Ian scoffed. “I can pull from other districts if I need to, and we both know that Kage ain’t letting you out of this.”
“Yeah, but—”
“And besides, you know this dog-and-pony show is coming from up high and has shit to do with your boss.” He smirked at me. “He hates fundraisers more than all the rest of us put together.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“Have you seen that man in a tux?” Ian made a face. “It’s horrible. He yanks on his collar and rolls his shoulders… It’s just bad.”
I groaned. “I blame Brodie.”
“Why?” Ian wanted to know.
“The whole thing with him and Rodriguez put Kage in a bad mood, which didn’t help me at all.”
“It’s too bad Brodie was such an asshole,” Miro chimed in.
“For me, more than anything, it was the whole ‘kick down the door first and ask questions later’ bullshit. Hotdogs we don’t need,” Ian replied without a drop of irony.
“You realize that this, coming from you, Captain America, is absolutely hysterical.”
“Whatever. I’m a grown-up now,” he snapped at me petulantly.
“Yeah, I can tell.”
He held up his left hand and wiggled his fingers. “I’m married and shit.”
“Maybe don’t say married and then add the and-shit part,” Miro told him.
Ian huffed out a breath and scowled at me. “Why do you still look constipated?”
“I do not look—”
“You do a little,” Miro agreed with a shrug.
“Just suck it up,” Ian told me. “Like me, you’re a fuckin’ liaison now. You’re a bridge between this office and many others. You only have one boss, but people can request that you do all kinds of crap.”
I tried not to whimper, but it came out anyway.
“It’s one night. Go be a goddamn bridge.”
I looked over at Miro, who only had a shrug for me.
Once I left them and entered the elevator, they both waved like the assholes they were.
4
CELSO
The day started out just like normal and then, because of Senan Weaver, had gone to complete shit.
I had gotten up, drank a bottle of kombucha, had a cup of green tea, taken my vitamins, and headed out. Near the CBC, I stopped for an egg bagel with cream cheese and lox, a strawberry milk, two Greek yogurts with berries, a mineral water, and freshly squeezed orange juice that Mrs. Gomez, the proprietress of the deli, always saved for me. Her mother made them every morning, two dozen, and they sold fast. Mine was always in the employee fridge behind the counter, which I appreciated. But that’s how it always was. Nothing new. No indication that something was going to happen.
Inside, I greeted Rick, our security officer, dropped off his breakfast, the bagel stuffed with salmon and the strawberry milk, got my regular smile and whispered thank-you, and went upstairs. In the locker room, I found Zoey Rice, a soloist newly in from Los Angeles, and passed her one of the Greek yogurts.
“I have no idea how you can drink that orange juice,” she said, taking the mineral water from me. “It gives me heartburn.”
“At twenty-two, you have heartburn?”