S.O.S. Perk (S.O.S. #6)

CHAPTER THREE

Dammit. She was so screwed.

Sloane leaned against the counter in her small kitchen, wanting nothing more than to smack herself in the head until all traces of one Henry Perkins got jolted from her existence. But it seemed like that wasn’t going to happen. She’d been trying for three days—since the wedding—not to think about him. Hell, if she was honest, she’d been trying to shake him loose from her brain for the last couple months ; since the moment she’d met him working on the Jakes’ op. But all the fussing she’d done had accomplished nothing but make her question her sanity, because she couldn’t stop him from invading her thoughts.

She looked down at the phone in her hand and bit her lip; a bad habit she had.

Sloane really, really, really wanted to call Melissa, her best friend and the voice of reason for her when she felt adrift and her sanity was at stake. But she had an inkling she knew exactly what Melissa would say, and Sloane wasn’t sure she was brave enough to take her advice.

Still, continuing the way she was…

Screw it .

She punched Melissa’s number and bit her lip again.

“Hey, bestie,” Sloane greeted tentatively.

“Sloane! This is a surprise. A midweek call? And before breakfast?”

“Yeah, well,” Sloane cleared her throat. “I didn’t want to talk to you while you were at school.”

Melissa was currently an HR admin at a high school in Waterston, a city west of the town they both lived in. Sloane had met Mel ten years ago when first starting with the FBI. The firm Mel worked for at the time had been called in to revamp a very antiquated and poorly run HR department for the Bureau, which they’d done admirably well. Melissa and Sloane had bonded immediately, joking over the incompetence that had preceded them.

“I’ve, uh, been meaning to get in touch,” Sloane choked out.

Her friend snickered. “Uh, Slo? We had brunch last Saturday.”

“Right. But this is about what happened Sunday .”

There was an almost imperceptible pause. “Something went down on Sunday?” she questioned, then in her inimitably direct fashion she added, “I don’t suppose this has anything to do with the stick you’ve had up your ass lately?”

Sloane huffed. “What makes you think—?”

“Pul-lease,” Melissa interrupted. “How long have we known each other? I’m aware when something’s eating at you. The same way you intuitively know when I’ve got a problem. Now spill.”

That was one of the things Sloane loved about Melissa. There was no beating around the bush between them. Melissa had no fear of giving Sloane—the tough-bitch, FBI agent—shit when she needed to. Nope. Melissa cut her no slack, and that’s just what Sloane needed right now.

Taking a deep breath, she let it out.

“There’s this guy…”

“I knew it,” Melissa squealed. “It had to be a man. Job probs you can handle like a rock-star. Car breakdowns, family bullshit, and all other life-minutia doesn’t make you blink twice. But males?”

Sloane could almost see the eye roll.

Melissa wasn’t letting up. “When was the last time you actually went out on a date?”

“A couple years back,” Sloane mumbled, when they both knew it was more like five. Was it her fault she didn’t trust easily?

“Yeah. That’s a lie, but I’ll let you get away with it. And now you’ve got my radar pinging. Who’s the guy, and how do you know him? I’m assuming you haven’t been concussed and joined a dating site.”

“No. No dating apps,” Sloane assured her with a chuckle. “I actually met Perk on a job.”

“Oooh. Perk. Is that his first name or last?”

“It’s actually Henry Perkins, but everyone calls him Perk.”

“Everyone, as in…?”

“His teammates,” Sloane supplied.

“Oh.” There was a pause as well as some censure in Melissa’s voice as she backpedaled. “He’s an FBI guy. I’m not sure you should be—”

“No.” Sloane cut her off. “He’s not with the Bureau. He’s with an indie firm in Boston called SOS.”

“Whew!” Melissa gave voice to her relief. “I was worried for a minute there. You, my buttoned-up friend, would have had a hard time coming to grips with dating someone in your office, not to mention all the bullshit that would go along with it. An HR nightmare, if I may say so.”

“Well, you don’t ever have to worry about that,” Sloane assured her. None of the men in her office did anything for her libido. “But I am having a hard time coming to grips even thinking about going out with Perk, despite that he’s not a colleague.”

“Okay. Okay. Settle down.” Melissa’s no-nonsense tone soothed her.

This was just what she needed.

Mel cleared her throat. “First of all, tell me about him. You met him on a job?”

“Yeah. His team was investigating a bad character, and because of a mutual, uh, contact we have, our office was eventually called in to assist.” She couldn’t go into any of the scant details she knew about Mizzay. It was all classified. “He…he didn’t even pretend to hide his interest in me, right from the get-go. Which is odd. You know how I downplay my looks while I’m on the job.”

