12. 11
Robin stares at me from the other side of Ryan’s office. The light reflects in her half moon spectacles, which is annoying. In her own office the lights are hung differently, so she doesn’t have the same issue.
I wouldn’t even notice the glistening if I had just started talking already. But nope, here I am, being as stubborn as ever and not talking.
Chester and Ryan are studying me. I can feel it.
“Can’t Chester start?” I ask when the silence starts to feel like it’s crawling beneath my skin.
“I’m fine,” Chester says, looking smug as all hell.
“I could bankrupt you just to prove how wrong that statement is,” Ryan says, looking bored while he picks at his nails.
“Shouldn’t you be supportive?” I question Ryan. While I can understand that any regular therapist and Chester won’t work, I just fail to see how Ryan is actually helping.
“I’m supportive,” Ryan says, “I just don’t lie. He isn’t fine, otherwise you two wouldn’t be in here together.”
“I’m rich nowadays,” Chester says, ignoring the reason why we’re actually here. “It would take a tremendous amount of therapy to bankrupt me.”
Ryan glares. “That’s how not fine you are.”
“We almost caught the serial killer yesterday,” Chester says. “But he got away and he left Abby a love letter.”
Three sets of eyes turn in my direction. I don’t want to talk about it. I’d rather shoot stuff.
“Can we go back to Chester being rich now?” I ask innocently, selling my lover out without feeling guilty about it because he practically did the same thing to me. “There’s something there. You should definitely talk about that.”
“Why do you feel that talking about Chester’s issues is more important than your own issues?” Robin asks, calm as a cat.
She’s obnoxiously observant today.
I sigh, letting myself fall back on the couch and throwing both of my legs over Chester’s lap. “This couch is way more comfortable than yours,” I say, addressing Robin.
It’s the moment Ryan”s patience gives out. “Oh for fuck’s sake, why are you suddenly rich?”
Chester gives him a half smirk. “Because Satan is up to something, but I don’t quite know what yet and now he wants to give me money, which I’m going to accept so I can help the FIX Foundation.”
“And pay your therapy bills,” I mumble.
“And you’re fine with that?” Ryan asks.
“Absolutely,” Chester says. The weird thing is that he doesn’t even sound like he’s lying.
“You were so not fine,” I tell.
“Am.”
“You broke your keyboard.”
“And now I’m fine.”
“You chopped wood until there were blisters on your hands.”
“Yeah, and now I’m fine.”
I’m about to get angry when Ryan intervenes. “He seems to be really fine. At least about this subject.”
“We’re all talking in circles,” Robin says, tapping her pen against the side of her notepad. “Why would you rather talk about what’s going on with Chester than what’s going on with you?”
I give her an evil stare.
“Because she values others above herself,” Chester states.
“You say that like it’s a problem,” I scoff.
“It is,” Ryan says in a flat voice.
I scrunch my eyebrows, which Robin notices in return. “It could be problematic when you always put others first, but you also know how to take care of yourself. You just don’t always see the need to take as much care of your emotional well-being as your physical one.”
Grinding my teeth, I ball my fists. “Well, someone is still killing women, and there is fuck all I can do about it. What do you want me to do? Get angry?”
“Yes!” Ryan says. “Get fucking angry! Feel everything!”
I don’t know what to say to that.
“He’s not wrong,” Robin reluctantly adds. “Feel it, and use it to fuel what it is you do. Talk about it, share it, grow from it.”
Chester grabs my hand and caringly strokes my knuckles with his thumb. I thought I was handling stuff as best as I could, but apparently, I need to get angry.
“You could use some fuel,” I say, addressing Chester.
“I’ve got caffeine.”
“You are running a million miles an hour, skipping sleep and exhausting yourself.”
“Some things are more important.”
“Taking good care of yourself is more important than anything!”
Chester rolls his eyes while Robin jots something down on her notepad.
“Let’s zoom in on that, shall we?” she says. I’m either in for a world of trouble, or she’s going to teach me something about myself I probably should already know but don’t.
