“Has he been causing any problems at your place? Drinking or whatever?”
I shook my head, but I was relieved that I’d been wrong about him in that respect.
“He’s been fully committed to working, and fitting in with me. I’ve seen a side of him I didn’t know he had, to be honest. He’s serious about his art, and he’s damn good at it.”
“But he was late today.”
I flipped Grease off, because he knew the fucking reason, didn’t he? And I believed Rocket when he said nothing short of that would make him late, and that he’d never let me down.
“He couldn’t help that. He didn’t expect his ride to conk out on him. Plus he had to wait for recovery service.”
“And he couldn’t have called you or something, so you knew he wasn’t there to open up?”
I glared at Grease, because his beef with Rocket was really starting to piss me off.
“It wasn’t his job to open up! He’s been there early every fucking day, even though I open up. I always have, and I always will. That responsibility wasn’t on his shoulders, it was on mine.And I was fucking late too. Seriously, you need to get your head out of your ass with him, man. I can’t have you two winding each other up every fucking day.”
Grease shrugged, reminding me of a fucking teenager, and I should know, I fucking helped raise one.
“He’s still a prick.”
I jerked my thumb in his direction as I turned to Micro.
“I think Lissa needs to do relationship counselling for those two.”
“Fuck you. He started it, by calling me a mafia bitch or whatever, I mean, he risked fucking outing me to the whole club.”
“Okay, okay. That’s enough. Grease, look, man. I know you love the life, but that means you have to make an effort with the pricks as well. I know it’s hard, but you know what? He’s patched in. He’s a member too.”
“He can get fucked, and so can you. I’m not backing down now. It’s the principle of the thing, innit.”
Nice. Micro suddenly smirked, his eyes darting at me for a moment, before he spoke.
“I mean, it’d be a shame if the two of you get paired up on the rebuild, right? We’re gonna have to buddy people up, and you two need to learn to work together-”
“Put me with him, and he’ll end up buried under it. Look, I get it, you want us all to get along, but President or not, you don’t get to talk to me like I’m a kid, and you don’t get to enforce friendship with a guy who’s a bigger cunt than my old boss.”
Ouch. Grease’s eyes darted up to the ceiling, like he was looking for something.
“Still no cameras, right?”
I burst out laughing. “Aw he’s scared of the big man.”
“The point I was making, you pair of fucking assholes, is that Rocket can get on his fucking knees to beg for my forgiveness,and that’s the only way I’ll even consider it. Guessing he doesn’t have the balls to do that though.”
“Does it take balls? I guess you’d know, right, Grease?”
“You fucker. I knew you were listening that night. Look, we were about to die, and we wanted to try everything, and I won’t fucking apologise for that!”
I looked from him to Micro and back. What the hell had I missed, and when?
“She not still wearing the pants then?”
“Get fucked, I’m not telling you a damn thing.”
Micro grinned. “That’s a yes. Good on her. You need a strong woman, after all.”
He glanced at his desk phone as it rang, and frowned. Nobody calls the damn thing, after all. Only Reacher or the fucking Don, and Reacher mostly rang mobile phones anyway.
