman in the group and a dominatrix to boot, was Scary. Posh went to her spotter, Mason Bahrami, who was also the team’s therapist and profiler. That left Drew Murphy, who was the real muscle of the group—and that was saying something next to David and Zeus—as Sporty.
Whoever their tech person had been before Zeus, apparently, they hadn’t been a part of it, so now the team was going through their spice cabinets and trying out different names for him. All cooking spices and herbs, for some reason, rather than some singers’ names, which would have made more sense to Zeus.
He accepted the razzing because he knew that was part of being accepted to the team. Besides, he didn’t really care what they called him, as long as they were saying it to his face.
Which was why it didn’t bother him when Drew walked by a moment later and hit him with a hard glare. His open suspicion was something Zeus could respect a hell of a lot more than if Drew was two-faced about it. They exchanged looks of greeting but not nods like Drew and Jensen did.
If Drew ever decided to trust Zeus, Zeus would know it.
“Time for training,” Drew said, heading for the elevator. The training rooms and gym were all on the bottom floor of the building. Zeus could have gone straight there, but if he was being honest, he was hoping to run into Lincoln.
Ah, well.
“Bye, Jen,” Jensen said, grinning at Jennifer.
She smiled back at him flirtatiously. “Bye, Jen.”
“You two are weird,” Drew muttered as Jensen followed him and Zeus into the hallway and hit the elevator button. He reached up to pull back his long locks and piled them on top of his head, securing them with a band to keep them out of his way while they waited for the elevator to arrive.
“Why are we weird?” Jensen asked, tilting his head to the side and frowning.
“Shouldn’t you be using each other’s full names instead of shortening them to the same name?”
Jensen shrugged as the elevator doors opened. “I think it shows that we’re made for each other, unlike her and Dr. Dick. We even have the same name. It works for the Taylors Lautner.”
“Who?”
Zeus got into the back of the elevator as Drew stared at Jensen in confusion in front of him. He leaned back against the elevator wall, staring up at the ceiling while listening.
“You know, Jacob from Twilight.”
“No, I don’t know, and aren’t you a little young for Twilight? And a little manly?”
“My mom likes the movies, so I watched them with her, which I am secure enough in my masculinity to do. I’m not worried I’m going to turn into a girl just because I like the Twilight movies.” Jensen grinned. “Besides, the ladies dig guys who enjoy watching chick flicks with them. Haven’t you ever watched a chick flick with Naomi?”
Drew snorted.
“Naomi would rather watch a slasher film than a chick flick. I’m pretty sure romcoms are her idea of a real horror movie.”
Naomi was Drew’s wife, who Zeus had heard about but hadn’t met yet. Hm. Maybe he should try to do more team-building stuff outside of work. Not really how he wanted to spend his free time, though.
It was a thought for the future, if it started to feel necessary.
“Well, Jennifer likes chick flicks.” The elevator door opened, and Jensen stepped out. “Which is good because I do, too. Anyway, Taylor Lautner’s wife is also named Taylor Lautner now that they’re married. And, famously, he dated Taylor Swift at one point, too.”
“So, maybe he’s just got a kink about calling his own name out during sex.”
Leaving Jensen with his mouth hanging open, Drew stalked to the door to the gym without a second glance. Suppressing a grin, Zeus followed him, giving Jensen a shrug on his way.
If he and Drew didn’t rub each other the wrong way so much over Drew’s mistrust of him, he’d probably really like the guy.
“Hey, everyone, come on in.”
Turned out Lincoln was in the gym, and Zeus felt some of the tension in his body ease at the sight of his boss. A little shorter than Zeus, he had a full head of silver hair and a silver goatee. He was standing next to David, who could have claimed that his call sign ‘Ginger’ came from his red hair rather than a pop singer when he wasn’t surrounded by the rest of his team.
“Zeus, glad you could make it,” Lincoln said. “Any news on your neighbor?”
