Chapter 47 Talbot
TALBOT
Ipeer blearily out from under the scratchy blanket draped over me, my head pounding like someone took a slapshot straight through my skull. The couch in my brother’s office creaks when I shift, and the office spins for a second before settling into a depressing shade of gray.
There are voices out in the hallway—loud, obnoxious voices.
“Shut up,” I shout, or try to. My tongue is glued to the inside of my mouth.
There’s arguing from the hallway. Is that Misty? It’s the first coherent thought I’ve formed since last night when I started my Christmas early with all my good buddies from the military: Jack Daniels and Tito.
I’m hallucinating, is what it is.
I need to plan out the job for Fitz, but I want to live in the warm memories of Misty just a little longer before I have to go live outside in the rain and the same clothes for days on end, waiting to kill a rich guy who fucked over another even richer guy.
Then do it all over again, and again and again until I’m too old to do the job.
Then I retire and drink on the ski slopes and watch other people with their families teach their kids to ski, and go cross-country skiing with their huskies, and play with their dogs in the snow, and have drinks with their spouses after keeping their kids from dumping goldfish crackers in the fondue pot.
I didn’t actually love her, I try to remind myself. You can’t fall in love with someone you just met—it was the novelty of it. Being with Misty was one big lucid daydream. It wasn’t real.
It wasn’t real in so many ways, and that’s why she hates me.
I have no hope. Even if she comes to her senses about Austen, Fitz is going to be there just because he’s bored and wants to fuck me over.
Misty deserves to be treated well. She deserves nice things and luxury travel and nice presents.
I fumble around for one of the non-empty bottles, preferably not the cheap vodka, but I’ll take what I can reach.
One of the bottles tips over and rolls on the concrete. I pat around for it. My hand lands on something furry. A dog licks my hand then jumps up, landing heavy on my chest, happily whining and licking my face like I‘ve been gone for twenty years.
“Cocoa Puff,” I croak, hack up a lung, and grab the bottle of whiskey near my feet before the corgi wearing an oversized green-and-red sweater can lick the bottle.
The corgi yips happily, wagging her stubby tail and trying to burrow under the blanket with me as Misty enters the office.
“Oh, you decorated for Christmas.”
Her voice cuts through the fuzz in my brain. I sit up too fast, feet tangling in the blanket, and knock over a mess of bottles—the empty and almost-empty bottles of liquor.
She takes it in—tinsel strung half-heartedly across the filing cabinets. A limp pine-scented candle flickering in the corner. A plastic wreath duct-taped to the door.
“Why are you here?” I wheeze.
“Well, she didn’t come to ask you to marry her. Not with you looking like that.” Elsa makes a face.
“I’m here to hire you,” Misty states.
“Him specifically?” Anderson snorts.
“So, Talbot’s drunk,” Jake says. “I think you want someone else with a broader skill set and who doesn’t have a drinking problem.”
“Is he drunk from last night, or is this recent drinking?” Misty nudges one of the bottles with her foot.
“He’s been nursing his heartbreak all night.”
“I’m not heartbroken,” I argue.
“Yeah, he always drinks himself to oblivion after completing a job.” Lawrence smirks.
I must be imagining the concern on her face.
“What are you doing here? We gave you a refund.” I peer at her. “How did you even find the office?”
“Fitz called me.”
“Don’t go to Paris with him,” I groan and collapse back on the sofa. “He doesn’t love you. He just wants to make me angry and watch me spiral out of control.”
“Well, he missed the big show.”
“Go sober him up,” I hear Hudson say. I don’t see him because the corgi has blessedly lain across my face, blocking all the sunlight.
Misty can’t be here. If I only had one shot to win her back—potentially a Hail Mary—I’m blowing it on this.
The ingredients for the cheese are mellowing in the fridge, the stracciatella firming up. Elsa insisted that handmade cheese would do it. And a shower.
No woman wants cheese for Christmas, I decide. Elsa is just fucking with me.
“There was supposed to be a big speech. I think I have notes written on my arm. Oh, they’re smudged,” I mumble into the dog’s fur.
I’m falling apart, and my horrible siblings are just letting it happen.
Lawrence makes a disgusted noise and drags me off the couch to the shower while Misty is taken to one of the windowless conference rooms.
The best the boiler can handle is room-temperature water, and I’m ever-so-slightly less drunk after I turn off the water.
Cocoa is waiting for me, panting in her oversized sweater in the dank locker room of the abandoned gym we transformed into this quarter’s HQ. She licks the water droplets off my leg.
Toweling my hair, I head back, feet silent on the rubber floor, and slink into the conference room. Meanly, I want Misty to know what she’s missing.
