Fit for the Job (14 page)

Sassy stiffened as she looked up and saw Jay and Bodie. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

“Up,” Bodie said. “Get up now.”

Sassy stood and stepped back from the desk.

“Uncle Jay, what’s wrong?” the boy asked.

Bodie went to the desk and bent over, examining the screen, which displayed a game in progress, monsters and guns and bright splashes of animated blood.

“She said she liked zombies, so I was just showing her my game,” the boy said. “Uncle Jay, what did I do wrong?”

Jay moved up patted the boy on the shoulder. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Billy. It’s all right. Why don’t you go back downstairs, buddy.”

The boy gave Bodie an unfriendly frown that was eerily like Jay’s, then left the room.

“I didn’t do anything!” Sassy repeated.

Bodie turned to her, hands on his hips. “You didn’t
do
anything?”

“I didn’t do what you think I did, Bodie. I wouldn’t do that here, I wouldn’t disrespect Jay’s family like that!”

“You knew the rules! I asked you not to make me regret taking you here. And what do you do?”

Sassy sniffled, wiping tears.

“Bodie,” Jay said. “She was only playing a game.”

“Do
not
good-cop me right now, Jay!” Bodie said, whirling on him. “You’re not in charge of security, I am.”

Bodie was far too worked up to temper his words, his pulse still racing.
Just playing a game
. Shit, if Eben knew how close he’d allowed Sassy to get to a computer...he couldn’t even think about it right now. “We’re leaving. Now.”

Chapter Six

Jay sat quietly while they drove back to Eben’s place. He stole glances at Bodie, whose tattooed forearms bulged with veins he was gripping the steering wheel so tight. In the backseat, Sassy wept, sounding like a wounded animal.

“I didn’t do anything,” she blubbered for the umpteenth time.

“Don’t say it again,” Bodie said. “Please.”

“I was just playing a stupid computer game!” she wailed. “I can’t even do that? How am I supposed to live like this, Bodie? I’m not an infant!”

Bodie’s jaw tightened. “If you don’t want to live like this, then you know what you have to do. Talk to your father.”

“And give away my only leverage?” Sassy said. “I can’t. I can’t stay with my parents until I’m eighteen, that’s two more years. They’re not even gonna let me go back to school, they’re hiring a tutor this fall! I can’t do it, I hate them!”

“If you won’t let up on your father, you’ll have to deal with things the way they are,” Bodie said.

Sassy cried harder, and Jay took a deep breath. The tears, Christ, he hated the tears. His mother had said he knew nothing about girls Sassy’s age, but that wasn’t entirely true. One of his nieces was fifteen, and while she was a smart ass like Sassy, he’d never seen her exhibit these emotional spirals. He was beginning to think it had less to do with Sassy’s age and more to do with her being Sassy, living in Sassy’s world, a place he had no comprehension of.

What the hell was he doing here, in this situation? He had no business trying to be a full time trainer to a rich, movie star’s kid living in a world where she could blackmail her own father. It was fucked, and he didn’t think he could stomach it anymore. It was just too damn...fucked.

But the fuckedness of the situation didn’t change the fact that he felt sympathy for her. He wanted to comfort the girl, but didn’t dare, with Bodie all mad and scary at the moment. Plus, he had to stop trying to be the
good-cop
, as Bodie had called him. Everyone had been praising Jay like he was some sort of hero because he’d gotten the girl to smile and play tennis. He felt a stab of humiliation that he’d allowed such praise to salve his ego. In the larger scheme of things, he’d done nothing out of the ordinary. He wasn’t some United Nations peacekeeper because he’d talked a teenage girl into leaving her bedroom.

He glanced over and saw Bodie wipe his forehead. He was sweating.

Terrified
, Jay thought. Bodie hadn’t just been furious. He’d been terrified.

Jay had been telling himself that he could detach from the drama. That it didn’t matter why Sassy wanted to flee her parents, that it didn’t concern him why she’d taken such extreme measures in trying to do so. He’d been telling himself it was none of his business. He had a simple job to do. And his job had nothing to do with whatever else was going on. But once again, the
none of his business
side of things was exploding right beside him, and he could feel the heat from the blast, the shrapnel imbedding into his skin. How the hell could this
not
affect his job? It was insanity.

