“I know,” Adam replied, avoiding making direct eye contact. But Justin wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily.
“No, I don’t think you do.” Justin grunted out the last of his frustration and scrubbed a hand against the stubble on his cheek. “Look, I’m done trying to change you but you’ve gotta start letting some of this shit go. Rely on other people. Now you’ve got a brother and sister to help you work on that life skill.”
Oh yeah, the one subject sure to make him stress even more than usual. Now he had a family to worry about when he knew nothing about family.
“I’ll be sure to call you out of your next weekend-long poker tournament to help out at the office. That will work,” Adam grumbled, immediately feeling a pang of guilt at the jab that he knew would strike the soft underbelly of his oldest friend.
“Okay, now you’re being an asshole and that’s my cue to give you some space to brood and fixate on all the things you can’t control.” Justin paced over to the couch, grabbed his phone off the table and headed toward the door. “While you’re pondering all the shit in the universe during your ninety-mile run tonight, don’t forget to figure out what the hell was happening between you and Tess a little while ago.”
And there it was. Payback for the poker comment. He deserved it.
“I’m not talking to you about that,” he answered, not bothering to deny that he knew exactly what Justin was talking about.
He had to figure out how to navigate the fact that he’d called her baby and how hard it was to stay away from Tess. He’d failed miserably at not fantasizing about her or dreaming about her—why did he think that actual physical contact would be easier to navigate? There was no easy answer, but he had to make a decision to give in to temptation or cut Tess loose. And he knew in his gut that letting her go wasn’t the answer.
“You were leaving, right?” Adam prompted, needing time to process the day’s events.
“I was. I am. I’ll be back here tomorrow morning and we’ll find out who is trying to destroy our company.” Justin pointed at him, his grin telling Adam that all was forgiven. “And we’ll also discuss why you can’t seem to understand the difference between asking Tess out and hiring her.” He shook his head. “No wonder you’re still single.”
Four
“One day I’m going to show up and you’ll be wearing an aluminum foil hat.”
Tess put a Post-it on the file she was reviewing and looked up to find her baby sister leaning on the door frame swinging her set of house keys back and forth in front of her. Well, Mia wasn’t a baby anymore. She was twenty-one years old, a junior in college and a testament to the fact that Tess had done something right.
Except for the part where Mia was such a smartass. That part was all Mia.
Okay, maybe that was all Tess.
“Is that how I taught you to speak to your elders?” Tess asked, surprised at the stiffness in her back and the tingly sensation running up and down one of her legs. She glanced down at her watch; she’d been head down for hours. She pushed back her desk chair and shook out her sleepy leg, smacking her sister’s hand when she flipped open a file on the desk. “No peeking at stuff on my desk. I can’t believe I still have to tell you this.”
“I still can’t believe that you’re such a broken record,” Mia grumbled, tapping her finger on the file in question. “I was just checking to see if this was about your favorite subject. I rang the bell twice and called out and you still didn’t hear me.”
Tess groaned, stretching out her leg as she headed toward the kitchen for the strongest, biggest cup of coffee on the planet. She still had a dozen files to read through before she could even think about hitting the sack. It had been a long week and it looked like it was about to get longer. Somebody was definitely trying to sabotage Redhawk/Ling and she’d been hired to do a job.
Adam was depending on her.
And she was lying to him.
Tess shook her head to clear the cobwebs and the memory of him and the way he’d called her baby in his office earlier. It had been unexpected and clearly, if the flare of surprise in his eyes was any indication, something he hadn’t planned on saying. But the endearment had been uttered with a sexy rumble and a protective ferocity that sent a shiver of anticipation down her spine. Factor in how he’d been immediately concerned with the well-being of Estelle, his sweet assistant, and Tess added another item to the long list of reasons why she wanted to jump Adam Redhawk.
Okay, she really needed that caffeine.
“I was working, Mia. Why aren’t you at school?” Tess shuffled behind the counter and flipped the switch on her coffee maker, grabbed a pod and slipped it into the machine. She turned around to lean on the countertop while the machine worked its magic and created the elixir that would keep her from making bad man-oriented decisions. “Not that I don’t love seeing you but don’t you have a paper to write or a class to attend? A study session with coeds in your pj’s?”
“It’s college, not an Anna Kendrick movie,” Mia mumbled from where her head was stuck inside the fridge.
She emerged, her auburn pixie cut sticking up at odd angles due to the static electricity, a string cheese in her hand. For a minute, it was ten years ago and Mia was the pain-in-the-butt little sister who tried to listen in on Tess’s phone calls with boys and who also crawled into bed with Tess when their father was having a rough spell. Those days solidified their relationship; they’d learned the hard way that in the end they really only had each other.
Tess had worked her ass off, juggling several jobs for a number of years and cases she would have loved to turn down to secure this little house. It was only two bedrooms and one bath and a backyard that was barely big enough for a grill but it was their home. Tess used the space in what was intended to be the dining room to work from home on the days she didn’t need to go to the tiny office she leased from a local insurance company on a barter basis. She always kept Mia’s room open for her and tried not to let on just how much she missed her since she’d gone to college.
“Fair enough but please don’t join an a cappella group. That still doesn’t explain why you’re here.” Tess held up a hand in defense at the site of her sister’s glare. “Not that I don’t love it when you come and see me but...”
Mia rolled her eyes and opened the string cheese. “I need to do my laundry.”
“Of course, you do.”
“Whatever. I also haven’t heard from you in a couple of weeks and I wanted to make sure it was a case and not a serial killer home invasion that had removed you from your usual place of up my butt and all in my business.”