Page 16 of Anything But Convenient

I’d been avoiding the team as a whole, not wanting to see the pity in their faces. It wasn’t intentional. I knew it.

But those guys had some of the worst poker faces when it came to my injuries.

It probably didn’t help that I had such an obvious wound at my neck. People stared and whispered anytime I left the office to go out.

Their attention aggravated me enough to buy some scarves to attempt to cover the injury. I figured I could try to be fashionable about the change. Maybe get something to make them think I was someone not attempting to hide my neck. The outside world didn’t deserve anything else from me.

Each one I slid around my neck looked more garish than the one before it. Somehow, a forty-pack of colored material mocked me without even being sentient.

I was working on trying to style another when someone knocked on the door to my room. Part of me wanted to ignore them. If I did, then they might go away.

Although, if it were something important, I’d wind up feeling guilty for it later.

Resigned to my fate, I opened the door with the cloth still around my neck. The guys wouldn’t make fun of me for the fabric. They might raise their brows and question me outright, but they’d never poke at me about them.

Tank stood on the other side with a man I didn’t recognize. “Can we come in?” he asked.

I nodded to my boss, then shifted to the side to allow them into the room. It wasn’t like I could really say no. As much freedom as I’d been given to live here during my recovery, the space was still property of NightShade, which meant it was Tank’s.

The whiteboard I used to communicate was on the table. I wrote‘what’s going on?’across it, then turned it to them. Tank turned to the man beside him and gave him a look. I wasn’t sure what it meant, though I didn’t feel any better when they both focused their attention on me again.

Something about the stranger set off alarms in my mind. It could have been because he was one of the sexiest men I’d ever seen. In any other situation, I’d have plotted out a way to get to know more about him. I’d have wanted to take him to bed. Maybe more.

But him being here with Tank couldn’t mean anything good. Especially not when the team just went on a mission.

Could he be connected to the Gilded Ones? Was he good or bad?

Who was he?

“This is Archie,” Tank finally said, almost as if he were reading my mind.

Archie, as I now knew, waved shyly. “Hello.”

Erasing my board, I wrote more.

‘Hi. I’m Takeshi. Why are you both here?’

I was thankful both men were patient enough to wait for whatever I had to say. Nothing drove me to anger as quickly as impatience these days. My ability to communicate was no longer an easy task.

This was yet another reason leaving this room left me with a sense of dread.

“Nice to meet you, Takeshi.” Archie looked me in the eye, letting me know much more about him than he realized.

There was kindness in his gaze. An understanding, really, that there was more to our exchange than met the eye. Not once did his eyes turn down toward the scarf at my neck. While I’m sure he wanted to ask, he didn’t.

Tank was not as cool about it.

“What the fuck are you wearing? That’s a horrible print for you. Orion would freak if he saw it.” Tank came closer, his hand toying with the edge of the fabric.

It was then his gaze went behind me. He saw the other pieces strewn across the table by the mirror.

“Ah,” he said. “We’re trying a new fashion statement. Well, then…”

I waited for whatever he had to say next. On my end, I couldn’t really ask anything else. These two clearly had an agenda. I could be patient enough to hear them out.

Tank motioned to the small dining table a few paces away. I took my board and marker, then led the way.

Because of the position of the chairs, the three of us wound up close together. Archie’s foot knocked mine as he sat down, which for some reason, made him duck his head as a slight blush touched his cheeks.

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