After they pulled in front of the garage and got out of the car, Jay spotted Evelyn coming out the side door. Sassy darted away from them, storming toward the house, but Evelyn stopped her, leaning over and speaking softly in her ear. Jay saw Sassy’s shoulders stiffen, then she walked more slowly to the house, disappearing inside.

Evelyn approached Jay and Bodie, giving a small smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Hey,” she said. “Got some news. Looks like your weekend camping trip isn’t happening.”

“Eben said no?” Jay asked.

Bodie’s body was still tightly coiled as he approached Evelyn, arms curved at his sides. “What’s going on?”

The side door to the house opened again, and Jay looked up. It took him a moment to recognize the skinny woman who stood on the stoop, dark auburn hair falling straight and sleek around her face. It was Ingrid Wright, Sassy’s mother.

Much like his first opinion of Eben, Ingrid looked vastly different than on the silver screen. But he saw no radiance in Ingrid at the moment. She appeared smaller, paler, her face pinched with stress. “Evelyn?” she called. “I need you.”

“Okay, Ingrid.” Evelyn looked back at Jay and Bodie. “She’s come for the weekend. For Sassy’s birthday. To spend time with her.”

“Ah, shit,” Bodie said. “This ought to be fun.”

“You’re off duty, Bodie. I got it. Talk later.” With that, Evelyn sprinted toward the house. She followed Ingrid inside, closing the door behind them.

Bodie turned and rested his elbows on the hood of the SUV, hanging his head. Jay waited a moment to see if he would speak, but Bodie remained silent.

“You okay?” Jay asked.

Bodie shook his head. “I think I just singlehandedly undid all the progress you made with Sassy this week. And now this.” He jabbed a thumb back toward the house. “It’s gonna be chaos in there.”

“Is Sassy as bad with her mother as she is with Eben?” Jay asked.

Bodie sighed, hanging his head again. “Not
as
bad. But when she finds out she’s meant to spend time with Ingrid on her birthday instead of going camping, I’m sure it won’t be pretty.”

Jay moved over and stood next to Bodie, leaning over with him. “It wasn’t your fault today. Sassy made the decision to play on the computer, when she knew she wasn’t supposed to.”

Bodie straightened up and looked at him. “It was my fault, because I took my eyes off her. I was distracted with...” He turned away. “It
was
my fault.”

Me
, Jay thought.
He was going to say he was distracted with
me. Jay couldn’t figure Bodie out. He was certain Bodie was attracted to him, had been flirting with purpose. But while Jay had spent the past week going into heat every time he even glanced at the guy, he was starting to second guess his previous desires to seduce him. Even though he knew it would just be for fun, knew it couldn’t be anything more—what with Bodie leaving at the end of the summer—he was starting to think there was too much complication there, even for a fling. Hell, this job was
well
complicated enough without adding his own torrid dealings to the mix.

But Bodie looked so defeated right then. And shit, he looked damn sexy, leaning over on those strong arms, strands of hair fallen loose and hanging in his face. The desire to touch him was almost overwhelming, and Jay nearly reached over and placed a hand on his back. But he stopped himself, remembering the way Bodie had shouted at him back at Paul’s house, the fire in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Bodie said suddenly, as though reading Jay’s thoughts. He straightened up and faced him. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. And I’m sorry you got pulled into this mess. If you want to haul ass out of here, I won’t try to talk you out of it. And I sure as shit won’t
blame
you if you do.”

Jay
had
thought seriously about quitting on the car ride home. But it was a lot harder to think about leaving while looking into Bodie’s hypnotic eyes, seeing the pain in them. Sure, maybe he’d changed his mind about trying to get Bodie into bed. But right now, the guy looked like he could use a friend.

“Do you still want to go grab a beer?” Jay asked.

Bodie stared at Jay, then chuckled, wiping a strand of hair out of his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “Hell, yeah.”

Jay grinned. “Then let’s go. But I’m driving.”

Bodie scowled.

“It’s your night off,” Jay said. “And I’m getting you drunk. So I’m driving.”

Bodie looked like he’d argue, but finally he nodded. “Okay. You drive.”

****

Jay took Bodie to Trinity Brewhouse, where they sat at the corner of the bar, huddled close together. Despite Jay’s declaration that he wanted to get the man drunk, Bodie merely sipped at his beer, still looking guilty and forlorn.

“You realize that you could quit too, if it’s too much. The job, I mean,” Jay said.

