Page 29 of Rival Hero

Without responding, Tomer looks over at me, brows lifted. “Is it ten yet? We’re meeting with Boss.”

That’s one way to end the conversation. He’s always so tactful.

Palms on my desk, I push to a stand. “We’ve got five minutes.”

“Wait.” She narrows her eyes. “Ihave a meeting with him at ten.”

“We’re all going to be there,” Tomer answers.

“We?” she squeaks, her right eye twitching.

“Me, you, and Klein.” He flips his thumb in my direction.

Her head rears back, and her mask slips. I can’t help but pounce on that momentary lapse in her facade. “Is that a problem, Miriam?”

The skin near the corner of her eye bunches, but she quickly recovers. “No, not a problem. I didn’t know it was a group thing.” Her green eyes fall to the floor. “I’m not used to…”

“Not used to what?” I needle further.

Her eyes snap to mine. “I’m just not fond of surprises.”

Oh, irony is a silly little bitch.

Unable to resist another attempt to intimidate her, I take two large steps while holding her gaze. With some ice in my normally warm tone, I say, “You like to be the one doing the surprising, huh?”

“Come on, you two. We don’t want to be late.” Tomer tips his head toward my office door and does another one of his groan sighs. Apparently, that’s his new thing. Henceforth, I shall call themgrighs.

Heh, heh.

Looks like some of my internal sense of humor remains intact. I’ll take that as my win for the day. It’s the best I can hope for, all things considered.

Two minutes later, Peggy ushers us into Big Al’s office a tad early, but he’s ready. In his hand is the shiny new tablet I ordered for him a few days ago. He finally gave up on locating his old one.

Boss directs us to the cozy four-person table in the corner of his spacious office.

Great.I’ll be so close that I’ll be able to smell her.

Tomer sits first, and I wait for Mia to select a chair so I can avoid sitting next to her. She must be on to me because she moves annoyingly slow. Perhaps she’s trying to do the same.

Once our sluggish steps become awkward, I begrudgingly take the seat on Tomer’s left. Mia takes the seat opposite me on Tomer’s other side.

But now we’re facing each other. Not sure this is any better.

Suck it up, kid.

Boss joins us at the table. “Thanks for coming in. We have a lot to discuss.” He looks at Mia. “Peggy said she took care of you this morning. Everything good so far?”

“She did. Thanks. I’m settled in and ready to join the team.” Her gaze flits from me to Tomer before resting on Big Al.

Team?

I can’t bite my tongue. “It’s more of a duo. Just you and Tomer.”

Why am I even in this meeting? Torture, perhaps? Maybe Big Al thinks I’m the one who hid his tablet. But it was Leo. We’ve all suspected Boss is sneaking around behind everyone’s back with Leo’s mom. When Lionheart found the tablet at her house, he sort of snapped and hid it in a signal-blocking box so that Boss can’t find it even with GPS tracking.

Boss cricks his head to the side. “Funny you should mention that. That’s part of what I want to talk about.” He takes a deep breath, then delivers a one-two punch to my nuts. “Tomer and I discussed this on Friday, and I took the weekend to reach a decision. I’m making this a three-person team on a trial basis to see how you work together. If you can be a cohesive unit, having three of you would position Redleg for the next stage. We’ve hired several new bodyguards to backfill for Klein’s move out of the field and to account for all the new cases we’re taking on. I think the skills you bring collectively are exactly what we need.”

Tomer claps his hands, a big smile splayed across his face. “Hell, yes. Finally.” He’s been asking for help for eons.

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