Page 4 of Bulletproof

I shrugged. “I dunno. As far as I can tell, you don’t have any good music.”

Michelle coughed.

“I’m sorry?” Mr. Fisher’s face fell as he scowled at me.

That fast I had annoyed him. It really was a gift.

I glanced over at Michelle. “I don’t normally talk to clients for this very reason.”

She gave him her best fake laugh as I left the room to take more pictures.

I wasn’t charming. I tended to be blunt, and I always felt that clients needed to know the truth about things. I had learned it when I worked for my brother, Dane, years ago. Dane just spoke his mind, and so I did too. It was a bad habit though, as I was not the architectural god he was. Dane always told me there were ways to tell people things. Honesty was sometimes not the best policy. I needed to learn finesse. I told him if I didn’t already have it, it probably wasn’t going to happen. I was nearly thirty after all.

“Mr. Harcourt!”

I looked over my shoulder at the sound of my name.

“Are you listening to me?”

Of course not.

“I’m sorry, are you talking to me?”

“I was trying to!” He sounded so very irritated.

“Why?”

“Why?” he repeated, squinting at me.

“Talk to Michelle or Lily,” I suggested, turning away from him.

But he moved fast, barring my path. “Could you just … could you take those out of your ears so I can speak with you?”

I conceded to one earbud. I left the right one in. “Yeah?”

“Yeah?” He repeated the word irritably.

“Oh. Yes?” Dane hated yeah too. My brother said that yeah was a plague on mankind, sloppy and overused. And he didn’t think he was uptight. “Sorry.”

“What?”

I huffed out a breath. “What can I do for you, Mr. Fisher?”

“What are you doing?”

“With the camera, ya mean?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m detailing the horror, of course,” I replied like it was obvious, adding some snark to my voice for good measure.

“Pardon me?”

I gestured around.

“Do you have something to⁠—”

Michelle tried to break into the conversation. “Mr. Fisher, I think⁠—”