Calculated Risk (Blackbridge Security 5)

I kick Jude’s foot when our boss’s office door closes.

“Dick,” I mutter.

He grins widely. He knows that we aren’t micromanaged by Deacon like some people are by their bosses, but I still don’t like having to explain myself. If I’m going to be given autonomy to work, then I don’t need those decisions being analyzed.

“Just for that, I think you need to come help during one class.”

He doesn’t answer, instead pulling a length of rope from his pocket as he begins to tie it in different sized knots.

Chapter 4

Hayden

“He’s full of shit,” I grumble, my foot tapping on the linoleum floor with my arms crossed over my chest.

“Maybe one person in the office told him one thing and someone else told him something different. It happens at your job all the time,” Parker says.

“And that explains the reason for making us leave last week, but then to have the audacity to expect me to drive across town to sign some paperwork? Geez, doesn’t the man know how to scan documents into email?”

I shouldn’t be taking my irritation out on Parker, but even though I argued about what time I’d be here tonight when Quinten called last Friday, I had no real intention of showing up. If I hadn’t been so fired up that I called Parker to complain about the jerk, I could be sitting at home in my pajamas watching baking show reruns.

She all but squealed when I told her we could go back, and here we are… waiting because although Quinten was adamant about needing to go over this information, he’s the one who’s late.

“Would you quit?” Parker hisses when I turn my arm to look at my watch again.

“He’s late. It’s rude.”

“It’s two minutes past. Maybe he got caught in traffic or had a—” The door to the classroom opens, cutting off her words. “There he is. Hi, Mr. Lake.”

“Quinten,” he grunts. “Sorry I’m late.”

He doesn’t offer an excuse, and I know I’m just being petty over two minutes, but that annoys me too. Not that I should be concerned about where he’s been. Only a crazy woman would wonder what a man she doesn’t even know has been up to, and I’m anything but crazy.

“Sign these.” He pulls two sheets of paper with fine print on them and places them in front of each of us.

Parker uses the ink pen on the table to scribble her name at the bottom.

“You need to read that,” I hiss.

She shrugs as I turn my attention back to the form, reading it word for word, slower than it would normally take me because if he’s going to waste my time, then I’m petty enough to waste a little of his.

Only when I finish reading about liability and instructional rules, do I look up at him. I find a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth instead of a frown of irritation. I can’t tell if he’s happy I’ve taken the time to read it, or if it’s an agreement to my pettiness that he’s accepting as a challenge.

I scrawl my name before sliding the paper back across the table to him.

“I was trying to explain these when you hung up on me last week,” he says as he hands each of us a rather drab looking informational pamphlet.

“You hung up on him?” Parker hisses as if the man isn’t standing just a few feet away.

I shrug, refusing to apologize. “I thought the conversation was over.”

“As you can see…”

He spends the next twenty minutes going over the pamphlet word for word, as if neither one of us can read. Parker seems a little too happy to listen to him talk, and personally, I find myself listening to the tone and cadence of his voice rather than the actual words.

He’s in the front of the class, acting as if neither of us exist by the time the other women start piling in through the door.

Several in the group look in our direction, appearing unhappy that we’re back, but I’m used to that sort of thing when I’m with Parker. She’s got the looks and the confidence that draw men in by the hundreds. Less confident women take issue with that, and it makes it difficult to make friends.

The woman she spoke with so easily last week ends up sitting a little closer to the front this week. As I look around the room, I see all the spots up front filled, whereas last week there were gaps between some of them.

We’re in the back, a location of my choosing because although I would normally sit up front in an educational setting, I needed to be as far away from that man as possible. I know I should take the class seriously, and I will as far as the safety aspect is concerned, but I don’t honestly see myself ever buying or carrying a firearm.