Wanda

The rest of the day was relatively uneventful. I accompanied Tasha as she went to her magazine interview, then we had lunch with some smug record company assholes who spent the entire lunch condescending to her and staring at her tits. It was all I could do not to rip their heads off.

“Why do you let those guys talk to you like that?” I asked in the car on the way home.

“Like what?” Tasha asked.

She had that confused look again. She seemed to have that a lot around me, like we were speaking a different language.

“They talk to you like you’re an idiot or something. They were totally rude.”

“Oh, that’s how all those record company people are,” she laughed. “But the joke’s on them, because I’m smarter than they think I am. I get farther by letting them underestimate me.”

“They were also staring at your tits,” I told her. I sounded the slightest bit perturbed, but I didn’t care. I didn’t appreciate anyone staring at my mate’s tits. Besides me of course.

“Yeah, I wore this shirt for a reason,” she said breezily. “With the bra I’m wearing underneath, it makes the most of my cleavage, makes me look more femme. You know how hetero men are, if you hypnotize them with your boobs, you can do whatever you want.”

I was impressed. My little mate was smarter than I’d given her credit for.

I repressed a sigh, wondering what I was going to do about the mate thing. All day I’d been hyper focused on her, and as much as I told myself it was about the job, it was more than that. The thought of anyone hurting my mate made me feel almost feral. I was not happy about that. I liked being cool and controlled and my bratty, sarcastic mate was wrecking that for me. I just needed to keep my emotions in check. After all, I had a job to do here.

When we got home, Tasha announced that she would be in her music room, seeming eager to get away from me.

Meanwhile, I was working on one side of the dining room table, where I’d set up a temporary office. A lot of the work we did at Sapphic Security was computer based, things like background checks, remote surveillance, and, in my case, a fair amount of computer hacking. Not that I’d ever admit that outside of the secure walls of my employer. Officially my title was IT Director, but I did a fair amount of field work as well.

Tasha was still in her music room practicing the guitar while her personal chef prepared a healthy dinner for us. The fact that the girl had a personal chef clearly demonstrated the difference between the two of us.

Monica was a petite woman dressed in pressed khakis and a chef’s jacket, as if she was working in a restaurant instead of in someone’s kitchen. She had mousy brown hair she’d pulled back into a severe bun, a pointy chin, and the thinnest lips I’d ever seen on a woman. When she leaned forward to shake my hand, I caught a glimpse of a large crucifix necklace.

“You look familiar,” I told her. “Have we met before?”

Monica shook her head. “No, but you might have met my brother.”

“Who’s your brother?” I asked.

“Mark. Big bald guy on the security team. He’s part of the team that accompanies Tasha around Seattle when she’s here in town. He helped me get this job too,” she beamed.

I remembered Mark. He’d been one of the two guys trailing us today when we met with the reporter and then gone to lunch. He was a human with mean eyes and a little too much cologne for my taste. And I really didn’t like the way he kept staring at my mate like she was the last piece of pie on Thanksgiving.

“Ah yes, I remember him. Well, I’ll let you get to work,” I said, retreating to my laptop and logging back in. I didn’t mention that work would include a thorough background check on both Monica and her brother, as well as the rest of the staff on Tasha’s team.

My boss Lois called me just before dinner.

“How’s the job, Diaz?” Lois asked without any preamble. “Any updates?”

“No updates. We met several people today, but the only insider was the manager, Chloe, and her driver Nate. Both seem clear. There was another letter today before I got here. I’ll email you the details tonight.”

“Yeah, do that,” Lois ordered. “Anything else?”

I debated telling my boss that Tasha was my mate, but I decided not to. I didn’t want Lois to take me off of this case, and I’d decided that I wasn’t going to act on the mate thing until the case was over anyway, so there was no sense in getting everyone riled up about it.

“No, nothing else,” I said.

“Okay, check in tomorrow.” Lois hung up without saying goodbye. Typical.

Once the chef had finished preparing dinner she slipped away, leaving me and Tasha alone again. We sat across from each other at the large dining room table, eating a meal that even I could admit was delicious. Given how often I settled for takeout or cereal, I could understand the appeal of having a personal chef.

“How long do you think this will go on?” Tasha asked, breaking the comfortable silence between us.

“What will go on?”

“You being here. The stalker.”

I put my fork down, hoping her question was more about getting rid of the stalker and less about getting rid of me. I knew she was attracted to me. I’d smelled her arousal in the car after I pushed her to the floor. It made me think my mate might like things to be a little rough, which lined up perfectly with my own tastes.

