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There were no phones on desks. You wanted to talk to someone in this office you had to get up and go talk to them face to face, no calling their desk, no email and certainly nothing like Messenger or Slack.
He went through drawers, moving quickly looking for a cell phone, finding binder clips and notepads and random personal items: hair ties, an old pair of flip-flops, one sock, a pair of furry earmuffs, a jar of safety pins, a backscratcher, a copy of Playboy from November 2009 with a seductively posed Marge Simpson on the cover, which made him laugh aloud.
He met Rory in the reception area. Her side of the building had more storage areas. “Anything?”
“Bunch of empty suitcases. A lot of locked cabinets. I’ll need a week to go through it all. Maybe they destroy all the tech.”
They’d brought in top-of-the-line laptops and phones. “Seems wasteful when what they’re using here is junk. My bet is they sell it off.”
She raised a finger to the ceiling. “There has to be a stash somewhere.”
He was about to respond when there was the sound of footsteps on the porch. Rory pulled on his hand and they ducked low, moving to sit on the floor behind the reception counter. If someone came in, even with lights turned on, they’d have to look over the counter to find them.
Outside a woman’s voice said, “I know you said you don’t love Donna, but you haven’t broken your bond with her, Hank.”
“Uh-oh, lovers’ tiff,” Rory whispered. She settled against his side, both of them sitting cross-legged in the deepest of the shadows, their backs against cupboards that held basic office supplies.
“I don’t know why that’s important to you.” Hank sounded like every man who’d ever needed to juggle relationships and lie doing it.
“Because you don’t love her. You love me.”
“Aw shit, Tina, I do love you, but Donna’s got nowhere to go if I break her bond.”
“That’s just excuses. She can find a roommate. And there are all those spare cabins out past the old shooting range.”
“Spare fucking cabins.” Rory’s angry mutter made him laugh silently. Her elbow jabbed in his ribs made him grunt not so quietly. Fortunately, Hank and Tina had ears only for each other.
“Well, I don’t want to not be with you,” said Tina.
There was movement, the creak of boards. “You are with me, sugar.”
Tina giggled. The giggle of a woman being happily handled. “I mean all the time, not just for sex.”
“If you were with me all the time all we’d do is have sex.”
Oh yeah, Hank had problems.
“I liked it when there was marriage, you know long-term commitment. I like it when a couple bonds and they stay together. I don’t like it when the man I love won’t dump the bond mate he can’t get pregnant for no good reason.”
“Maybe Hank really loves Donna,” he said into Rory’s ear and braced, tightening his abs for her elbow jab.
“Hank is a lying, two-timing, sneaky—”
He put a hand over her mouth and pulled her tighter into his side to muffle her outrage. They might be con artists, but they always played it straight with family and the people they loved. Which is how Rory ended up hurt. She wanted more from Cal than he could give and the truth was shattering.
From outside Hank said, “All marriage ever meant was people trapped where they didn’t wanna be. Folks unhappy, kids all messed up forever, hatred and violence and divorce. We were both screwed up by our parents fighting all the damn time.”
“Not everyone is like that.”
Good on Tina for keeping the faith.
“The majority, sugar. You know it. Humans aren’t made to be monogamous.”
“But Rodrigo and Sarah-Jane and Alessandro and Salina, they’re staying together.”
“Wait till they’ve been together more ’n a few good years. What they got is the early flush before it goes bad.”
“I love you, and I don’t want to share you, and I don’t want to have another man’s babies. I only want yours.”
