Okay, fine. Maybe setting fire to the guy’s car was enough for one day.
Pinning me and Omar with a look, DB’s voice is dead serious. “This is it, gentlemen. If I have to deal with your bullshit even one more time, I’ll have you both on photo duty until the end of your natural lives. We have bigger fish to fry.”
Omar shifts next to me, and if I had to guess, he’s imagining putting his fist through my face.
That’s totally fair considering the accidental arson, but photo duty…oof. We never go into an op half-cocked, and we depend a lot on photographic evidence. Most of the photographic evidence of the people we go after is…well, it’s enough to make you want to burn it all down because people are fucking terrible.
I’d like to think DB is using hyperbole, but I wouldn’t put it past him. And Omar might actually end me if we’re relegated to photo duty.
“Are we going to have a problem here?” DB asks, knocking on the table.
“No,” Omar answers, completely composed.
I hold my arms forward, hinged at the elbow like a robot, and respond in a mechanical voice. “No. Mr. Blaylock. There will be no. Bullshit. From us.”
Omar clenches his teeth together, and the strong band of muscle in his impossibly square jaw twitches like it might finally break. Silently, he turns his head and proceeds to burn a hole through my skull.
He then turns that heated look to DB and raises his eyebrow.
DB pinches the bridge of his nose so hard that I’m concerned he may bruise it. Most people don’t realize how easily the nose is broken. I’m tempted to tell him, but I sense that would not help my situation.
“Anders, did you just imitate arobotto provide an answer to the very serious question I asked you?”
I sense, probably a little too late, that now is not the time to play around.
I sit up straight to address both DB and Omar. “I really am in the wrong here, and I will stop. Everything. DB, I’ve been fucking with Omar, and I promise it stops tonight. I swear I was going for funny, not arson.”
Thane walks in right as I’m groveling for mercy.
DB narrows his eyes at me but waves Thane over. They whisper back and forth for several heated seconds before DB turns to me and Omar again.
“To be continued.” Turning to everyone else, he says, “Guys, let’s take ten. We’ve got a new priority that’s just come up. Come back ready to jump in.”
Omar gets up and leaves the room, not sparing me a single look.
Odd and Parker, however, spare me multiple looks and…maybe a glare or two. Parker grabs my arm. “Come here, you fucking idiot.”
Odd and Parker frog-march me to the restroom, where Parker turns on me with both hands on her hips, looking up at me like I’m a world-class asshole.
“What the fuck, dude?”
I rub the back of my head. “I realize that I may have pushed it a little in there.”
“Alittle? Youset his car on fire, and you’re still going to fuck with him?”
“I didn’t mean to. With the fire, that is.”
Odd shakes his head. “No, let’s back up. You had poppers sitting all day in a hot enclosed space? On paper flyers? Hell, we were gone forhours. That shit burns really hot. It could’ve blown up in the heat of the day and injured people. I’m with Parker on this. What thefuck, dude?”
I bite the inside of my cheek, not sure how to answer. I’m a smart guy with an inner dumbass who I tend to let run roughshod whenever sex is on the table. Or even when it’s not, apparently.
Odd shakes his head and continues. “I keep telling you to back off, that he’s wound way too tight. You’re lucky he only glanced you. If Thane hadn’t pulled him back, he’d’ve laid you out. Do you even know why you’re doing this?”
Odd is quieter around other people, unless he knows them fairly well. With me, though, he’s never pulled a single punch. That he’s doing it in front of Parker means that maybe…maybe I’ve really fucked up here.
I put my hands up. “I didn’t realize that the lube would leak all over the car, and I forgot that poppers can be dangerous. But…fucking with Omar is kind of like that itch an addict gets on their skin.”
“Meaning that it overrides your common sense?”
