Page 23 of Hemlock

"Will we know anything about them?" I ask, feeling like a fish out of fucking water carrying on a full conversation with this man.

This may be the most we've tolerated each other since moving in here together.

"If Ace thinks to tell us a fucking thing. He's been more than a little distracted lately."

I nod, knowing this for myself, but since I can't seem to make much of a dent in my own case, I've seen it more as a relief than an issue of contention.

"Is it always like that with him?"

Jericho narrows his eyes before speaking, annoyance clear in his face. "Eddie Yarrow is an excellent agent."

I take another sip of my hot coffee without speaking.

When he doesn't speak again, I carry my coffee out of the kitchen, feeling his hot stare drilling into my back all the way out of the room.

I have no plans other than going to the bar. Despite it being Christmas Day, I know I'll head in that direction to see if Zara is working. I imagine she'll be the one to take that shift so the old lady can spend time with her family.

I should probably put a little distance between the two of us so she doesn't get any wild ideas about what this is between us, but I know I won't. I know I'll end up at the bar tonight at some point as much as I know that I'll at least be watching her from the shadows when she locks the door and heads home.

Instead of trying to shove all that realization down into a dark corner of my mind, I pull out my cell phone and make a call.

"It's five in the morning here," Hound says instead of offering me a hello.

"I know," I tell him instead of offering an apology I don't mean.

I hear him whisper something to his wife, Gigi, and then the rustle of sheets as he climbs out of bed.

The next sound to meet my ears is the closing of a door and all this time he waits to speak. We talk often, but neither of us fill the time with pointless chatter.

"Is there a problem?" he asks, and I know he's somewhere alone.

Hound is well aware of some of my struggles. Early in my time with the Marines, I got closer to him than any other person I had before or since. I confessed the crazy shit in my head, and he urged me to look on the bright side of things—that there was a use for my type of skills that could keep me on the law-abiding side of things.

My situation here in Tennessee is slightly different, however. My knife skills have the ability to land me on death row, and that's of course something I'd really like to avoid.

"This isn't going to work out."

Silence fills the line. The man knows me well enough to know that it takes a lot for me to make such a confession.

"It's only been a few weeks," Hound says, his voice even and void of judgment.

"Jericho has cleared four cases. I'd like to walk away before I put Ace in a position to fire me."

"You're not there to compare yourself to any other person working on this team. It's an individual job, and Ace isn't going to fire you. You're working with him, not for him. Kincaid is still your boss."

"Do you know something I don't know?" I ask, suspicion in my tone.

"I know that you're good at what you do. I know as well as you do that there was going to be some adjustments with this new assignment."

I nod my head despite his inability to see me. We had several long conversations working through the pros and cons of joining this new team in Tennessee. I chose to focus more on the pros of leaving New Mexico than anything else, convincing myself that anything would be better than all the damn smiling faces and couples in love.

For the longest time, Kincaid thought Hound was planning on uprooting his family, Kincaid's daughter, and grandchildren, and moving them to Tennessee because Hound asked many questions in team meetings on my behalf because it wasn't something I could do myself. I'd rather rage and flip a table over than be put on the spot, asking questions in front of a group of people.

"You got this, Pax."

I hang up the phone without another word, and I know it won't irritate Hound the way it would most people. He understands a lot of the nuances of my behavior, and I think that's what drew me to him in the first place. Although he kept in touch and ultimately got me the job with Cerberus, we only had a couple of years together with him as my commander in the Marine Corps before he retired.

His plans took him to New Mexico to work with Kincaid, and it only felt right to join him there once I was done in the Corps.

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