Page 74 of Trick
“He keeps aggravating the same injury, so the doc gave him some muscle relaxants and put him on bed rest for the nexttwo days. He wants him to take it easy for a couple of weeks after that. No lifting anything over ten pounds, no climbing stairs, and no motorcycle. He’s fuckin’ thrilled about that, as you can imagine,” he said sarcastically.
“He’s gonna stay with Ella and me since we have a guest room on the first floor. She’s already making him a batch of brownies, and has promised to make fried chicken for dinner, since it’s his favorite.”
“Shit, Prez, you’ll never get rid of him if she keeps that up. He’ll end up as your permanent house guest,” Jase joked.
King just glared at him and flipped him off, then grabbed Jase’s plate of pizza and took it with him as he stalked back to his office. The look on Jase’s face was priceless as he watched his lunch disappear down the hallway, and I laughed until I could barely catch my breath.
He snatched the piece of pizza from my plate and devoured half of it in one bite, using one long arm to hold me back as I tried in vain to get it back from him.
“Jase,” I whined. “I can’t believe you stole my pizza, you jagoff.” He leaned over and booped the end of my nose, then got up to get more pizza for both of us.
I looked across the table to see Bull and Irish staring at Jase as if he’d grown a second head. Oops. It was a good thing we’d agreed to stop hiding, because I had a feeling we’d just outed ourselves in a big way.
We finished our lunch, both of us pretending not to notice that Bull and Irish were watching us like hawks. Afterward, I headed back to the room while Jase stayed in the common room with the guys. He came in about an hour later, clearly pissed off as he flopped down next to me on the loveseat.
“I just got a call from a client at the gym. We’re arranging an event for him, and he insists on meeting tonight to go over the details. I tried to get out of it, but he’s not the kind of man you can argue with.”
“Is there anyone else available to go with me to the studio?”
He nodded reluctantly. “I can send Tony with you, but I would really prefer if you reschedule your session.”
“Jase,” I sighed. “You know I need to get my chapters completed. Besides, Bull confirmed that Beau is working, which means he’ll be at the fire station until at least seven tomorrow morning. The building is kept locked now so nobody can get in without an access code, and Tony will be sitting right outside the booth the whole time. I’ll be perfectly safe,” I assured him.
He tilted his head and looked at me for a long moment, then nodded again. “OK, but you stay within Tony’s line of sight at all times, and I want him to ride over in your car, instead of on his bike.”
I kissed him, and just as he pulled me onto his lap his cell phone rang. “Dammit to hell,” he grumbled as he fished it out of his back pocket. “It’s Hawk…he’s covering the gym for me, so I need to take this, darlin’.”
I picked up my tablet and continued making notations while Jase talked Hawk through some kind of issue he was having with two fighters who were apparently demanding the use of the same equipment at the same time.
“Tell them I’m not running a goddamned kindergarten class, and if they can’t share their toys like big boys, they’ll be banned for a week. If that doesn’t stop their bitchin’, tell them they can take it up with me in the octagon, and neither of them have the balls or the fuckin’ skills for that.”
The mood was broken by the time he ended the call, and I needed to get ready to leave soon anyway.
Tony insisted on driving us to the studio in case we needed to “take evasive action” on the way. I decided that he’d watched theFast & Furiousmovies too many times, but kept that thought to myself. I appreciated him taking my safety so seriously, so it didn’t seem fair to bust his balls over it.
There were only a few cars in the parking lot when we arrived a little before four-thirty. Tara, the receptionist, was shutting down her computer in preparation for going home for the day.
“JD just left but he put a chair out for your guard to use. Booth number one is finishing up, and booth two is booked until six, but you’ll be the only one here once she leaves.”
After telling her to have a nice weekend, Tony and I walked down the hall to booth number four. Tony took up his position in the chair while I punched in the access code on the keypad to unlock the door.
After doing some quick vocal warm-ups and getting my tablet queued up to the correct chapter, I glanced over the notations and hit the button to start recording. It didn’t take long to push everything else out of my mind and become engrossed in my work. I took a couple of small breaks to hydrate but otherwise I kept plugging away at it.
Several hours later, I paused the recording, then stretched my arms above my head and rolled my neck from side to side. My body was stiff from sitting still for so long and my throat was starting to ache. I just wanted to finish this chapter and then head back to the clubhouse.
I sipped my water while I looked at my tablet, reading over the next few paragraphs. They were heavy on the dialogue,so I had color-coded the text to correspond to the tone and inflection needed for each sentence. The next passage was highlighted in red to indicate that I should sound angry or annoyed in order to reflect the heroine’s dislike of her mother in law.
I took a few breaths, then pressed the record button and then the clicker before speaking.
“I’mdone, Duncan. If you’re going to continue to allow your mother to treat me that way, then you’ll have to go to Sunday dinner on your own from now on. Every single week she finds a new way to remind me that she doesn’t think I measure up to the precious Hollingsworth name, and youneverdefend me. Not even once. We’ve been married for over a year, dammit, and she still treats me as if I’m the hired – ”
A sudden draft across the back of my neck alerted me to the fact that the door behind me had just opened. I stopped talking mid-sentence and yanked my noise-cancelling headphones off as I whirled around to see who had barged in.
JD stood in the doorway. He looked upset and was breathing heavily.
I jumped to my feet, knowing something had to be terribly wrong for him to be here this late in the evening, especially looking the way he did.
“What’s wrong? Where’s Tony?” I started for the door, but JD blocked my way, then shut the door behind him and flipped the latch to lock us in. Dread flooded through me, collecting in the pit of my stomach.