“Well, every case is different but depending on how well hidden this guy is, it could be a month, maybe more.”

Tasha winced.

“Are you getting tired of your dear old cousin already?” I couldn’t help but tease her.

“Nothing personal but I don’t like people in my space,” she said.

I had the sense there was more to it, like maybe I bothered her, the same way she bothered me, but I wasn’t going to push. I’d never been one to want to talk about feelings, and having a mate wasn’t going to change that.

“Should we talk about tomorrow?” I asked.

“If we have to,” she said sulkily.

My fingers itched with the urge to spank her. The truth was that I’d never spanked anyone in my life, but with Tasha I was tempted.

“Do you give everyone on your team such a hard time?” I asked curiously.

She sighed deeply. “I’m sorry Wanda, the truth is, this whole situation is making me feel out of control. And I don’t like feeling out of control. It reminds me too much of being a kid and not knowing what we were going to eat or if today was the day the landlord was going to put an eviction notice on our door.”

Wow, that was a lot to unpack. Maybe I’d do some background checks on Tasha and her family too. Just for research purposes of course.

“Don’t worry, Tasha. We’ll find the asshole who’s harassing you, then everything can go back to normal for you.”

Even as I said it, I had doubts. I’d spent a sum total of one day with my mate and I already knew it was going to be hard to let her go. She was looking at her new normal – me by her side. She just didn’t know it yet.

We finished our meal in silence, then without a word, Tasha popped up from the table. Her mood seemed to have suddenly improved.

“I just had a great idea. Come with me,” she said.

My mate was up to something, I just didn’t know what.

“Why? What’s happening?” I asked. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Just the living room. It’s time you learned about music that was made in this century,” she teased. “I’m going to broaden your horizons.”

“That’s okay,” I reassured her. “I really don’t need to learn anything new.”

“Come on, old lady,” she teased. “Give me an hour, I promise you won’t regret it.”

I made a show of sighing, but the truth was that I was happy to spend some time with my mate. We settled on the sectional couch, Tasha on one end and me on the other, an entire cushion separating us. Tasha pressed a button, and suddenly the blank wall across from the couch lit up.

“Is that a projector?” I asked, looking around to see a tiny machine hidden on the top of a bookcase.

“Yeah. It’s much better than having a TV taking up space and collecting dust,” Tasha told me.

I had to agree. This set-up would be perfect for watching Seahawks games in the fall. I hoped my mate was a football fan. I wasn’t normally a day dreamer, but right now, I could visualize us snuggled up on this couch watching football.

Tasha fiddled around with the remote until she found what she was looking for.

“This is one of my concert videos,” she said. “It was part of a super popular music festival in L.A., so I had several other big time musicians doing songs with me.”

She pressed play and I saw Tasha stride out onto the stage looking like she owned the world. She was wearing a skintight, sparkly dress and high heels, smiling at the screaming crowd.

“You don’t strike me as a dress and high heels type,” I observed.

“Fuck, I hate wearing dresses, and any shoe with a heel is torture for me,” she confirmed. “But sometimes I gotta play the part.”

The crowd finally quieted, and Tasha began to sing. The song was some kind of a ballad, and I was surprised by her voice. I’d learned already that Tasha was loud and boisterous, but onstage her voice was sweet. Strong, but sweet. My mate was incredibly talented. I watched her, mesmerized, as she sang the song, her hips swaying and her eyes fixed on the audience as if she was singing to every person who’d come to see her.

Suddenly the crowd erupted as another woman walked on the stage.

“Wait a second, is that Melissa Etheridge?” I asked.

“You know Melissa Etheridge?” Tasha asked in surprise. “She’s not some old dead white guy from the seventeen hundreds.”

I didn’t tell her that I used to listen to Melissa Etheridge albums with my mother before she died. The memory was too painful. My mother was the one person in my life who’d always accepted me just the way I was. Unfortunately, she’d died in a car accident when I was only twelve years old, although I’d always had my suspicions that my father was somehow to blame.

Tasha and Melissa began singing together, each of them taking a verse. I hadn’t heard the song before, but it was going to be my new favorite. Melissa’s deeper voice was a perfect complement to Tasha’s more dulcet tones, and it was clear from their interaction on the stage that they had a natural rapport. When they finished, there was a hushed silence before the crowd erupted in cheers.

“Okay,” I told her. “Now I’m impressed.”