12. February 14th

FEbrUARY 14TH

Waters

Well,what the hell do I do with that?

It was currently just after four. He had to leave Kubrick's trailer before he made an even bigger mistake than the comforting kiss, but now he had to worry about her getting home since his dumb ass broke one of his own rules. What the hell was wrong with him? He didn't break rules. Ever.

First things first. Find a place to watch from until Steel arrives.

The studio was way too busy for him to use his normal space, and his truck was too recognizable even if he moved it, so he needed to come up with something else. The semi-trucks were gearing up to pull out and head to the airport with all of the freight for the cargo planes, along with crew leads and their builders. The actors were arriving throughout the day, starting the day after tomorrow, from their various locations around the globe, with an orientation the day after that and training beginning the day after. The rest of the crew would be heading to Roatán in waves over the next four weeks, depending on what they did and when their services were about a week out from being needed. There wasn't anything for Waters to do other than help Kubrick to keep herself from micromanaging all the paperwork on the table.

She's probably totally confused right now about what you just did, and that paperwork will now be her coping mechanism to ignore the issue. Smooth move.

He stood at the bottom of the steps from her trailer door, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand that desperately wanted to smack himself upside the head. As he contemplated the merits of turning around and walking back into the trailer, his watch alarm went off with a double chime. Steel was checking in.

Please be here. Save me from myself.

Waters jogged lightly to his truck in the lot, a vantage point from where he could still see Kubrick's trailer. Once inside his truck, he engaged the ignition and activated the communications system. When it came online, he entered all his codes and dialed Steel's cell.

Steel picked up before the first ring had even finished. "Hola, Jefe."

"Welcome home, Steel. Get any sun?"

His teammate grunted. "I hate sun. And heat. And humidity. The Caribbean sucks. You ready to be relieved?" Steel asked.

You have no idea.

"On your way?" Waters asked.

There was a double tap on the passenger window.

Waters disconnected from the comm system and punched the unlock feature on his doors. Barely opening the door, Steel slipped inside, tossing him a plain white bag. "God sent it for you." Waters reengaged the locks, then looked inside the bag.

Snickers bars.

"I hate that man," he groaned.

Steel just smirked and helped himself to one. When he noticed Waters" really? expression, Steel shrugged. "I'm hungry." He took a bite of the candy bar. As he adjusted his Raiders baseball cap over his black spiky hair, his ice-gray eyes were assessing his boss. "You look like shit."

"Thanks, honey."

Steel gave a small smile. "Update?"

Slipping on his aviators, Waters snuck a quick look at Kubrick's trailer. "She had a tough afternoon on multiple fronts." He shook his head before collecting himself. "She's busy gathering all her paperwork and last-minute files. On top of that, she hasn't packed yet, and we take off from LAX at seven-fifteen tomorrow. She'll probably pull an all-nighter, despite orders not to, so I guess at least you won't be watching dark windows all night."

"Cool. A home movie." It was the closest to a joke that Steel would probably make.

"You've seen the house?"

"Stopped there on the way here. Did a sweep. Tripped all eyes, outside and inside, to make sure everything's working."

"You went inside?"

Shrugging, Steel confessed, "I'm thorough. I'm watching one of my team's women."

"She's not my woman," Waters sighed. He felt like he did that a lot lately.

"Yeah, because you put every woman up on a counter, share a glass of tequila, and then kiss her on the forehead."

Waters bowed his head. "Fuck."

"Live feed at all times. Your orders, even. Hermano, you've got to stop giving them so much material to work with."

Some days, I hate my team.

"She was having a vulnerable moment. It's not going to happen again."

Steel said nothing.

"I did create a problem, though, which is I need to get her home safe."

"You could just barrel back in there, take her home, and let nature continue to take its course."

"I thought we were friends."

"I'm just sayin'." Steel shook his head in disgust. "Plan B, then. Still have my Uber sticker and app from that job last year. Tell her you have an old Navy buddy who's an Uber driver and that you arranged a ride."