“So you’re giving Chester some solid advice. Taking care of yourself is extremely important. You said so yourself. But why is Chester’s emotional well-being more important than your own? Why wouldn’t you take your own advice?”
Ryan sits back in his chair and crosses his ankle with his knee, looking mighty pleased with himself while he isn’t even part of this conversation.
She has a point.
I just don’t want to hear it.
“It’s not like I don’t care about my emotional well-being. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.”
“But the main reason you’re here today is because you’re worried about Chester.” She doesn’t ask a question. She says it as a statement. Making her right once again. Which I don’t want to admit. Again. This therapy session is extremely frustrating. I feel like I’m getting a lecture about everything that I’m doing wrong instead of actually listening to the advice I’m getting. It’s my own perception, my own inner critic who believes the glass is half empty when it comes to me.
What it does do, is make me angry.
“Well, what is wrong with that? Taking care of those you love is perfectly acceptable!”
“It is,” Robin says ever so calmly. She’s the complete opposite of Ryan, who seems irritated by my outburst. “But you’ve got to love yourself too. This goes for both of you: You have to take care of yourself first, wonderfully messy feelings and imperfect humanness and all.”
“Well, I’ll put it on my to-do list for tomorrow. Love myself,” I say sarcastically.
“That’s an excellent idea,” Robin says with a sparkle in her eyes. She’s having way too much fun with this. Next thing you know she’s going to advise me to do the yoga where goats climb on your back and I start doing moon rituals with crystals.
“Okay, so why don’t both of you tell me this,” Ryan starts, walking towards his desk and getting his flask out. I guess day drinking is a staple on the agenda when Chester comes in for therapy. I don’t know why he’s drinking now, because Chester is actually behaving pretty well. He’s not talking back and doesn’t have any pressing matters other than taking care of himself.
“What would the perfect future look like for both of you? Let’s say everything in your life settles. You’ve caught that serial killer, nothing is going on to hold you back. The sky’s the limit. What’s your perfect future?”
Chester grins. “Easy. Remy moves in, we make this relationship successful, FIX Foundation keeps saving kids, we take a faraway holiday, and time travel or necromancy becomes a thing.”
Both therapists look at him like he’s lost his marbles. I laugh, because this is a conversation we’ve had before. Well, not the part about Remy moving in and working this relationship out. That’s news to me and making me happy, but the last part.
“He’d go back in time to see some great musicians live in action, or he’d raise them from the dead,” I explain.
“That’s not too much to ask, now isn’t it?”
Ryan takes a sip from his flask and holds it out to Chester, who accepts and takes a sip as well. Ryan mumbles something about not putting it beneath Chester to actually figure it out either. Robin looks appalled. I guess alcohol isn’t on her list of approved methods of therapy.
“And you?” Ryan asks.
“Mostly the same. Maybe get recognized by the government, so I have to fill in less paperwork whenever we do something with FIX Foundation. Find a way for Beckett to stay in our lives permanently as well. Get rid of all the creeps out there.”
“So both of you are saying that you’re already pretty much living your perfect life minus some minor tweaks?”
Chester and I lock eyes, realization dawning on us that he’s right.
“Yes, there’s a lot of shit going on in both your lives right now. You’ve both already had your fair share of misery. A bit too much if I’m being honest here. But you’ve got a good basis and a wonderful future. Now do the fucking work, and start to fucking love yourselves so you don’t screw this up. Feel everything there is to feel, don’t hold back and just be fucking happy. Because you both deserve it and it’s about damn time you both start to realize that.”
Robin steals his flask, taking a sip herself before giving us both a stern look. “That wouldn’t be my choice of words, but the message is actually pretty spot on.”
So.
This is us.
Paying top dollar to get yelled at to fucking love ourselves.
Maybe it’s time to listen.
If only it were that easy.
Scott sits in the corner of the gym, looking way too happy while the rest of us are dying. He can’t put any pressure on his leg right now, so he’s sitting the workout out, but he demanded to be here anyway. In his words, for team mentality. But in reality, it’s just so he can watch us suffer.