“Can you put on a shirt?” Hudson sighs.
“Can he put on some pants?” Anderson complains.
“Cocoa Puff.” I pick the dog up, and she sits down heavily on my lap. Her breath smells like whiskey. “You weren’t supposed to drink that,” I scold the dog.
“I brought you a hangover cure.” Misty cautiously places a thermos in front of me.
“Is there bourbon in it?” I know I sound sullen. I can’t look at her.
I want to get on my knees and beg her to take me back.
She wants to choose Austen—that’s her problem.
“No, but there are three pumps of caramel syrup, extra whipped cream, and pecan-nutmeg sugar clusters.”
“I need a drink.”
“Well, one of your siblings can have yours, then.” Misty flips the top of a thermal bag at her feet.
“Oh no, I want it.” I snatch it. Like I’m sharing with my siblings.
“Hudson, can I have yours?” Jake begs.
“There are muffins,” Misty adds, digging around in the bag.
“Why’d you bring them food?” I complain as Misty sets the snack in front of me.
“If you ask people to work on Christmas, then you should bring them food.”
So it wasn’t some sort of peace offering—it was just Misty being Misty. Impersonally nice.
Anderson pours the last of the bourbon into his drink.
Fucker. “The dog’s been lapping at it. I hope you get dog germs.”
Cocoa licks my face.
“Why is he even in this meeting?” Anderson complains.
“What team are we putting on this?” Lawrence opens his laptop.
“Team? Shit, I could just do this myself,” Hudson whistles. “Look at this, Anderson.” He passes my brother a binder.
“This would have taken me months to gather.” Anderson is impressed.
I’m secretly proud of Misty. Anderson’s a dick, and his default setting is that everything sucks.
“I have all of Austen’s financial information here. It’s all tabbed, highlighted, organized in a Christmas-themed binder—because of course it is. I have all his passwords, bank account statements. He thinks I’m helping him. He thinks I’m in love with him.”
I can’t tell if the look she shoots at me is guilty. I want it to be guilty. I want her to think she made a mistake.
Then it’s gone, and she’s back to, I guess, her professional PR face.
Dealing with this Misty, who’s organized, decisive, and focused? It’s actually not far-fetched that she might be the type of person to engage our particular services.
“I also have a tracker on my car,” Misty tells Hudson. “Sometimes my teenage brothers take it on a joyride, and I need to know where they go. Here’s his current location.”
“Wait.” My brain is having trouble outrunning the alcohol. “You want to kill Austen?”
“No, she wants to take him down.” Hudson sounds excited.
Assassinations are my specialty. Shock and awe and burning down empires are Hudson’s.
“Well, I want to use the rest of my money for that. You said I could roll over some of it. How much would it take to, you know, take Austen down?” Misty asks.
“You have more than enough to cover this.” Hudson promises. “We’ll have him in handcuffs and on the evening news by tonight.”
“Austen is going down like a house with too many Christmas lights and a dry Christmas tree,” Jake crows.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Anderson sighs.
“It’s like an electrical fire,” Jake argues.
“Dude, you really need to lay off the booze. You fry your brain.” Anderson throws a half-eaten garlic knot from lunch at him.
I’m painfully sober and still slightly hungover when all the incriminating evidence and the information to rat Austen out to the authorities is packaged and delivered to the news media Hudson likes to work with as well as to the NHL, the FBI, and the local PD.
Lawrence is particularly proud of the fact that he was able to doctor up some financial documents and make it look like Austen committed identity theft to get that loan from Misty.
Jake taps the folder in front of Misty. He’s half leaning on her, and it rankles that she just lets him.
“Follow up with your lawyer and make sure he files that. You want to be first in line before the NHL comes after him, or you might not get your money back, because they tie it all up in litigation.”
“Merry fucking Christmas and a happy New Year,” Elsa crows.
“Now what?” Misty jokes. “Is there a viewing party?”
“If you want—you’re the client,” I tell her, mouth hard.
Misty looks hurt.
I want to reach across the table, curl her into me, fix everything. But I don’t.
I push up out of the chair, slow and deliberate.
“Where are you going?” Hudson looks up.
“Seattle. I have another job.”
Misty jerks back.
“You’re leaving? On Christmas?”
My hand’s on the handle of the conference room door, when I stop because I’m an idiot who wants to get the last word even when it’ll cost me.
“Sorry, Gumdrop. Guess you’re right—I lied. You didn’t change me that much after all.” I walk out. I don’t wait for her to run after me.
Because she won’t.
And the silence behind me feels worse than a bullet to the chest.