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The first time she’d been in this house, she’d been on this couch when Brodie came in and found her with Art. Lying down, she let her hands fall into her hair, considering what Brodie’s mood might be when he got here.
“Why did he leave the stakeout?” she asked Tuck.
The hacker was typing. “Don’t know,” he muttered. His attentiveness level fell to a one as he scowled at his computer screen. “I have to talk to Zave.”
He stood up, balancing the laptop on his forearm. “Where are you going?” she asked. A surge of panic made her roll onto her side and stretch her arm to the coffee table, thus blocking his route. “Wait for Brodie.”
“You’re not scared to talk to your own boyfriend,” he said. “He might not come in here; he might go upstairs.”
“If he has something to report then he’ll be coming to find us.”
“Look out the window, Zar, it’s dawn. He probably thinks we’re asleep.”
“He knows we were working,” she said and he had, except he hadn’t commanded that they stay up all night. Their work could have been finished fast, or they could have abandoned it to refresh themselves with a nap. “I should make coffee.”
“I think it’s time for us to hit the hay,” Tuck said when she stood up in front of him and his laptop.
The door opened and she turned to see Brodie come inside and remain by the door. The tension in his body and the glare on his face made her hold her breath. Tuck was right, she wasn’t afraid of Brodie, but she was afraid of him putting up more roadblocks to something which just made sense.
“Tomorrow at noon,” Brodie said.
“For what?” she asked. Had he bought plane tickets and made a unilateral decision that they were going to leave the country? He needed to be more specific.
“Our meet with Kahlil. Gives us about thirty hours to make plans.”
She hadn’t expected him to come in and announce that. “Do you want me to call him and set it up?”
“What happened to the stakeout?” Tuck asked, his voice suggesting he’d deciphered something that she hadn’t.
“It’s done,” Brodie said. “And I already set it up.”
Her love was full of surprises this morning. “You spoke to Kahlil?”
“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Brodie asked.
“I have to talk to Zave, then I’m getting some shut eye,” Tuck said, moving her aside to pass the couch and exit.
“I guess we should all get some sleep,” she said, but when she walked Tuck’s route, Brodie moved into her path to block her way. While he examined her, he said nothing. She gave him the time he needed to find his words.
“I’m an asshole.”
An excellent start, in her opinion. “I know,” she said, folding her arms.
“You’re the first person who’s made me feel bad about that… You’re doing it right now, and you’re not even saying a word.”
She didn’t want to punish or belittle him. “I’m not here to make you feel bad. I… I push because I love you. I won’t let you take the easy path just because it’s easier,” she said.
“Usually I don’t give a fuck about hurting someone’s feelings, but what I said to you… I’ve been thinking about it all night. I couldn’t focus.”
She couldn’t deny that she’d been hurt, and that he’d said such things when she was just getting over her own insecurity about not having a place here was the worst timing ever. “I ended up being the distraction you were aiming to avoid,” she said, expanding her lungs and slipping her arms around him. “I didn’t mean to step out of line. I’m not trying to—”
He scooped her head into his hands. “I gave you the floor. I put you in charge, and then the first time you did something I didn’t like, I threw my weight around. I stand by what I said about the meetings. You should never go into a place that could be unsafe without the rest of us behind you. But you’re the most qualified to coordinate us, to make plans and decisions.”
She didn’t feel like that, these men were trained and experienced, she was still a newbie. “How do you figure that out? I don’t know what I’m doing. I have no experience. I’m still learning and I—”
“There is no book on how to handle this shit. We’ll have meetings like the one downstairs where people throw ideas into the ring. But one person has to coordinate the effort, ask the questions that will inspire us to think and problem solve.”
“Art used to do that,” she said, because she’d seen it in the limited time she’d known the man. Art didn’t go out into the field, he’d told her that, which was another reason him showing up in the Atlas warehouse had been so unexpected. But she couldn’t compare herself to the chief he was, Art was worldly, and she had never left the country. “He had a lifetime of experience.”