Alex is making us do the famous ‘The Circuit’ workout. He even announced it so we could all make sure we’d be well rested when we’d have a go at it. We all reacted to it in different ways, varying between dread and glee. Part of me was excited because killing myself with a good workout is my idea of a good time.
When I told my guys about this workout during dinner last night, Remy got excited and practically begged to come. Beckett’s competitive side then came out and asked if he could also come. When all looked expectantly towards Chester, he scoffed and said he had been ordered to love himself and that a workout from hell definitely was not part of that.
“Harder!” Scott encourages us.
I want to snap at him that this is hard enough without him hounding our asses, and if he thinks it’s so easy, he should come and do it himself, but I don’t have enough air to do so.
When the exercises start to be too much, I zone out. I let go of everything in my head and simply go through the motions. I know about meditation – how sitting perfectly still can bring you into a trance-like state without any thoughts, but I’ve always found the opposite to be true. I feel enlightened when I’m forcing my body to go through hard exercise. My mind goes blank, worries disappear and I feel connected to myself and the world. Things that bother or inconvenience me no longer matter. My ego is no longer there; all left is serenity.
So I’m not all that surprised when I snap out of my trance at the end of the workout and find that I can’t remember most of it.
“Where’d you go?” Scott asks me when I’m starfishing on the ground, trying to catch my breath. My muscles are shaking and I still feel the burn.
“I zoned out,” I summarize.
“It was like you weren’t here,” he says.
“She does that sometimes,” Alex says. “Have you never noticed?”
“I’m usually too busy being dead after you finish our workouts,” Scott deadpans.
“We all have our coping mechanisms,” Remy says, stretching his muscles and acting as if the workout didn’t impact him.
“What’s yours?” Dylan asks Remy.
“I dance, or exercise. It’s kind of the same. But my day to day life is a lot less stressful than yours.”
“I just go for a walk with my dogs,” Dylan says. “Being outdoors always helps. Who doesn’t love dogs?”
“Cat people,” I say.
“I tend to get lost in work,” Beckett mumbles. I’m surprised that he’s willingly sharing something personal. I would’ve thought he would keep himself at bay in this conversation and was just here for the workout.
“That doesn’t count. What do you do when you need a break from work?”
“Work some more. Read some. Go for a drive.”
“See, we all have our ways,” Remy repeats. “Abby cooks, Chester swims and listens to music.”
“And everybody fucks,” Scott adds with a grin.
There are various groans and eye rolls.
“What? It is a great stress reliever.”
“Try having three kids at home. There’s not a lot of time for fucking,” Alex says. He’s already up and is putting away all the workout equipment. It’s like he’s freaking immune to workouts.
“So what do you do to unwind when things get to be too much?”
Alex shrugs.
“He’s an artist,” Beckett says. Alex’s eyes go wide. He actually turns a little red.
“Am not.”
“There’s plaster beneath your nails,” Beckett points out.
Alex looks down and indeed finds plaster beneath his nails. “I’m renovating,” he says.
Dylan laughs. “No, you’re not. You hate renovating.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being an artist,” Scotts says. “I think it’s kind of cool.”
Alex turns to Beckett. “Why the hell would you tell on me?”
The agent shrugs. “What’s the problem with being an artist?”
Alex keeps tidying up in silence for a while. “I was taught that I have to be masculine, and art was looked down on in the military.”
Sighing deeply, I push myself off the ground, anger fuelling my action. “Sometimes these messed up notions about society are so fucking infuriating. What’s wrong with art? And why are women inferior to men when it comes to being tough?”
“Yeah, we get it. It’s unfair,” Dylan says. “But we’re not the bad guys. We chose to work for a woman, I don’t care that Alex likes art, I think people have the same rights regardless of skin colour and I’ll treat everyone the same, and I think love is love. We,” he says, indicating that everyone in the room, “are trying to leave this place a little better than it was when we got here. We’re not the bad guys.”
