“Uh, how about, I don’t. I have enough trouble with my own dates, let alone picking up someone else’s.” She turns her attention back to the computer, effectively cutting me off.
Whatever. I turn around from the front desk and take in their lobby. I was shocked when Greg told me that the guys did all their own decorating. The lobby is pretty dark, but still welcoming. Emmy’s desk is the center of attention when you walk in the door, literally, the first thing you can see. Then of course, there is the Corps Security logo in huge black letters behind her head. The walls are a dark gray, and on either side of Emmy are two thick black couches. Both sitting areas have a gray coffee table with various piles of crap magazines on them. We had finally talked the guys into adding some red accents around the place to at least make it look a little happier and less ‘my wife is cheating, will you catch her’ gloomy.
I walk over to the left of her desk, pick up the most recent People magazine, and start flipping the pages.
“Emmy, we’ve got to take an important call in the conference room, so hold all the other calls, and when Coop comes back, tell him to get in here.” Beck’s voice draws my attention away from the magazine. He walks over and gives me a brief kiss. “You okay up here for a second? We’re just right down the hall.”
I smile up at him and reach out to rub the frown from his brow. “I’m fine. Emmy and I were just discussing the benefits of getting into the pimping trade, so just go along, and let us work our magic.”
He walks away with a smile and all traces of his frown gone.
“You are nuts,” Emmy says from her desk, punctuating each word with a hard snap of the keyboard.
“But you love me!” We both laugh, but before she can go back to her work, I ask her the one question I know she hates to be asked. “So, how are things with Maddox?”
She loses the small smile on her face and stops what she’s doing.
“Things aren’t anything and they won’t be anything. That man is impossible.”
“You’re giving up?” I really never expected her to hold on to her flame for him this long, but I had been hoping that he would at least let her in when he realized how awesome she is.
“It’s for the best, Dee.”
Before I can reply, Coop comes dancing in the door, running his fingers through his shaggy blond hair. We both start laughing when we notice the gold glitter falling from his locks.
“This isn’t funny! I swear Sway has some kind of tracker on my truck. Ever since Greg told him I was some glitter fairy, he finds the need to come shower that shit all over me.”
I can’t hold back the laughter. I have to walk over to the desk and hold on so I don’t fall over, and squeeze my legs together so I won’t pee in my pants like a little kid.
I’m so busy laughing that I miss the second the mood shifts from light and laughing to deathly serious. I’m wiping the tears from my eyes when I notice something out of the corner of my eye. I take in Emmy’s stark white face and bugged-out eyes, before looking over at where Coop is standing. He’s frozen with his hand still in his hair, but his attention isn’t on the glitter anymore. I have never, not once in the two years that I’ve known him, seen him look like this. Playful and joking Coop has been replaced with someone that would give Maddox a run for his money. He looks absolutely lethal.
“Dee, get your ass behind the desk. Now.” Coop’s voice sounds the same, only much harder. I try to move, but the second I shift, the figure standing in the doorway turns his attention back towards me. I don’t even need to focus on him to tell that he’s pointing a gun right at the side of my head. The sickening click of him releasing the safety is all I needed to hear.
“If you even think about movin’ a fucking inch, I’ll put a goddamn bullet through your head.”
You would think that when you hear the voice of someone you know has clearly gone in-fucking-sane that he would at least sound demonic, but no, Adam sounds just like the same southern frat boy I hired not too long ago.
“Adam, put the gun down and let the girls go. Let’s me and you sit down and talk.” I beg. I try to swallow the lump of fear that’s crawling up my throat, but my mouth is bone-dry. I sneak a glance at Emmy to see that her face is impossibly pale, and she has tears streaming down her face.
Shit! Okay. Think Dee . . . I can feel the claws of my own personal hell trying to latch on and pull me under, back into that darkness that I’ve finally overcome, but I’ll be damned! There is no way in hell that I’m going to finally move past that to find my own happiness, then have some motherfucking cokehead take it away from me.