“You coming?” Holbrook asked, drawing my gaze away from Johnson’s distant figure.
Straightening, I picked up Loki’s carrier, glad that no one mentioned the obvious tremor in my hand. “Sure.”
Chapter 11
FILING INTO THE ELEVATOR with Holbrook and the rest of the agents from the convoy, we stood in uncomfortable—and cramped—silence, avoiding making eye contact with our reflections in the mirrored interior. Although Johnson wasn’t with us, the effects of his tirade lingered like a corporeal being in the confined space, making us all a bit jittery.
“So…” I drawled, rocking back and forth on the balls of my feet. “How ‘bout them Broncos?”
“You watch football?” Holbrook asked with a surprised tilt to his brows.
“No, but I figured it was better than asking if you’d had your prostate checked recently,” I replied with a shrug, and grinned at the uncomfortable look on his face.
Behind me the female agent let out a chuckle, breaking the tense atmosphere. In the mirrored surface of the elevator, I could see everyone’s shoulders visibly relax as they let some of the tension go. Amazing what a little ass humor can do to a crowd.
“Tillman, you ever muster up the courage to ask out Jenna in accounting?” Holbrook asked to change the subject, grinning as the young agent blushed crimson and shifted from one foot to the other.
Beside him, his partner laughed, shaking her head.
“Shut up, Myrom,” Tillman said, staring at the toes of his shoes while his blush crept up the sides of his neck. He looked like a mortified teenager who’d just been pantsed in the middle of gym class.
“Ignore them,” I said, taking pity on the poor kid. Leaning in conspiratorially I added in a stage whisper, “They’re just a bunch of asshats.” Although he didn’t raise his head, he did lift his gaze to meet mine, gracing me with a faint smile.
“Holbrook’s just intimidated by my giant…gun,” Tillman said, puffing out his chest and waggling his eyebrows for emphasis.
Laughter erupted from all of us, the last of our collective anxiety dissipating like smoke. We were all wiping tears of laughter from our eyes and shaking our heads when the elevator dinged and the doors opened to reveal a large open room filled with cubicles and agents walking to and fro like busy little bees. Tillman and Myrom got out ahead of me, the younger agent flashing me a smile before ducking his head and jogging after his partner.
Holbrook’s hand on my arm kept me from exiting the elevator. Turning to face him, I arched my brows in an unspoken question.
“Thanks for that,” he said, his voice pitched low enough that it wouldn’t carry down the hallway towards the retreating agents.
“For what?”
“Tillman. He’s a good kid, a good agent, but he’s quiet and shy. You brought him out of his shell. You did a good thing there.”
“It was nothing,” I said with a shrug, though I smiled at the warm flutter in the pit of my stomach.
With all the crazy crap going on around me, it had felt good—really good—to make someone smile, no matter how silly or inconsequential it may have seemed to anyone else. I knew all too well what it was like to be the awkward one in the room. If cracking a few ass jokes could help lighten the mood and give a shy guy a little boost, well then, watch out folks because I’ve got a butt load more jokes where that one came from. Get it? Butt load. Yeah, I crack myself up too.
Holbrook led the way out of the elevator, weaving through the sea of cubicles until reaching one at the end of a row. A small shiny nameplate tacked to the outside of the cubicle bore the name J. Lloyd. It looked like a bomb had gone off in there, every available surface, including large portions of the floor, covered in stacks of file folders, loose papers, hand written notes, and Post-Its. The cubicle’s occupant was a middle-aged man with sandy blonde hair, blinking blue eyes, and a ketchup stain on the front of his shirt.
“Hey Jim, do you have those case files I asked you to track down?” Holbrook asked.
“Sure, they’re around here somewhere,” he answered, as he pushed his chair back from the desk and looked over the mountain of paperwork. “Now where did I put that box?” he muttered, shuffling random stacks of paper back and forth across the small space.
“Is that it?” I asked, spotting a bankers box in the only relatively clutter free corner of the cubicle.
“Ah ha!” Jim crowed in triumph, zeroing in on the box I had pointed out. “Well done!”
As Jim scooted his chair across the floor to retrieve the box, I gave Holbrook a significant look and received a brief shrug in return.
“Should be everything you asked for,” Jim beamed.
“Thanks, Jim,” Holbrook said, accepting the box. “Say hi to Tanya and the kids for me.”