Waters took out his phone and began to text Kubrick. "Brilliant. Plus it will force her to go home at a decent hour. I owe you."

"I'll add it to the list."

Waters abruptly switched gears. "You've seen Big Bird?" Steel nodded. "You see him approach, call me. I don't care what time it is. And you need to get into the room with them. I don't care if it breaks your cover. She is not to be around that man without protection."

"You still suspect him?"

"Yes and no. He's definitely got it out for Kubrick, but he may not be the reason we were contacted."

"She's a strong woman who clearly handles him just fine. Why the hypervigilance with him?"

"The guy's a prick."

Steel tilted his head at Waters" response.

Waters confessed. "I don't trust him with her."

Steel sat silent.

"He's vicious to her, Steel. Tries to undermine her every way possible, not to mention he just plain hates women. And besides all that, the way he goes after her, it's personal. I don't know what he's got against her, but she is unsafe around him."

"None of this is a reason to be so overprotective of someone who's ‘not your woman,'" Steel reminded him, putting the last part in air quotes.

Scrubbing his face with his hands, Waters attempted to redirect the conversation again. "Tell me about Ka-Bar."

Steel shifted his gaze out the windshield. He took another bite of the candy bar and waited to speak until he swallowed, which Waters knew was a stalling technique to put together what he wanted to share. "Not much to tell. We were friends while we were in the teams."

"And you gave him your marker?"

Steel nodded. "There was a bar fight in South America that I needed some assistance with. Ka-Bar was nice enough to oblige."

"That tells me nothing."

"I know you've read my file. Hell, you gathered most of it."

"I know about the fight. I don't need a recap of the event because I'm looking for what's not in the file. What I don't know is why a Middle Eastern operative and a worldwide operative were in South America on their liberty, one of whom apparently took a barrage of shots to the chest and almost died. Get a little lost?"

Looking out the front window, Steel answered in a low voice. "He helped me ship a package I couldn't get out of the country by myself. I owe him far more than a single favor. He has unlimited markers from me."

Waters shook his head and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel in exasperation. "Ka-Bar wouldn't need protection for her from a verbally abusive boss. She shreds him on a regular basis, so whatever's going on, God and I are relatively certain it's connected to Ka-Bar."

"And now Midas can't find him."

"It's like he's been erased."

"Yes, Midas has been agitated. That one does not suffer failure well."

Waters snorted. "That's because he's never failed. He's worried about his perfect record."

Nodding, Steel added, "That and I think he's developed a tendre for Kubrick. He has created a whiteboard worthy of a shrine to the woman. Very obsessed with her language skills." He grinned. "And he's developed a taste for these candy bars, so he is under a constant sugar rush. Cherry's already under orders to supply the office with God's disgusting suckers and Nemo's bubblegum. Now she's been told to supply the office with Snickers as well."

"Kill me now," Waters groaned. "Why is everyone so concerned about my lack of a sex life? I am NOT that grumpy over being celibate that I need candy like Betty White in that stupid commercial."

Steel grinned. "They never get to tease you, man. You've turned so straitlaced. Let them enjoy it a little."

"They're all making way too much out of this."

"Are they?" Steel's tone was serious now instead of teasing, and Waters knew that he would be unable to pass it off as nothing.

"She's… dangerous."

Shaking his head, Steel reminded him, "She's not Sarah, amigo."

"Not going there," Waters growled.

"But until you do, whatever this is with Kubrick will continue to confuse you."

"Did you hear what I just said? I'm not going there."

"Avoiding the problem is not going to make it go away."

"Fine. You wanna go there? Let's go there. If I couldn't protect Sarah, my own flesh and blood, my sister, for Christ's sake, I'm not going to be able to protect Kubrick."

"And this is where your problem is."

"Really? Exactly what is my problem?"

Steel shook his head in frustration. "Stop comparing the two women and their situations. Sarah was an operator. Kubrick is not. The situations aren't even close to the same."

