Despite It All by Reese Knightley

 

Forest

“You can trust me.”

Yep, he did it. He lied right to the guy’s face. Childishly, he crossed his fingers behind his back. Not something an FBI agent would do, but there was something about that stern gray gaze that made him feel like he was in trouble.

Greene gazed up from his newly lit smoke back to his face, the guy’s looks saying he didn’t trust him at all.

So what? He’d been so patient. He’d spent the morning and afternoon working. Greene had behaved himself much better than he’d ever dreamed possible. Until the man’s attractive lips had tightened into a flat line and his fingers scratched at the knees of his jeans when he thought nobody was looking—but he always looked—told a different story. So, here he was some two hundred feet from the building out on the smoking dock, someplace he’d never been because he’d quit that shit years ago, watching Greene suck one down.

“Are you giving me your word?” That low, gravely tone tightened his gut.

“Yes. See that window right there?” He uncrossed his fingers and pointed to the clerk’s office. “I’m going to pull a document, use the restroom, and I’ll be right back.”

“Wait for me.” Greene sucked in two consecutive puffs.

“I have to go pee.” He was pretty sure he could get some out if Greene insisted on going with him.

The corner of Greene’s lips tilted.

“Perv.” He swung around, hiding his smile, and marched toward the door. When he reached it, he spun around, but Greene hadn’t followed him. Instead, he was waiting there.

Like he really did trust him.

You gave him your word. He held those flint-colored eyes across the distance.

Crap.

He stalked through the office before slowing his steps when he attracted attention. Making a left, he entered the messy clerk’s office. It took him seconds to be in front of the window he’d pointed to.

With a quick, searching glance, he found Greene standing where he’d left him. He waved and Greene smirked. He probably snorted at him too by the look of it.

He laughed, he couldn’t help it. The guy was all kinds of -.

“Who’s that hunka hunka?”

He swept around and grinned at Lacy, the file clerk who was just as messy as her room. Papers everywhere, her hair in the same disarray.

“A friend.”

“Is he single?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

She laughed and skirted around the desk. “What can I help you with, Agent Taylor?”

“Nothing, I just wanted to make sure he was still there.” Another quick glance and Greene took a draw of his smoke, those intense eyes locked on him. “I’m going to use the back door.”

“Okay.” She hit the button and the distinct click of the lock sounded toward the rear.

He smiled one last time at Greene and turned toward the back of the clerk’s office. “Thanks, Lacy. If my friend comes in to look for me. Tell him I’ll call.”

“Um, okay.”

Five minutes later, he felt a little bad, racing out of the parking lot and down the street. Not that he answered to Greene. A man had a right to make his own decisions. Except for drunks that got behind the wheel.

They had no fucking rights.

He shook those thoughts away, refusing to go down that dead end way of thinking.

Instead, he thought of Greene and the way he’d held his gaze through the window. Expecting him to keep his word.

Fuck it. He didn’t answer to anyone. He squeezed the steering wheel.

Christ.

When Parish found out, he’d write him up. It would just be another notch and maybe that notch would be the one. Would that be so bad? He’d have less crap to deal with. No more regulations, nobody telling him what to do. Leave and do what? Just quit and not do anything? What about the family he dreamed of?

Ugh. He took the turn into the Hyatt Hotel and zoomed into the underground parking. If he stayed, he’d have a steady job.

He parked the car, shut off the engine, and placed his forehead on the steering wheel. He was literally driving himself nuts going back and forth. The accident had rattled his decisive gene. Or just knocked loose his good sense.

Life would be so easy if he stayed.

He grabbed the keys, left the car, and headed across the parking structure.

With Dave’s authority backing him up, he could pretty much do anything, go anywhere, do any job. So why the hell did he want to leave so badly?

Maybe it was boredom.

Even as a kid, he’d bored quickly. His mother had a hell of a time keeping him occupied. He’d almost skipped a grade ahead of his brother because of his thirst for knowledge and new things. His mom had had her hands full. She’d been a single mother, knocked up by a man passing through town. He had no idea who his father was and he didn’t think his mother did either.

It hadn’t mattered, though, her father, his grandfather came from old money. Texas oil money. Fredrick Taylor III had made his fortune and then moved around a lot. His mom said that he took after his grandfather the most and he knew it to be true.

He’d bonded with his grandfather more than Mason. They’d taken trips doing everything together. Anything they’d wanted and he’d fucking loved it. For a while. But even that grew boring. Cancer had taken his grandfather five years ago, and he missed him every damned day.

Mason didn’t have his thirst for new things, not like he’d had when he was younger. It was a wonder his brother stayed in the CIA with how he was sent everywhere. He, on the other hand, had loved the CIA. For a while. But then even that also got boring and he sure as hell no longer missed the constant operations on foreign soil. He wanted something real. Something he could hold onto. Something of his own.

Striding across the lobby, he reached the front desk and smiled at the smartly dressed woman behind the counter. “Room for Taylor?”

She looked at the computer screen. “Mason Taylor plus one?”

“That’s the one. I’m the plus.” He slid his Photo ID on the counter. She glanced at it and handed him the room key.

The elevator dinged and dumped him on the eleventh floor. He wondered what Mason would say about the idea he’d come up with.

It would certainly keep away the boredom.

He grinned holding the card against the door.