The Wild Card

Chapter One

The Situation

Crew

I have a routine.

Wake at five. Run three-miles through the quiet Dallas streets before the rest of the world drags itself out of bed—four if I need to outrun my own head. Home by six. Shower. Four eggs scrambled, a protein shake with almond milk.

Work, where I stop the bad guys. Or try to, anyway.

Ninety minutes in the gym after my shift ends to decompress from thinking about said bad guys all day. Home. Shower again. Eat. Bed.

Then I do the same thing the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that.

Some people would call it boring. My therapist calls it a coping mechanism, which is a polite way of saying your brain is wired differently, and this is how you keep it from shorting out.

I call it survival.

It took two years of therapy and eight months of medication adjustments to get here.

Two years of learning that the way my brain works isn’t a character flaw.

It’s just how I’m built. And now I’ve finally found a balance—this fragile, hard-won equilibrium that depends entirely on everything staying exactly the same.

Which is why any disruption—any crack in the foundation—sends my brain straight into free fall. Which means days like today, with rumors circulating, are the last thing I need.

The FBI field office weight room is nearly empty at six PM, most of the day shift having already headed home to their families.

Their normal lives. Their golden retrievers and backyard barbecues.

I’m loading plates onto the bench press when my partner Foster drops his gym bag on the floor with a thud.

“Thought you were skipping today,” he says.

“When have I ever skipped?”

“Fair point.” He stretches his shoulders, all six-foot-four of him blocking the mirror. “You’re disturbingly consistent.”

I don’t tell him that consistency is the only thing standing between me and the void. That if I start skipping workouts, I’ll start skipping other things, and then the whole carefully constructed house of cards comes toppling down.

I just grunt and finish loading the bar.

There’s a new guy at the cable machine. Josh something. Fresh out of Quantico, eager as hell, still has that shine in his eyes that says he hasn’t seen anything yet. Foster waves him over, and Josh jogs toward us like he’s been offered a puppy.

“Agent Jensen.” He practically vibrates. “It’s an honor. To meet you, I mean. Everyone talks about the Meridian takedown. The cartel bust. How you never crack under pressure.”

I stare at him.

The silence stretches. Foster does nothing to help.

“They showed your tactical assessment scores during training,” Josh continues, undeterred. “You’re like a machine.”

A machine.

The word burrows under my skin and settles in my chest. That’s what they said about me in the Army too. Right before everything went sideways. Right before I stopped being a machine and became something broken instead.

“Don’t believe everything you hear.” I keep my voice even. “Half of it’s exaggerated.”

“And the other half?”

“Classified.”

I start my first set. The familiar rhythm helps quiet the noise.

Lift. Lower. Breathe. My brain wants to remind me of all the ways today could go wrong, wants to catalog every disaster waiting around every corner, but I focus on the burn in my muscles instead.

The weight in my hands. Something I can control.

“So, Jensen.” Foster’s doing curls now, watching me in the mirror with that look he gets when he’s about to say something I won’t like. “Hear anything about the Anchorage position?”

My hands tighten on the bar. “No.”

“Word is they’re looking at you for it. Leadership position. New task force.”

“It’s a rumor.”

“Daniels has been asking about you.” Foster sets down his weights. “Specifically about your, quote, ‘ties to the community.’ Wanted to know if you were seeing anyone.”

I rack the bar harder than I mean to. “Why would he care about that?”

“Because they want to transfer you, genius. And it’s easier to relocate someone who doesn’t have roots.”

Roots.

The word echoes in my head. What I have is a cat who showed up on my fire escape and refuses to leave, a string of failed roommates, an apartment I can’t afford alone, and a carefully balanced regimen that took years to get right and would have to start all over if I moved.

Not exactly the picture of stability.

“Jensen.” The voice comes from across the gym, and my spine straightens automatically. Lieutenant Daniels stands in the doorway, silver-haired and unreadable. “My office. Five minutes.”

He’s gone before I can respond.

Foster and I exchange a look.

“Told you,” he says quietly.

I grab my towel, my water bottle, my phone. Check that I have everything. Check again. My hands are steady because I’ve trained them to be, but inside I’m the furthest thing from calm.

Daniels’s office smells mildly of coffee. Family photos cover his desk—wife, four kids, a golden retriever. A normal life. Normal attachments.

Must be nice.

“Sit down, Jensen.”

I sit.

“How long have you been with the Dallas office?”

“Six years, sir.”

“Six years. Decorated record. Multiple commendations. One of the best tactical minds I’ve ever worked with.” He leans back, and I can feel the but coming before he even says it. “Which is why I’m recommending you for the Anchorage task force.”

