40. Overbearing Cocky Ass

40

OVERBEARING COCKY ASS

“ W hat bug crawled up your butt?” Miles asked her on Monday.

Regan set her coffee cup down with a loud click under the one-cup maker, then shut the mini fridge with more force than necessary.

“Nothing,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh,” Miles said, “I don’t know. Could be your body is so tense that I could bounce a quarter off of it.”

When her coffee was done brewing, she poured her creamer in it and put it away gentler than she’d pulled it out, then made sure the fridge didn’t shut that hard either.

“Not sure what you’re talking about.”

She turned and walked into her office.

Miles wasn’t one to give her any peace and was on her heels. “Did you and Zander get into a fight or something?”

“No fighting,” she said. “We’d have to be talking to do that.”

She couldn’t believe he stayed all weekend and barely said a word. She knew what was happening. He didn’t want to leave her alone yet he didn’t want to admit how unreasonable he was being either.

There was no way she was going to bring it up again and try to get him to talk.

It was the weekend and this was the time they had together, and if he wanted to spend it on a wild goose chase, that was on him. He wasn’t being reasonable and if she told him how scared she was, he’d put bodyguards around the whole block. He needed to calm down before they could talk about it. Both of them did.

She was safe as long as he was with her and never once did she tell him to leave, yet he didn’t understand that part either.

She went about her weekend cleaning and making food for them, the two of them barely talking. It wasn’t complete silence but not what she was used to.

If anyone ever said she was emotionless they didn’t know what it was like to feel like she was a volcano ready to erupt hot lava all over his overbearing cocky ass.

The worst part of it, she had cameras on her house now and the app on both her phone and Zander’s.

She wanted to argue but knew that would be stupid.

But she also didn’t want to admit the comfort she felt in that he was watching out for her. They’d have to talk for her to admit that.

“Oh boy, tell me what is going on so I can hate him too,” Miles said. “I’m good at that.”

“I don’t need to unload that drama.”

“Please do,” Miles said. “I love drama. I live for drama. I’ve been drama free for a good month.”

She felt bad that she hadn’t asked what was going on in his life as much as she used to.

Between a larger caseload and time with Zander and even helping him with some of his cases, she found she wasn’t taking the time out to see how her friends were doing.

No, that was wrong. She had no close friends.

Miles was an employee, but she cared about him as a friend. Maybe family.

“What’s going on with you?” she asked. “We’ve got twenty minutes. No more two guys to text?”

“No,” Miles said. “I told you that last week. They just wanted to be friends. I was hanging on longer than I should have. I’ll go out this weekend and see if I can connect with anyone. I’ve been lonelier than normal.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I should have been more aware.”

Miles laughed. “That is a code word for horny,” Miles said. “I’m never lonely. As I just said, I’ve got a lot of friends. Might need to just hook up. Nothing wrong with that. Now tell me what is going on with Zander.”

She figured she better let him know anyway. He’d have to be on alert.

She pulled the letter out of her purse and handed it over. “This was delivered to my house in the mail on Friday.”

Miles read it. “Oh wow. I’m nervous and terrified for you, Regan.”

“Don’t be,” she said.She didn’t need him upset and shouldn’t have said a word about it.

It must have been the tone she’d used. “Did he lock your house down?”

“I’ve got cameras and all now. He’s even been trying to see if he can see anything on his cameras next door. I told him it was useless. I have no idea who this is from and I’m not worried. He shouldn’t be.”

“Don’t do that, Regan.”

“Do what?” she asked.

“He loves you. He cares for you. He’s worried. He’s being a big macho man protecting his woman.”

“I don’t need his protection.”

“We all need protection in life. You’d be upset if he was in danger. I know it. You’ve hinted before that it made you nervous if he was out late at night. And that is the unknown.”

“So is this,” she said. She didn’t need Miles to point that out to her.

“It’s unknown with a known threat. It’s scary. I’m scared.”

Her shoulders drooped. “There is no reason to be scared,” she said. “I’m sure this is just an empty threat.”

“I would have thought that before when you got the first letter and nothing more. But now it’s another one. Why? Do you think this has to do with Sophia? Could it be two different people? Let’s compare the way they look.”

“Zander had a copy of the first letter and this one. He said it’s the same font on both. Just a normal common one. But they are matching. Even the envelope was printed. We can go through our client lists again and see if there is anyone from that first letter that might tie them back together. It’s the best we can do on our own.”

“I’m on it,” Miles said. “Are you sure you’re okay? Not with Zander. You’ll work that out. Just this letter. I wonder if you were so worked up over him that you pushed back any fear with this. You know, like all those years having no answers about your parents and being almost afraid to really push it and then to find out the stupid reason for the divorce.”

She’d shared that with Miles when she didn’t normally, but he knew about the dinners and it was hard to say one part without the rest.

“I wasn’t afraid to push. I’ve been asking them directly for years,” she argued.

“Not the right questions. You finally did and got your answers. I’m not saying it solved anything, but now you know.”

“You’re right, it didn’t change anything and I’m not sure why we are talking about this.”