“Right. You try ,” Melissa scoffed. “But damn, girl, you’ve got to know that you look as fine rocking a Blues Brothers suit as you do stepping-out in some smokin’ glam. I’ve told you that a million times.”

“Because you’re my friend, and that’s what’s expected of you,” Sloane countered with a grin Melissa couldn’t see.

“Friend, shmiend. You’re hot, and I’m going to keep reminding you of that, so suck it up.”

Damn. Melissa was so good for her ego. But that’s not why Sloane had called. “Listen. I’ve been so conflicted—”

“Uh, uh. Before we get into the huge pile of doubts you harbor regarding why you shouldn’t even be entertaining thoughts about this guy, I need deets on him. What does he look like? Does he play well with others?”

“Uh, maybe we shouldn’t get into that yet, either.” Now that it was share-sies time, Sloane’s tongue was having a hard time getting things out. “I, um, don’t want to make you late for work. I know you have to leave soon” Sloane demurred. Yeah , she’d opened this can of worms, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to dig around in and share the slimy contents.

“As if I could drive off to my own shit now, when you’re obviously and loudly crying out for help.”

Sloane snorted. Which she knew was exactly what Melissa wanted. Her bestie had a way of digging through Sloane’s uptightness to get her to loosen up.

“Okay. Fine. I’ll spill. He’s about six-footish or so. Dark hair. Fucking adorable dimples. And his body is…pretty sweet.”

Melissa jumped on that one. “Pretty sweet as in squishy and comforting like a soft pillow, or pretty sweet as in ripped and buff like you can bounce Oreos off his abs.”

“Uh, the second,” Sloane admitted.

“Eeee! Nice. We will def be talking more about that later. But right now, unfortunately for me, I need you to speed things up. Tell me how long you’ve known him?”

“About three months.”

“Three…? And you haven’t jumped on that yet?” Melissa practically screamed through the phone. “What’s wrong with you?”

Sloane groaned. “That’s what I thought you’d say, and it’s also what I’m calling you for,” she said. “I’m not sure what I should do next. If I should even be thinking about…moving things along. Remember the wedding I told you I was going to on Sunday?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, he was there. And he made no bones about wanting to go out with me.”

“And…?” Melissa prompted.

“And I kind of shot him down. I told him I don’t date, and to stop wasting both our times.”

Now Melissa groaned. “Oh, Sloane. You scared him away with your whole Agent Vessers act.”

“Hey. Agent Vessers isn’t an act,” Sloane sniffed. “I’ll have you know I kick ass as a—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. A big bad Federal agent. I get it. But I know the soft, gooey center inside you.”

Without letting up, Melissa continued probing. “So, did you frighten him off?”

Sloane let out a bark of laughter. “You would have thought so, but Perk is tenacious, I’ll give him that. He switched gears as easily as the Hydramatic in my ’65 Pontiac.”

Yup. That was something not too many people other than Melissa knew about her. She was a consummate gear-head, and her old Tempest was her most prized possession.

“Explain,” Melissa prodded, ignoring the metaphor.

“As soon as I told him I don’t date, he suggested we try being friends first. He asked if he could meet me for lunch, where, he said, he was more than happy to have a person of my choice join us to run interference.”

“Well, hell, Slo. What are you waiting for? I’m that person, and I’ll grill the hell out of him to make sure he’s the real deal.”

“I, uh, kind of told him I wasn’t up for even a friendly lunch.”

Melissa—if Sloane wasn’t mistaking the familiar sound—was slapping her forehead.

Sloane hoped her next revelation would mitigate her friend’s clear disappointment. “So, he suggested I join his team for a sparring session sometime soon.”

“A sparring session, huh?” Melissa’s interest ratcheted back up. “And you said…?”

“That I probably would, and to call me the next time his group was ready to meet.”

“Hell, yes,” Melissa chortled. “Then you can get your hands on him and make sure he’s packing everything you need!”

“Packing…? Geeze Mel. We’re talking martial arts here. Not naked mud-wrestling.” Although that picture might start starring in her nocturnal meanderings.

“Hey. A girl can fantasize, right?” Melissa unknowingly agreed.

Sloane almost gave herself away. In reality, that’s what she’d been doing ever since she’d met Perk. Fantasizing. Dreaming endlessly about touching him. Smelling him. Hell, just ogling him while he was in action.

But there was more to discuss than simply the man’s physical attributes. Things that were a little more serious.

“Uh, Mel?”

“Oh, oh. I don’t like that tone of voice,” Melissa returned. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Umm, he, uh, might be just a little bit younger than me.”

Melissa’s professional, HR, everything-by-the-book voice popped out. “How much younger?”

Sloane laid it on the line. “He’s twenty-eight.”

There was a relieved exhalation. “Well, hell girl,” Melissa snickered. “What are you worried about, then? I thought you were going to say he was jail-bait.”

