Friendly Fire (Ricochet 2)

Weary, Quinn rubbed her eyes, determined to get those damn figures into the damn spreadsheet sometime before lunch. She was so intent on finishing, that she didn’t hear the front door open or the footsteps of the man who crossed the lobby to lean against her desk.

“Hey Quinn. How’s it going?”

Quinn nearly jumped out of her skin when Dane spoke from directly in front of her desk.

“Jesus, Dane. I didn’t hear you come in. How is it that all of you huge men are so quiet when you walk? It’s creepy.”

Dane gave her an odd look, his rich brown eyes nearly black as he looked at her. Squirming under the scrutiny, Quinn pretended to move things around on her desk to escape the discomfort of the man’s intense stare.

Out of the corner of her eye, Quinn saw Dane shake his head and heard a small chuckle as he dismissed whatever thoughts he had.

“Can I help you, Dane?” she asked without lookin

g up.

“I’m just making sure you’re having a good day, Quinn. That’s all.”

Quinn’s eyes darted up to the waist-high counter in front of her desk where Dane was drumming his thick fingers rhythmically over the surface. She felt her neck heat up, the air suddenly very hot in the normally over-air conditioned lobby. Over his shoulder, Quinn saw the interior door closing and caught a glimpse of what she thought was Rick’s shirt as it went through the small opening right before the door shut tight.

“Really?” she responded, keeping her face as neutral as possible as she stared at Dane, not wanting the large man to see her upset. “You’re just here to check on my day?”

Did Rick actually get Dane to chat me up so he could sneak inside without speaking to me?

The thought made Quinn’s heart hurt. Was he so upset by her that he would rather avoid her completely than have to tolerate another conversation?

Unfortunately, Dane saw right through her attempt to act unmoved. His reaction shocked the hell out of her. He burst out laughing, throwing his head back as if Quinn were the funniest person in the world. “Right, right. You don’t know anything about why I’m standing here, not a thing. You’re hysterical Quinn.” His eyes flicked to the closed door that Rick disappeared behind. Dane gave Quinn his biggest smile before swiping his badge and disappearing into the gym.

Jesus, these guys are worse than a bunch of high school girls gossiping in front of their lockers. He knows damn well that Rick is avoiding me today, and he knows that I know and he thinks it’s funny. Screw you Dane!

Quinn forced herself to brush off the incident with Dane and Rick, doing her best to focus on work and make it through the day unscathed. The trainers, led by Dane no doubt, apparently had other ideas, because every single guy who was at the gym that day made it his personal mission to check on Quinn at least once. Certainly, it was meant to distract her from any attempts to talk to Rick, not that she wanted to after his immature avoidance tactic.

By five o’clock, Quinn’s patience was shot and her nerves were frazzled. It felt if she spent eight hours being interrogated by the men of Sanctum instead of answering phones and inputting data. When the clock hit five, she practically sprinted out the front door to get away from them and their extreme nosiness, skipping her planned training session with Xavier. She was getting pretty good at kickboxing, so she figured she could take one day off.

Relieved to finally be back in her apartment, Quinn hopped in the shower to rinse off after the guys made her sweat all day with their constant interruptions. If she overheard one more joke about Ricochet Rick being all healed up and ready to bounce from bed to bed, she was going to stab one of them with her huge silver letter opener. Apparently, Dane didn’t bother to fill them in on the fact that she and Rick had hooked up, or that they had a falling out— or maybe he didn’t know. That was fine by her, but listening to the guys loudly plot Rick’s next conquest as if she weren’t sitting right there was pretty damn irritating.

Feeling clean at last, she threw on a light dress, not wanting to get sweaty all over again in the late summer heat. As she was combing out her wet hair, her cell phone rang. Quinn cursed as she dug through her purse to find it, answering right before it went to voicemail.

“Hello?”

“Miss Wallace?” A kind female voice was on the other end.

“Yes, who’s this?”

“This is Linda Fitzgerald. John Wheeler, my colleague at my law firm asked me to give you a call. He said you were in need of a divorce attorney.”

“Oh.” Quinn stopped in the middle of her living room, her wet hair dripping onto the carpet. “Yes. I do need one, a divorce. I mean an attorney for a divorce.”

A friendly laugh came through the phone. “I can meet with you this Thursday at one, would that be alright?”

Quinn knew that Mack would let her take a long lunch or leave early for an appointment so she agreed to meet at the lawyer’s Midtown office. After hanging up, she finished with her hair, quickly drying and twisting it into a loose bun to keep it off of her neck.

Smiling, Quinn decided to work on a plan to get Rick to give her another chance… as friends. She was determined to make this work. Everything else in her life was falling into place. Her dad’s house was on the market and had a potential buyer, her legal name change would go through by the end of the week, and she was about to cut the cancer known as Travis out of her life for good. Maybe once Travis was gone, she could have another go with Rick, make a real effort at a normal, adult relationship.

Now she just had to get Rick to trust her again and everything would be perfect.

“One more set, Rick. Gimme ten more reps and we’ll call it a day.”

Rick glared at Clint from his reclining position on the mat where he was resting between sets of crunches, his hand clamped down on his healing side. “You have no idea how much this fucking hurts, asshole.”