"Exactly. It's worse."

"How so? Explain it to me because I don't see how."

"I cared about Sarah; my job made her vulnerable, and she died because of the choices I made. Don't mistake me; I'd make those same choices again. They were the right choices at the time. But I'll be damned if I put another woman in that position again. Just being seen with me puts her at risk."

"Then the same could be said for your entire team. You're putting all of us at risk, but that doesn't seem to bother you."

Waters opened his mouth as if to contradict Steel.

Steel cut him off before he could even utter a sound. "Your sister knew what she was getting into when she came to work for Tribe, same as you. Her job put her at risk, not you. What happened to her is a tragedy, and I wish it hadn't happened. We all do. Her death changed us all, but for you, it has a stranglehold on your heart. Those traffickers took Sarah. They're at fault. You didn't hand her over.

"You used to be impulsive, confident to the point of arrogance. I was always the one to keep you in line. Since Cairo? You've been quiet. Reserved. Oh, you make jokes here and there, try to make it look good. It's like you know what needs doing, yet you hold back, hesitant to commit to any action without overthinking. Sometimes, it feels like you are expecting the worst from us when you should be relying on what you know we are all capable of because you taught us to be who we are. It is not the Waters we knew before Cairo."

There was silence in the truck as Waters digested Steel's words.

Steel broke the silence. "Since taking on this job, Midas says you've been much less…"—he searched for the word he wanted—"restless. Oh, you piss and moan over the Snickers bar thing, and you threaten when everyone teases you, but you're… lighter. He said you've even smiled once or twice. It's not lost on us that there's an obvious reason why. All it took was one handshake over a conference table, and we all knew. You've been caught."

Waters sighed in exasperation. "Even if I was interested in pursuing something, I couldn't. God decreed that if we wanted to work for Tribe, then we forfeited our real-world lives to prevent the kind of shit we went through over Sarah. And even if God did decide, for some reason, to lift that restriction, it wouldn't change the risk to Kubrick.

"Besides that, how the hell would my world even begin to mesh with hers? She's a celebrity on the cusp of becoming a megastar. Hard to be dead when you're walking a red carpet with a major film director. And we'd never be together. She'd be off filming somewhere, and I'd be halfway around the globe in some hellhole, putting myself at risk. She'd have to give up her whole life to be with me, and she'd never know if I was coming back every time I went out the door. I would never ask that of her."

"You could give up Tribe for her."

Waters tilted his head toward Steel and looked over his sunglasses at the man.

"Okay, fine. Ridiculous option. But you're looking at this the wrong way round. You cannot quantify relationships in absolutes. It's never a ‘her' or ‘me' mentality. That's why it's called ‘being a couple.' And even if her giving up this life was the route chosen, or you giving up this life, that's not your choice alone to make. You do that together. As for God? Let's just say his rule about relationships is probably as realistic as Nemo ever growing up to be a real boy."

They both chuckled at the unlikelihood of that.

Steel went to open the door. "Go home. Get some sleep. I'll watch over her. TB, Demon, and Nemo will be on the plane with you. Midas and I will cover things here and keep working on locating Ka-Bar and watching Big Bird."

With that, Steel slunk out of the truck as quickly as he had appeared.

Waters gave one last look at Kubrick's trailer.

What he wouldn't give to storm back in, throw her over his shoulder, and take her home until it was time to leave tomorrow morning. To show her just how "good enough" she was. But he couldn't. While, in theory, Steel might have logical points, it didn't change the fact she'd be the perfect target. She could be used as leverage, and he couldn't go through what happened with Sarah again. A second time would kill him for sure.

And yet, it took everything within him to put the truck in reverse and head home to sleep for a few hours rather than act upon what he wanted.

Sleep. He needed sleep and then tomorrow, things would reset. Everything would go back to normal. He was just tired. Not enough sleep was making him think crazy thoughts.

Yup. There ya go. Lie to yourself some more.