“Sorry,” Miles said. “You can let me know if you’re nervous. I am. I’ll admit it. I’m a chicken shit. Sometimes I think you don’t want me to know you’re afraid or scared or nervous because you think it’s going to feed mine and I’ll be a basket case you’ll have to talk off the ledge. You might have to, but not in a therapy session. It’s more like a friend caring for another.”

She laughed. She needed to hear that and realized she wasn’t as good at hiding things as she thought. “Maybe I’m a bit nervous.” She held her thumb and finger up in a pinch.

“Doesn’t that feel better to say it? You know if you said it to Zander he’d stand guard outside the bathroom door when you tinkled.”

“You’re probably right. You’re not going to tell him, are you?”

“No,” Miles said. “Never. But my guess is he knows or you’ve opened up and told him and that’s why you’re fighting.”

“You’re too smart for your own good.”

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to text Betsy SOS an hour later to meet in the hall.

“What is going on with them?” Betsy asked. “Zander is all but throwing things around in his office and then went into Dave’s office and shut the door. Rocco almost dropped a pile under my desk. Zander was in there for five minutes and then left. Something is going on. Rocco finally came out when he knew the coast was clear.”

“They are fighting,” Miles said. He filled Betsy in on the letter.

“Oh,” Betsy said. “Zander is all in protection mode. I think that is why he’s been single for so long.”

“Because he’s controlling?” Miles asked. “Regan doesn’t like to be controlled.”

“Not controlling at all,” Betsy said. “He’s scared. It’s hard for him to focus when he’s worried. When he was on the force, he had a partner and he always worried about letting someone down. One of his colleagues got shot because his partner had turned his back for a second. One day the two of us were having a drink after a big case and he said that is why he was better off working alone.”

“You think he’s afraid to let Regan down?” Miles asked.

“That is my guess. Now he’s doing everything he can to protect her. He can’t be everywhere at once, but he’s going to try.”

“And push her away in the process,” Miles said, frowning. “I’m not sure how to fix something like that.”

“What are you two doing out here?”

They turned to see Diane and Carolyn Fierce come off the elevator. Talk about horrible timing.

Betsy had no problem filling them in though.

“Zander and Regan are going through a rough patch.”

“How rough?” Diane asked. “We are good at fixing things.”

“I think Regan would be upset if anyone interfered.”

“You just said that you were trying to figure out how to fix it,” Betsy accused him.

“I can do that,” he said indignantly. “She’d expect that of me as much as Zander would of you.”

“From our experience,” Carolyn said, “the best thing to do is get them in the same place together as much as you can. That will help move it along.”

“But you don’t know what is going on,” Betsy said. “Zander is being a man.”

“Regan is being stubborn,” he said.

“That’s an easy fix,” Diane said. “We’ve had to work our magic on worse. Keep us posted.”

“We will,” Betsy said. “Were you coming up to see one of us?”

“Actually,” Diane said, “no. I ran into one of my former students not that long ago when I was in the building and she said the next time we are here to come say hi. She’s on the fourth floor and I just hit the wrong button. I’m not used to going to that floor.”

“We saw you out here talking and figured it had to do with your bosses and wanted to see what was going on,” Carolyn said.

“Now you know,” Miles said.

“We do,” Diane said. “Have a good day.”

“Do you think they will stay out of it?” he asked Betsy.

“No clue,” Betsy said. “But I’m not going to worry about it. We have to figure out how to get those two in the same place as much as possible.”

“They are all but living together,” he said. “How much more do we need to do?”

“You’d be surprised. I’ll let you know if anything else happens today.”

He looked at his watch. “I need to get back to my desk as Regan will be done with her client in a minute too. I’m not getting on her bad side any time soon.”

“Should we do anything?” Carolyn asked Diane when they got in the elevator.

“Not yet,” Diane said.

“That was a good lie you came up with on the fly,” Carolyn said, laughing. “We were going to check on them.”

“They don’t need to know that,” she said. “The guys, they would have messed up and said it. But we are smarter than that. We saw how the two of them were at the New Year’s Eve party.”

“Perfect for each other,” Carolyn said. “Everyone can see it.”

“That’s right. Give it a day or so and see if we get an update. If not, then we’ll send the guys over to check in on the security system and see if they can flesh out some information.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Carolyn said. “Should we check in with Jolene and see how she is making out? We haven’t talked to her since the holidays.”

“She’s too busy getting ready for the birth of Cade’s daughter. I still find it funny that Alex said no more kids and then ended up pregnant. Good thing it wasn’t twins again.”

“They’ve got a few months to go,” Carolyn said.

“That’s right. And she’s trying to figure out if it’s better to work on Michael before Alex goes out of work or not.” She shook her head. “She doesn’t even know who she is going to set him up with. I’m not sure how she is going to get that one to work.”

“Jolene always finds a way,” Carolyn said. “Just like us.”

“If she could hear us right now, she’d say it’s because she’s the master.”

“We let her think it,” Carolyn said. “But we are doing pretty good on our own.”