Page 12 of Newly Tied

He smiled then and exhaled, seeming to deflate. He was as tired as we were. When I glanced at my boss, he leaned back from his desk like he too was more relaxed. The temperature in the room had cooled, which was very good.

“I’m really sorry about that,” Pazzi finally said.

I smiled wide. “Payin’-for-lunch sorry?”

“Not the way you eat,” he griped.

Yamane elbowed him in the side.

“Fine. Whatever,” he conceded.

“And Lang,” I added.

“No,” Lang said, “I don’t need him to get my⁠—”

“We’re a packaged deal,” I said, cutting off my partner, tapping my fist on his knee to get him to stop. This time, he needed to let it go. “Because even though I was the one runnin’, Lang had to keep track of me, and you know how much he hates doin’ that.”

Both Pazzi and Yamane laughed that time, and Lang muttered under his breath something about me being an ass, but he bumped my shoulder with his chin before sitting up straight.

“You need to text Cho. She’s probably at the deli by now. Our orders are already in.”

We all looked at Becker then, who waved us away, wanting his office cleared.

I was almost out when he said, “Wait one second, Mac.”

Becker used Mac for me the most; Doyle seemed more partial to McCabe.

“Close the door.”

I did as he told me and stood there waiting, facing my boss.

“You’re good at resolving tension. You and your partner, your strengths and weaknesses line up well, so when he needs you, you’re there, and vice versa. Don’t think I don’t see it.”

I had no idea what that meant. “Just don’t put me and Pazzi together. Please. We won’t somehow find a way to work together. That’ll end in bloodshed.”

He scowled at me. “Care to rephrase?”

“My blood sugar is very low, sir. I don’t even know what I’m sayin’ no more. I might need some glucose or⁠—”

“Get out,” he ordered me.

When I opened the door, Lang was there waiting, and I carefully closed it behind me.

“What did you do?” he groused at me. “If you fuck around, he’s gonna put me and Pazzi together and you and Yamane, and that will seriously end in bloodshed.”

“That’s exactly what I told him,” I said, grinning.

He fisted his hand in my Henley and yanked to get me moving. Like I wouldn’t follow him anywhere at any time…ever.

THREE

That night, after I got out of the shower, I was standing at the window, staring at the city lights from my one-bedroom apartment in the Loop, near Grant Park, and thinking how pretty everything was. Even better, seeing as I was without my cockblock of a best friend that evening, it might be a great time to get lucky.

The issue was, whenever I would meet a man and they would seemingly be interested—I wasn’t Frankenstein’s monster, after all, though some guys were into that—somehow or other, when I leaned in to drop a line on them, coupled with my accent, that was when my favorite person on the planet showed up.

The last time we were out playing pool, a couple of weeks ago, a guy came over, very handsome, nicely built, with glasses—I had a thing for glasses—and put a hand on the middle of my back and asked if I would like to play with him. His meaning was clear, his body language even more so, and I took a step closer and…bam. There was Lang. Arm draped over my shoulder, not so much visiting my space as living there, not even a hairsbreadth of daylight between us.

“Who’s your friend?” Lang asked happily, smiling like he did with the killer dimples. And of course the guy mapped his broad shoulders, the six-pack abs clearly visible with how tight his T-shirt was, the wide, perfectly sculpted chest, and his long-ass muscular legs that his vintage jeans were molded to. The flawless sepia skin with the bronze undertones was overkill, and the long-lashed deep brown eyes flashed whenever he was happy, which he was at that moment. He’d annihilated all comers at eight-ball, and since he loved to win, he was riding high.