Alex silently laughs, amused by Dylan’s response.
“Once this serial killer stuff is over, we will do team building activities. We’ll all pick something, and we’ll all do stuff the others like.”
That’s actually not a bad idea.
“We’ve already done yours,” Beckett tells Remy, meaning the dancing lesson I all made them attend.
“That doesn’t count!” he counters.
“He doesn’t get to pick anything,” Scott says, “he isn’t even part of the team.”
“Then why is he hitting it harder than you?” Alex asks.
“Because I got shot in the leg!”
“Even before that became a valid excuse, he could outtrain you.”
“But he can’t shoot,” Scott weakly argues.
“I’m a lover, not a fighter,” Remy says, completely at ease in his skin.
The way these guys fight makes me smile. I like their bickering. They’re acting as a team, even if they aren’t one in the strictest sense of the word. You need a tribe, and this is mine. They come from all walks of life and bring unique opinions and personalities, yet somehow they all just fit.
And that makes me one of the luckiest people alive, despite chasing a serial killer.
I’m trying to reason with a maniac. Einstein said that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. By that definition, I’m insane.
Chester is listening to music that’s so loud that even though he’s wearing headphones, everyone working at the office is getting distracted by the foul eardrum, murdering songs he’s listening to. I’m trying to get through to him, but he’s in a mood. It’s a sign he’s working through some of the stuff that’s going on, hence the music, but he can’t distract the other people who try to work here.
I’m about to rip his headphones off when Zoey walks over in a hurry, her eyes flitting from Chester to me and back again. She seems agitated. I furrow my brow and try to figure out what she’s doing right when Chester’s music changes to ‘Transylvanian Hunger’ by Darkthrone, which I know is six minutes of pure agony rather than music. The hair on the back of my neck rises, and I forcefully grab his phone, unlock it and pause his music.
There’s never been a more relaxing silence in my life.
Chester turns to me, the agitation clear on his face, his fists balled, but before he can say something, Zoey cuts in.
“Boss, I’ve got something.”
Chester takes off his headphones and crosses his arms in front of his chest. His look could still kill someone, but I don’t give a flying fuck. He needs to cut the bullshit out. Maybe eat a Snickers.
“What’ve you got?” I ask, shifting my attention to Zoey. She’s tapping a finger against her bottom lip, her eyes big and wide, in stark contrast to the dark circles beneath her eyes.
“There’s a baby missing. She’s kidnapped. Her name is Harlow Klayne and she’s eleven months old.”
My heart stops. Whatever is happening to this kid, it’s bad news.
Chester’s frown changes into a worried, curious look. “What’d you find?”
“It’s a little bit different than most of our cases,” she starts. “She was taken by her aunt, the mother’s sister. Darla Middelstone is the aunt’s name. She lost her own baby girl two years ago, when she was ten months old, SID. When Harlow reached the age of Darla’s daughter, she kidnapped her. They suspect she’s had a mental break but is somewhat lucid in her actions. She withdrew all her money in the month before she took Harlow and disappeared with the girl, leaving no trace. The police are at a dead end. Everyone believes Harlow is safe though, because Darla just wants to have her baby back again.”
My chest hurts when I listen to Zoey talk. She lost her kid, and now her sister is going through the same pain because Darla kidnapped her niece. There are only losers in this story.
“How do you propose we help?” Chester asks, the harshness leaving his face.
“I want to try your new program and find her on one of the city”s camera feeds. Maybe see if we can use some store feeds. Since she withdrew all her money, I figured she was paying for stuff in cash. This means she has to go to stores to get diapers and formula because ordering them will leave a trail, and she doesn’t want that. We need to catch her in the wild, and I think we can do that if we put our time and effort into it.”
“Do it,” Chester says before I can say anything. Usually it’s left up to me what cases we work on and which we don’t, but Chester is either starting to feel more secure in his role in this company or his mood is just so bad.
“Cool,” Zoey says before she skips away.