“Seriously, Melissa?” That thought horrified her. “Do you know me?”

“Just kidding, sweetie. But I was hoping he was at least over twenty.”

Sloane huffed. “Well, he is, but he…doesn’t look it.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s got a baby face. A real baby face. I doubt if he can even grow a beard. And those dimples… How is it going to look if I decide to go out with him? People will talk because I look so much older.”

Instead of the commiseration Sloane expected, she got a verbal bitch-slap.

“Who the hell cares what anybody thinks? When I see a cougar with a boy toy, I think ‘good for her’. But that isn’t even close to the case, here, Slo. It’s only six frigging years between the two of you. Six .”

“So you think I should go for it? Shelve my concerns and see if we’re at all compatible, even though the chances are slim-to-nothing that things will work out?”

Melissa knew Sloane’s history, and would understand where the concerns were coming from.

“It’s either that or just jump his bones,” Melissa told her pragmatically. “Your choice. Because I swear, girl, if you don’t have sex soon, your lady parts are in serious danger of drying the fuck up.”

“Wait. What?” Sloane had intrinsically known it would come down to this. “Are you telling me to use Perk for sex?”

“If you can’t wrap your head around dating him, then yeah. People do it all the time, Slo.”

“I don’t think I can. I…like him too much.”

There was a huge huff from the other end of the line. “Then what are we talking about here? You like him. He likes you. Call the man and make a date. A lunch date. Next Monday is a day off for me. Tell me where you’ll be, and I’ll show up as your wing-woman.”

“You really think it’s a good idea to encourage him?” The thought actually gave her a little thrill, but she didn’t know if it was more a nervous kind of thrill, or an excited one.

“I think it’s a great idea. Do you have his number?”

“I do,” Sloane admitted.

“Then as soon as we hang up, call him. Make the date. Let him know it’s a date, but that you’ll have a very mama-bear friend coming along who will claw his face off if he steps out of line.”

Now Sloane laughed. She couldn’t picture petite Melissa who’d once given herself a black eye attempting to play badminton, going up against the bigger-than-life Perk. But that’s how good a friend Mel was.

“I don’t think we have to worry about that,” Sloane told her. “The man is squeaky clean. After all, for some of the highly classified jobs he’s had to do, he’s practically been anally probed to make sure he’s got no hidden agendas. Believe me, he’s no danger.”

“To your physical well-being perhaps, but what about your heart?” Melissa countered.

Sloane swallowed the lump that appeared suddenly in her throat. “Uh, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Nobody said anything about involving that organ.”

Again, Melissa didn’t hold back. “Sweetie, this is the first man you’ve been really interested in for almost as long as I’ve known you, and I’m not going out on a limb here to say it looks like you’ve already taken a nose-dive into a deep, infatuation-trench. Just…keep your heart protected until you know exactly what kind of guy he is on a personal level. He might be the shit when it comes to super-spy-agent type stuff, but he could suck on a boy-meets-girl level.”

It was good advice, and Sloane knew it. But she also trusted Perk’s office manager, Mizzay, who she’d known for several years. The woman would never work with someone who wasn’t…nice.

“Fine.” For Sloane, it was time to lighten the conversation. “But can I tell you, now, what I expected you to say when I first spilled?”

“What’s that, Slo?”

“I thought you’d tell me to ditch the whole dating idea, and just screw the hell out of him, which you kind of did mention in the middle of dissecting things.” If she bit her lip any harder, Sloane would be bleeding soon.

“Sure. I would have run with that if it hadn’t sounded like you were actually interested in the guy; that you might have simply been able to bang him out of your system. But sweetie, it seems like you really like him, so we’ll go with plan A, which is a lunch-date. Now are you going to call him, or what?”

“Yeah. I will,” Sloane promised, even though her stomach was doing loop-de-loops at the thought.

“As soon as we hang up, yeah?” Melissa goaded.

“As soon as we hang up,” Sloane agreed solemnly.

“Good. Now get a move on. I love you, girl.”

“I love you too.”

The phone went dead, and Sloane regarded the dormant instrument in her hand like it was a snake.

Fuck . She knew if she let a few minutes pass, she’d chicken out.

Before she could talk herself out of it, Sloane went to her contacts, found his name, and hit the button to connect.

“Am I really doing this?” she muttered, her lip under assault again.

“Sloane!” Perk’s upbeat tone immediately told her how happy he was that she was calling.

“Yeah. It’s me.”

“What’s up?” he asked. “Is this a professional call, or a personal one?” His voice lowered into a deep baritone when he said, “personal”.

“Uh, personal. I was wondering if…”

Sloane sucked in a deep breath. It was now or never.

“Would you like to join me and a friend for lunch next Monday?”