Bodie smiled at Jay. “I already quit one job in the past year. Would be kind of humiliating if I quit this one too. Especially having to say I couldn’t handle a teenage girl.”

“Yeah, well she’s not just any teenage girl, and it’s not just any job,” Jay said. “I sure as hell wouldn’t want your responsibilities.”

Bodie shrugged, then nodded. He looked quizzically at Jay. “Eben told me why you had to leave your last job,” he said. “The lawsuit they filed. That must have sucked.”

Jay nodded. “Yeah. I heard from my lawyer this morning, actually. He still thinks they’ll probably drop the suit, there’s too much evidence in my favor. We’ve got witnesses from the past who will testify that my routine was established before I ever started at that gym. But still. It’s not fun when the people you work with suddenly turn on you.”

Bodie met Jay’s eyes, his expression serious. “I can relate to
that
, believe me.”

“Something similar happen to you?”

Bodie took a long sip of beer, then set it down. “You could say that.”

“What happened?”

Bodie glanced at him, then looked away, waving a hand. “Ah. It’s old news. Not gonna burden you with my sob stories.”

“Why do you think we’re here?” Jay said. “It’s been a hell of a day. A hell of a week. I want to drink with you and bitch about our lives. Come on. Talk to me.”

Bodie chuckled, then gave Jay a full smile that melted him down to his shoes. “Aren’t you the one who reminded me recently you weren’t hired to be a shrink?”

“Yeah,” Jay said. “But I’m off duty, too. This is just friends talking.”

Bodie looked surprised, dark eyebrows rising for a moment. Jay wondered if it was that he’d referred to them as friends. He supposed after the day they’d had, it might be questionable whether they were or not. But Jay was willing to let that all be water under the bridge. Especially since the longer they sat there, with Bodie’s gorgeous eyes on him...Bodie’s alluring scent filling him up and doing things to his body, he found himself wanting to get closer to the guy. In any way he could.

“I liked the job I last had,” Bodie said. “The unit, the guys I worked with. It was high stress, but I liked it. But we were stationed in this one U.S. city for a long time, and things started to change. I started to witness behavior in a couple of the guys I couldn’t personally condone. Abuses of power.”

Bodie twisted his glass on the bar, his expression hard. Jay risked touching his forearm, and Bodie looked up quickly. Jay removed his hand, not wanting to push his luck. “What kind of abuses?”

Sighing, Bodie focused his eyes down on the bar again. “There were these young immigrant women in one section of the city. A lot of them were illegals. A couple of the guys...” He shook his head, looking troubled. “They’d flash their credentials and tell the girls they could get them a green card. In exchange for sex.”

Jay’s jaw dropped. “Jesus!”

Bodie nodded. “They couldn’t really get them a green card of course, not that that would have made it better. But some of the girls slept with them anyway. And some...if they refused, the guys applied more pressure, threatening to have them deported.” He scowled at Jay. “They actually
bragged
about it. Laughed about it. Like it never even dawned on them that anyone else would be anything but on board, and give them a high five.”

Jay was shocked, but kept his gaze steady, not wanting to deter Bodie now that he was opening up. “What did you do?”

“I reported them.” Bodie shrugged. “I didn’t feel like I had a choice. I was disgusted. I didn’t want to be part of a unit like that. And I figured the higher-ups would want to know. The couple guys that were doing this, they got reprimanded. I thought that would be the end of it. But it wasn’t. After that...” He shook his head and took another sip of beer.

“What happened?” Jay asked softly.

“After that,” he continued, “they started harassing me. Not just the guys who’d been reprimanded, but
all
the guys in the unit. They felt I’d betrayed them.”

Jay frowned. “How bad did it get?”

Bodie let out a humorless laugh. “Well, it started out simple enough. Breaking into my room, leaving cucumbers wrapped in condoms on my bed. Writing ‘faggot’ on my wall.”

“You call that simple?” Jay said. “That’s disgusting!”

Bodie looked at him. “Not as disgusting as when they started jerking off on my pillow, or shitting in my duffle bag.”

Jay couldn’t speak. He simply stared at Bodie.

Bodie nodded. “Yeah, it was nasty. Worst part was, one of the guys doing this to me was Clive. A guy I’d been...fucking.”

“Damn,” Jay said. “How did you handle it?”