I will never understand the way these two function. Saying ‘cool’ when she gets the green light to go find a mentally ill woman who kidnapped her own niece?
Chester turns to me, scowling.
“What?”
“You touched my music.”
“It was loud, and you weren’t listening!”
“Maybe I didn’t want to listen to you.”
“What did I do?”
“You turned off my music!”
He’s not making any sense. He can’t be mad at me for something I did because he claims he did it because I made him mad. Jesus, even just thinking that hurts my head.
“You’re insufferable, you know that?”
“You want to say that to my face, punk?” he yells, standing up.
What the hell is going on? What did I do? And when in the everloving fuck did he start calling me a punk, when the only punk here is him?
“What the hell?”
He leans forward, bringing his mouth closer to mine, and whispers: “Dressing room, two minutes. I’ll show you what happens to people who touch my music.”
The sound of his voice is stern, but he can’t keep the glimmer of mischief out of his eyes. I bring my eyebrows together and give him my foulest look. Spinning on my heels, I make my way to the dressing room until I’m leaning against one of the lockers, my arms crossed in front of my chest, facing the door.
Chester comes in not a minute later, locking the door behind him. Taking three big steps, he stands in front of me and slams me against the lockers. Before I can ask him what has gotten into him, his hands are beneath my blouse, and his mouth is on mine.
He grinds his hard length against my core, and I can’t help but rub myself against him. When I finally manage to take my lips off of him, I’m panting.
“What the hell?” I repeat my earlier sentiment.
“I’m tired, I’m moody and I can’t stop thinking about getting you out of these pants and fucking you senseless.”
Jesus.
“You gave me attitude because you want to fuck me?”
“No, I gave you attitude because I don’t know how to handle my mood, so I took it out on you, then you started to fight me and then I wanted to fuck you.”
“Well, fuck you!”
“That’s what I’m trying to do!”
I have no idea why we’re fighting, why he’s moody, what we’re fighting about or what the general outcome is going to be, but I like the idea of hate fucking, so I weave my fingers through his hair and pull him against me.
Taking that as encouragement, he uses both hands to rip my jeans open, making the button pop off. It bounces off of the tile floor, landing who knows where. I’m a little too preoccupied to worry about it.
Chester unbuttons his own pants, pushing his boxers beneath his balls and making his cock spring free against his belly. He doesn’t even waste any time taking my clothes off, shimmying my pants down as little as he can and then pulling my panties aside.
Looks like he’s finally gotten the point that women don’t need as much prep as men – they just need to be willing and wet, and well, that’s obviously happening. He guides himself to my opening and bottoms out at once. I can’t even count to three before he starts pounding into me.
My back slams against the locker every time he thrusts forward, making the whole thing move and making terrible noises. There’s nothing subtle about what’s going on here.
He doesn’t seem inclined to slow down, and I’m okay with that.
I wiggle my hand between our bodies, seeking out the nerve bundle between my legs and applying pressure on it while I start rubbing in circles. The rhythm is a little off, on account of getting railed like a freight train, but it doesn’t even matter.
I’m there within moments.
“Don’t stop,” I manage to tell him.
“Shut up,” is his answer, his head falling back and his muscles contracting. His indifference to my needs and solely chasing his own urges gets me so hot I topple over the edge, feeling my insides spasm when little stars appear behind my closed eyes as I orgasm.
He fucks me right through it.
I’ve not even come down yet before he grunts and stills his breathing, his mouth slack while his whole body convulses.
His forehead falls against my shoulder once he’s done, but we keep in position long after we’ve finished.
“Better?” I finally ask.
He breathes heavily, shaking his head.
“Give me five minutes, and I’ll be angry enough to go again.”
I snort.
“Because I touched your music?”
“Was that the excuse I used? Yeah. Sure. Because you touched my music.”
I laugh, but he doesn’t let me down. While he seems less stressed than earlier that afternoon, he still doesn’t waste the opportunity to make the locker shake against the wall again when he hardens a little while later.
I’d say it has been a very productive day at the office.