Jensen raised his hand. “I can borrow Mick’s My Little Pony shirt.”
“Why does your brother have— You know what? Never mind.” Mason shook his head. “I don’t want to know.”
“He says it helps him pick up chicks.”
“Sure, it does.”
“That sounds great, Jensen,” David said, taking back the reins of conversation before it could devolve completely. “For the rest of you, it’s not necessary to take things quite that far, but feel free if you are so inclined.” The dry way he made the statement made even Zeus’ lips twitch with amusement.
Unbothered, Jensen grinned. Zeus absolutely expected him to show up in a My Little Pony shirt. Maybe he should throw them all off by doing something similar. He’d think about it. It might be fun to see everyone’s reactions.
The meeting wrapped up after everyone had been given their assignments for the week and discussed who would be doing what at the shelter. Zeus’ mind started to drift as they talked, because he couldn’t help but wonder what his mother might have done if she’d known about such a place.
He shut that thought down as soon as it came.
He already knew what she would have done.
“Bay, what are you up to this weekend?” David asked as he followed Zeus out the door.
“Bay?” Zeus glanced over his shoulder.
“As in leaf.” David grinned, reaching up to run a hand through his ginger hair. He was smiling, but his eyes remained cautious. He was trying, though. “It counts.”
“Sure, it does.” Zeus shrugged. “I don’t really have any plans yet.”
“You should come to the club on Saturday. We’ll all be there.” The way David was looking at him made Zeus wonder whether it was with caution or with sympathy. The last time Zeus had been to The Outlands, it had been with Noelle. “You can think of it as low-stakes team building.”
“I don’t have anyone to go with.”
Strangely, Yas’ face flashed in front of his eyes. He brushed that thought off, too. He’d only met the woman once and had only texted her a few times. It was way too soon to ask her to go to a kink club with him.
“That’s okay. Neither do Claudia nor Jensen.”
Which meant that Jennifer had a date with her doctor on Saturday. So, Zeus wouldn’t be the only one riding solo.
“I’ll think about it.”
David clapped his hand on Zeus’ shoulder. “Do. We’d love to have you join us there.”
Love was probably an overexaggeration, but Zeus appreciated the effort. He probably should go.
Team building and all that.
“Why are you here?” The aggrieved tone of Claudia’s voice clued him and David into the fact that she wasn’t pleased with the person’s presence even before they hit the lobby, but she didn’t sound actively hostile, just annoyed.
“Why shouldn’t I be here?”
The jovial voice was familiar, and Zeus recognized the man as soon as he turned the corner. Normally, he visited with Claudia’s brother, Miguel, but today, Ian Blake was on his own. Like Lincoln, and unlike the rest of the security team, he wore a suit. When Ian and Miguel had first shown up at the office, Zeus had recognized the man immediately due to his reputation in the tech industry.
Not only was he a tech genius who had sold an incredibly popular program, making his first million before he was twenty-two, but he and his brother were the heirs to an incredibly successful company currently run by their grandfather.
Last year, he’d made the list for a local magazine’s Top Thirty Under Thirty, while a popular website had declared him the number one bachelor in Pittsburgh. The fact that he spent an awful lot of time hanging around a security firm had made Zeus wary, and he’d done a deeper dive.
It turned out that Ian and Miguel had become friends in college, despite—or maybe because of—their differences in background. Ian was charming, irreverent, and flirtatious, yet none of it ever seemed to work on Claudia. He kept coming around, though both Delgado siblings treated his flirtations with her as a joke.
Granted, he flirted with every woman to cross his path, and maybe Zeus was misreading things, but he always thought Ian seemed more earnest with Claudia. No one else seemed to think so, though.
“Because this is a place of work. I’m sorry, are you not familiar with the concept?” The irritation in Claudia’s voice was growing, and she stood with her hands fisted and on her hips, her displeasure emanating from her.
