Page 22 of Running Scared
“Oh, please,” Dean muttered.“I think it should be perfectly obvious.I just told both of you what the plan is, and now I need some peace and quiet while I call Birdie, who needs to be filled in.”
AN HOURlater, Dean had spent so much time on his cell, he’d needed to charge it while he spoke into his Bluetooth, and Bailey was overwhelmed at how manyotherpeople were overwhelmed by the man who’d been sharing Bailey’s bed.
Conversations with Dean seemed to go as well for anybody else he steamrolled as they did for Bailey and Marcus, and Bailey had no choice but to sit and listen as Dean gave directions to somebody named Birdie that included a price point that made Marcus wince and Dean promise to double whatever the Bureau paid out of his and Marcus’s own pockets.
“Mine?”Marcus snarled as Dean was talking.“My pocket too?”
“Is it your bust?”Dean snapped, hitting the Mute button.“Then, yes, your pocket.Don’t cheap out on me now, Cabrillo.”Then he unmuted himself and resumed speaking into the phone about destinations and a small airstrip outside a town in Mexico Bailey had never heard of, and then he’d signed off.
Before Bailey could ask a single question or so much as suggest they pull over for him to eat (since he and Dean had never gotten breakfast that morning), Dean had hit another number in his phone.
This next phone call was full of acronyms Bailey didn’t get and coordinates Bailey didn’t understand, but this time when Dean signed off, Marcus managed a word in edgewise.
“You were a little rough on him.”
“He was being slow,” Dean replied, sounding deeply in a funk.
“Well, yeah, but Dean, he’s our SAC!”
“He shouldn’t be in charge if he’s that stupid about civilians and necessity,” Dean replied and then hit yet another number and was off planning again.
Bailey began to feel a little woozy.He’d really needed that espresso and whatever he’d been planning to get from the vending machine.
“Marcus?”he asked, under Dean’s conversation but loud enough to be heard.“Are we going to stop anywhere?”
“Not planning to,” Marcus replied shortly.“If you gotta pee, I’ve got a special bottle.”
“I’ve gottaeat,” Bailey told him, a little desperation in his voice.“I’m serious.If I don’t regulate my blood sugar, I get spacey and weird and nauseous—”
“Diabetic?”Marcus asked, and gratifyingly enough, he aimed for the nearest rest stop that obviously had some fast-food outlets.
“No, just sensitive to fluctuation,” he said.It ran in the family, though, so he and his father tried hard not to go too far between meals.
“Fair enough.We do need you firing on all cylinders.”Marcus took the next exit and began slowing the car down considerably.“Besides, if you didn’t eat, Dean’s living on coffee too, and I know that because I bought him the coffee.”Loudly into a pause in Dean’s conversation, Bailey heard somebody’s stomach grumble.
Dean glared at his partner in annoyance.
“Are we getting food?”Dean murmured under his breath.“Thank God.Marcus’s gas when he hasn’t eaten ishorrific.”
Bailey gave him a long-suffering look, but Dean was glaring into space and chewing out the next person who did not seem to be able to read his mind.
“You’re, like, his eighth sibling, aren’t you?”Bailey asked Marcus sourly, and Marcus gave him a sheepish smile in the rearview mirror.
“He says sometimes I’m the one he special ordered, but I came with factory defects.”
Bailey shook his head.“It’s a good thing we met when you were saving my ass,” he said frankly, resting his hand on Bumble’s pet carrier, where Bumble snoozed happily, obviously deeply sedated.“It’s really hard to hate you for being his work wife after that.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Marcus told him kindly.“For one thing, Dean and I just never could hit that way.”He let out a sigh.“For another, there’s sort of someone else.”
“Sort of?”Bailey asked, surprised by the yearning in the big man’s voice.
“He’s very young,” Marcus said.“And I’m waiting for him to grow up a little.It’s taking forever.”
“He’ll be out of college in a year,” Dean said, suddenly back in the car with them again.“And I’m dying for a hamburger, no onions.Any objections?”
“Hardee’s it is!”Marcus said brightly, and, thank God, they headed for some calories.
Bailey had enough trouble with his own life right now.He didn’t need to be sticking his nose into Marcus’s.
