Page 9 of Hurry Up And Wait
“What’s wrong? There was no one to make you coffee?” I teased, slipping into my chair in the conference room. I had to fill Cash in on the events of the weekend, not that I looked forward to everyone on my team getting the ins and outs of my family life, but they needed to be aware of every move I made in case anything backfired on me.
“Sarah’s out of town visiting her dad,” Red informed me, shooting me a knowing look that said Eli’s errant wife was going to get herself into trouble again.
“Ah, and you’re worried she might run into another bomber and become too friendly with him?”
He tossed a pencil at me that bounced off my forehead and hit the table, breaking the tip. I picked it up, shaking my head at him. “This was a perfectly good pencil.”
Eli rolled his eyes at me. “You’re starting to sound like Cash. It’s a fucking pencil.”
“That,” the voice boomed from behind me, “is not just any pencil, but a Ticonderoga. It is the elite. The best of the best.” Cash snaggedthe pencil from my hand and shook his head at the broken tip, then glared at Eli. “You owe me a new pencil.”
“It’s actually my pencil,” he said, clearing his throat.
“It’s in my building. Anything in my building is my property.”
“I’m beginning to feel a little used,” Red said, shifting in his chair.
Cash snapped the pencil in half, then dropped it in Eli’s lap. He dropped the files in his hand to the table with a loud thwack and eyed me before taking his seat.
“Where do we stand?”
“I should be receiving a schedule any minute now. I’m sure his team is strategizing and reorganizing.”
He nodded, keeping his eyes trained on me the entire time. “If at any moment you feel this isn’t?—”
“It’s fine,” I snapped. I didn’t want to bring up the whole family thing all over again if I didn’t have to.
“Look, I know you don’t like talking about this, but it’s best your team understands what we’re up against. It would be wise if you told them sooner rather than later.”
Both Eli and Red turned to me in confusion, but it was Red who spoke up. “What’s he talking about?”
“He’s discussing my father and his less-than-moral compass.”
“We already knew that,” Red retorted. “You said as much.”
“But you don’t know why,” Cash pushed.
“That’s my business,” I bit out, glaring at my boss. I really didn’t want to bring this up right now.
“It’s about to become company business.”
“I never agreed to that.”
“Then we’re calling the whole thing off,” Cash said, pushing to his feet.
He didn’t even look pissed as he walked out of the room. It was almost as if he wanted me to push back so I wouldn’t go through with the job.
“We’re still doing the job,” I told my teammates, shoving out of the chair.
The guys chased after me as I stalked down the hall to the tunnels. With the main building under construction after Edu blew up thedamn thing, I now had to walk all the way the fuck back to the mansion to get out of the damn building.
“Hey, what’s Cash so pissed about?” Red asked. “Why is he calling the job off?”
“Yeah, and what are you hiding from us?” Eli added.
“Not hiding,” I shouted over my shoulder. “Refusing to spill my guts.”
“That’s the same thing,” Eli scoffed.