This wasn’t the first time he’d cautioned me against my big mouth. I had a tendency to overshare, and it had gotten me into plenty of trouble in the past, like the time I’d told a guy I was dating where I worked and he’d marched into Champion Security to declare his undying love for me in the middle of the lobby right in front of a client—like there would ever be a time when I would be cool with PDA in my workplace.
But that was in the past, and it had no bearing on this current mess. I hadn’t spilled any fucking beans, and my boss needed to know that.
“No, I am not looking for a spouse.” I valued my freedom way too much. “And just so we’re clear, Jacob Horn was the one who said he was laying off thirty percent of the local development team. I didn’t say a word. My only crime was taking a call at the wrong time.”
Champ lifted that fucking eyebrow again. The Eyebrow of Accusation. “Maybe you shouldn’t have been fucking a HOG employee in the first place. Maybe then Mr.… what was his name again? The missing developer?”
“Buck Nutter. And I don’t know why you keep making me say his name when it gives you that constipated look every time you hear it. Just so we’re clear, Buck wasn’t my hookup. The Grindr guy’s name was Dim. Ding. Dino. I can’t remember. And working a food truck in the HOG parking lot doesn’t make him an employee. Besides, we didn’t fuck. I kicked him out as soon as he came out of the bathroom. But by then it was too late.”
He ignored me. “Maybe then Buck Nutter wouldn’t have taken off with this mystical porthole code thing and put the cybersecurity of millions of gamers at risk.”
“Seed,” I corrected. “Buck Nutter’s Magic Seed. It’s an asset inside the game. When you have the magic seed, you get backdoor access—”
“Every word you say just makes this worse,” Champ said before turning away and heading to his office. “I’m living in a nightmare,” he muttered under his breath.
“You’re the one from a town called Licking Thicket,” I called after him. “I only work here.”
He waved his hand as if to dismiss me. “For now,” he replied archly before disappearing down the hall. “Focus on the job, Riggsy. Don’t let me down.”
I wanted to scream. He knew how much I sacrificed for this job. How devoted to it I was. How much sleep and sweat and blood I’d happily given up for it.
A slow clap came from the chair behind the receptionist’s desk. I turned to see our resident hacker, Jasper Huxley, sitting there.
“Where did you come from?” I asked.
“Been sitting here the whole time. I even thought about DoorDashing some popcorn at one point. The tension was A plus. You two should fuck.”
I gagged. “No, thanks. It would be like fucking one of my brothers.”
Hux stared after our boss and former commanding officer. “Agreed. He’s hot as hell, though. Shame.”
I pictured Champ’s perfect looks. I had to admit the blond-hair, blue-eyes combo really did it for me. What a waste. “Anyway, the man doesn’t date or even hook up. I don’t think he’s had sex since 1942.”
“He’s only thirty-seven years old. I think he hooks up, he probably just keeps it on the down low.”
I shook my head, repeating Champ’s own words from earlier. “Don’t care. Right now, all I care about is getting reinstated on the AIP. Got any ideas? Surely he’s not going to punish me as severely as he made it sound.”
Hux went back to clicking away on his laptop. “You fucked up pretty good. He’s mad.”
Thanks for stating the obvious.
“Any ideas for me to unfuck it?” I asked again.
Hux looked up and me and pursed his lips as if considering it.
“Yeah,” he said finally. “Go to that gala. Be professional. And then go to the jungle and bodyguard the shit out of that doctor dude.”
I pressed my fingers into my forehead and took a deep, cleansing breath. Hux was right.
I needed to bodyguard the shit out of that doctor dude. And I was sure as hell not going to get close to the guy.
2
Carter
I leaned an elbow on the makeshift bar and stared across the grand ballroom of the stately old mansion my grandfather and his party-planning minions had managed to find on the outskirts of Licking Thicket. Finding a place like this was a miracle in and of itself since the town of Licking Thicket was more about milking parlors and ridiculous-but-unavoidable double entendres than ballrooms, but I wasn’t focused on the house right now. I stared at the seriously hot couple in the center of the dance floor.
The taller of the two guys wore a dark suit and a big, besotted smile—the kind of smile you’d expect to find on an earnest farmer who kept a pet pig and let her sleep in his dining room yet had somehow managed to land himself a highly intelligent, highly adorable doctor for a husband, which was another kind of miracle.