She snaked an arm around his waist and leaned her head on his pec as they started walking together. "You like your balls where they are?"
"Yeah. I don't like the way you're lookin', though. I prefer you feisty and pissed off. "
"Me, too, Trez. Me too. . . "
"So we're good on the 'buttercup'? Or do I have to get even tougher with you? I'll pull out 'pookie' if I have to. "
In the way back of the club, next to the locker room where the "dancers" changed in and out of their street clothes, Trez's office had a door on it like a meat locker. Inside, there was a black leather couch, a big metal desk, and a lead-lined blanket chest that was bolted to the floor. That was it. Well, aside from the purchase orders, receipts, phone messages, laptops. . . .
It felt like a million years since she'd been around all this.
"Guess iAm hasn't been here yet," she said, nodding to the mess on the desk. Trez's twin would never have stood for it.
"He's over at Sal's cooking until midnight. "
"Same schedule, then. "
"If it ain't broke. . . "
As they settled in, he in his thronelike chair, she on the couch, her chest hurt.
"Talk to me," he said, his dark face serious.
Propping her head on her hand and crossing her leg ankle to knee, she fiddled with the laces on her shitkicker. "What if I told you I wanted my old job back?"
In her peripheral vision, she watched him recoil a little. "I thought you were fighting with the Brothers. "
"So did I. "
"Wrath not exactly comfortable with a female in the field?"
"John isn't. " As Trez cursed, she exhaled hard. "And as I'm his shellan, what he says goes. "
"He actually looked you in the eye and - "
"Oh, he did more than that. " When a threatening growl percolated through the air, she waved her hand. "No, nothing violent. The argument - arguments weren't a party, though. "
Trez sat back. Drummed his fingers on the clutter in front of him. Stared at her. "Of course you can come back - you know me. I'm not bound by any vampiric notion of propriety - and ours is a matriarchal society, so I've never understood the misogyny of the Old Ways. Am worried about you and John, however. "
"We'll work it out. " How? She hadn't a clue. But she wasn't giving her fear that they wouldn't be able to any more credibility by putting it into words. "I just can't sit in that house doing nothing, and I don't want to even lay eyes on the bunch of them. Shit, Trez, I should have known this mating thing was a bad idea. I'm not cut out for it. "
"Sounds like you're not the one creating the problem. Although I do get where he's coming from. If anything happened to iAm, I'd go fucking mental - so it's not a good idea for he and I to fight side by side. "
"You do anyway. "
"Yeah, but we're stupid. And it's not like we go out looking for hand-to-hand every night - we got office jobs that keep us busy, and it's only if something finds us that we take care of it. " He opened a desk drawer and threw her a set of keys. "There's one last empty office down the hall. If that detective from CPD homicide comes around again about Chrissy and that dead boyfriend of hers, we'll deal with it if we have to. Meanwhile, I'll put you back on the payroll. Timing's good - I could use some help organizing the bouncers. But - and I mean this - there's no long-term obligation. You can leave whenever you want. "
"Thanks, Trez. "
The two of them stared across his desk.
"It's going to be okay," the Shadow said.
"You sure about that. "
"Positive. "
About a block and a half away from the Iron Mask, Xcor stood in the lee of a tattoo parlor, the red, yellow, and blue glow from its neon sign getting in his eyes and on his nerves.