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“Well, I’m not mad,” she said.
“I know you’re mad, but—oh. Wait. You’re not mad?”
“No. If he deserved it, then he should’ve been exposed. I don’t blame Mrs. Glass for being loyal to her husband, but she’s in the wrong. I want to help you.”
I blinked. “You’re not mad and you want to help?” I took a look at our half-eaten breakfast. “Did they spike this food with drugs?”
“I want to help, but…” she took a deep breath. “I can’t do anything that will risk my future at Glass Designs.” I saw the conflict in her face, almost like the taste of her words left something sour on her tongue. She opened her mouth to say more, then closed it and seemed to steel herself against something.
There it was, I guessed. She cared about me, but not enough to risk her career. I couldn’t blame her. She’d been working towards running a company her whole life. By comparison, she barely knew me. So why did it sting to hear her say it? I guess I selfishly wanted her to be as irrationally head-over-heels as I was. “I understand. I wouldn’t expect anything else. I’m just glad you’re not mad.”
She chewed the inside of her mouth. I could see the tension in her. She wanted to say something else but was fighting it. “I used to only care about my career,” she said, but the tone of her voice told me it wasn’t the real thing she wanted to say. “You and your weird pets have made me see there’s more to life. I just… can’t give everything up.”
I wanted to pry. But I also could see how much this conversation was taxing her, so I decided to take the merciful route and change the subject. “My weird pets?”
She gestured behind her, where Mr. Meatball was looming with wide saucer eyes, staring at us both as he perched up high on the headboard. “I saw your cat watching us last night. And your parrot was quietly mimicking my moans all night. Yes. Weird.”
“That’s fair. And me and my weird pets would happily take any help you’ll give us. To tell the truth, I’ve accomplished jack shit since I got this job. The whole point was to get dirt on Glass, but all I’ve been doing is thinking of you.”
“I’m flattered that you’re doing such a bad job because of me.”
“You should be. I’m normally pretty reliable with this sort of thing. I think Adrian is about ready to kill me if I don’t get something soon. That, or send his sister in.”
“Who?”
“Alright, if we’re going to work together on this, I’m going to have to fill you in on my team.” I spent a few minutes explaining the power dynamic—basically how I was the de facto leader of the group and we let Adrian pretend he was the boss of us all for his own fragile ego. I told her about Noah and his nerdy genius, Jordan and her skills of deception, Adrian and his legendary grumpiness, and how we’d all worked together the past ten years.
“And they all know about this?” she asked.
“Actually, once we finished the Coleton job, the four of us have been catching up on personal projects. I haven’t seen as much of the crew lately. All I know is Adrian has been riding my ass over this, but I assume Noah and Jordan are aware, yeah. If I know Adrian, he’s probably got them working on it in some capacity. For all I know, they’ve already figured it out and he’s just doing this to punish me for not coming into the office enough.”
“Then we need to meet with them. Figure out what your team knows. I know I’m not offering to help in any way possible, but if there’s something I can do that won’t jeopardize my position, I’ll do it in a heartbeat.”
“I won’t pass up the help. But we can save that for after our trip.”
“I don’t think it’s wise to wait. What if Mrs. Glass makes some kind of move today? We should act like we’re already out of time.”
I waved her off. “I’m going to pretend that’s not reasonable and remind you that I had some highly exciting plans for the remainder of our trip. I plan to enjoy you and this city. Deeply.”
She rolled her eyes but smiled. “Fine. But if you get thrown in jail because we were petting kangaroos, I’m going to be very upset with you.”
“Wait. How did you know I was going to take you to pet kangaroos?”
She smirked. “I looked up activities in the city for animal lovers. You’re actually kind of predictable once you get past the whole charming chaos thing.”
“Predictable?” I asked, mildly offended.
“They open in an hour. Or was I wrong and that wasn’t the first thing you had planned for us?”
