After a moment he gave me a resigned nod.
“I bet you know a lot of venture capitalists who wouldn’t care that you’re gay, only that you’re Brig Stanton and you have some good ideas.”
He stopped again, leaned against the wall, and was looking across the room like he’d discovered the secrets of the universe there.
“I don’t know your family, I don’t know how they’ll react, but I suspect Nolan will be thrilled, because then he can make his feelings for Astor known.”
He gave a resigned nod.
“And I don’t know how many of your buddies back at the suite will still want to be your friend, but if I had to guess,” I told him, “I would bet on all of them not giving a damn.”
“I would concur,” he said, sighing. “And certainly, I could count on Chase.”
“Always,” I agreed.
His eyes flicked to me before he slowly turned his head. “What do you mean by that?”
I squinted at him. “Sorry?”
“The tone you used.”
“There was no tone.”
“I’m not sure if it was snide or…what?”
“We’re both on edge,” I told him. “If I used any sort of tone, I apologize.”
“There’s no if about it,” he declared, drawing out the word, levering off the wall to cross back to the table. “Something about Chase you don’t like? You think he’s not a good friend? You think he’d abandon me?”
Most ridiculous conversation I’d ever had, since I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Chase would never, ever forsake Brig for any reason that came readily to mind. “No.” I clipped the word. If he wanted a tone, there it was, because how clueless could he be?
“I know he was a bit of a prick to you today, but he apologized,” he said, reaching the table and standing there, looming over me.
“Yes, he did. May we drop this now?” I asked, tipping my head back to meet his gaze.
“No,” he barked defensively. “Chase is a really good guy.”
I understood then. He wasn’t about to let the argument go, because it was something to focus on that wasn’t being interrogated by the FBI. “Tell me,” I said, leaning back, crossing my arms. “Would you consider yourself observant?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Do you notice things about people? Ever?”
“Of course,” he snapped. “What are you talking about, ‘do I notice people’? Of course I notice people. Do you?”
“I actually do,” I said sarcastically. “It goes along with the job description.”
“You’re beating around the bush. Just spit out whatever it is you have to say.”
He was right, I was. I stared at him and gave things a moment to settle. If I asked, or outright told him what I’d intuited, and he truly didn’t know, then I wasn’t doing him any favors. And it might even kill his friendship with Chase. Conversely, if he couldn’t infer the thoughts, feelings, or emotions of others, then I needed to take that into consideration and not be a pompous jackass in my opinion that he was missing something so obvious.
“Croy?”
The thing was, though, Brig had feelings for Eric, that was more than apparent, so my assuming he didn’t process or feel emotions was ludicrous.
“Stop thinking,” he ordered me. “You do that a lot, did you know?”
“What? Think?” I asked incredulously.
“Not think,” he growled at me, “analyze.”
“Ah yes, because thinking and analyzing is a terrible trait.”
“Now that was snide.”
“Well, yes, of course it was.”
“What I meant to say was that you disappear into your own head for long periods, and I suspect you scrutinize everything to death.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“I’m all for thinking before speaking, but you take it to another level.”
“Yes, well,” I said brusquely, “as you said, it’s better than the alternative.”
“Just spit out whatever it is about Chase.”
I cleared my throat and absolved myself of all guilt, because he’d asked for it. “All right,” I said before I took a quick breath. “Are you, or are you not, aware that your best friend is carrying an Olympic-sized torch for you?”
Watching him process my words, one thing became very clear—he had never noticed that Chase wanted to climb him like a tree.
“Chase…Chase has feelings for me?”
Jesus. No one was this blind.
“Like beyond-friendship feelings?”
I shot him a look that I hoped conveyed all the levels of dumbass that he was.
“I have no idea what you’re saying to me right now.”
“Yes, I know,” I said, careful not to even approach sounding snide.
“I feel as though I’ve missed something.”
I swallowed down yet another snarky comment.
“I—you think Chase has feelings for me?”
It was ridiculous that anyone could be so obtuse, and that, combined with the fact that we were sitting in the field offices of the FBI in Las Vegas, made me a total failure as any kind of fixer. I was so very fired. The irony that I’d been better at keeping someone out of trouble when I’d been in college than I was now, after training, after having been a policeman, was beyond absurd. I needed to quit and save Jared some money. Maybe I could fall back on my minor in art and teach somewhere while I got my master’s. I clearly needed a change.