There it is.

The words hit my chest like a physical blow, but I keep my expression neutral. Steady. Never let them see you spiral.

“Anchorage, sir?”

“It’s a promotion, Jensen. Leadership position. You’d be heading up the Northern division’s tactical response unit.” He smiles like he’s handing me a gift. “It’s an honor. You should be thrilled.”

I am not thrilled.

What I am is watching my carefully constructed life crumble in real time while sitting in this leather chair pretending to be a functional adult.

Anchorage, Alaska. Two thousand miles from everything I’ve built.

From my apartment—the first place that’s ever been truly mine.

From Dr. Reyes, who spent the last few years helping me build the coping strategies that keep me functional.

From the psychiatrist who finally got my medication right after eight months of trial and error.

New city. New doctors. New routines. New everything.

My brain starts its familiar spiral: You’ll have to find a new therapist. Start over from scratch. Explain the foster homes, the military, the discharge. They won’t understand. They never understand.

I dig my thumbnail into my palm. Focus.

“That’s… unexpected, sir.”

“I know change isn’t your favorite thing,” Daniels says it gently, which somehow makes it worse. “But this is the opportunity of a lifetime.”

Change isn’t your favorite thing.

That’s one way to put it. Another way: change makes my brain convince me that everything I’ve built is about to collapse, and the only way to survive is to control every variable around me, which is impossible, which means I’m always one disruption away from disaster.

“What’s the timeline?” My voice comes out steady. Small mercies.

“About two months to wrap up here. Transfer finalized by summer.” He pauses. “Unless you have compelling reasons to stay?”

The question hangs between us.

Compelling reasons. He means a relationship. A family. Ties to the community that don’t involve tactical briefings and case files.

I have none of the normal things people my age probably have. My most steady relationship is with my gym membership.

“I’ll think about it, sir.”

Daniels nods, but something in his expression suggests he expected more enthusiasm. “Don’t think too long. Opportunities like this get snapped up fast.”

The drive home is a blur of taillights and my own racing thoughts.

My brain runs scenarios the whole way, each one worse than the last. I accept the transfer, upend everything I’ve built, and end up having a breakdown in Alaska because anxiety’s a bitch and what if I can’t handle the stress.

I decline the transfer, get labeled as not a team player, and watch my career stagnate while everyone whispers about the guy who couldn’t handle a promotion.

There’s no good option. Just different flavors of damage control.

My apartment is exactly how I left it this morning. Couch cushions aligned. Remote on the coffee table at a precise angle. Kitchen spotless, every item in its place.

Perfect. Controlled. Empty.

Murphy appears from the bedroom, his orange fur catching the evening light as he winds around my ankles.

He’s a massive tabby with one ear that flops sideways and a fang that sticks out, giving him the look of a small furry gargoyle.

I found him on my fire escape two years ago.

Took him to the shelter three times. Watched him reappear each time like some kind of feline ghost until I finally gave up and let him stay.

I named him Murphy. As in Murphy’s Law—whatever can go wrong, will.

Story of my life.

“You’re the only one who hasn’t bailed yet,” I tell him.

He meows. Probably means feed me, you emotionally unavailable disaster.

Fair enough.

I open a can of the expensive wet food—the only kind he’ll eat, because of course—and watch him attack it. Then I stand in my kitchen and feel the panic start to rise.

Alaska in two months.

My hands are shaking. I press them flat against the counter, count to four, release. Count to four again.

It doesn’t help.

I walk to the bathroom and turn on the shower as hot as it will go. The water helps. A little. Steam fills the small space, and I press my forehead against the cool tile and try to breathe.

This is what they don’t tell you about having a brain like mine. It’s not just the routines, the checking, the counting. It’s the exhaustion of fighting your own mind every single day. The constant vigilance against thoughts that want to drag you under.

Some days I win. Some days I barely survive.

Today feels like a barely survive kind of day.

* * *

The knock comes around eight. Three deliberate raps.

A glance through the peephole confirms it’s Foster.

I open the door to find him holding a six-pack. “Heard about Alaska.”

“News travels fast.”

“News travels instantly when it involves you abandoning me for the tundra.” He holds up the beer. “Brought supplies.”

I step aside to let him in even though I don’t drink. I keep exactly six beers in the fridge for moments like this, because Foster shows up unannounced often enough that it seemed practical.

He drops onto my couch and cracks one open while I take the chair across from him. Murphy immediately jumps into his lap.

Traitor.

“So.” Foster scratches behind Murphy’s ear. “Anchorage.”

“Anchorage.”

“Daniels thinks it’s an honor.”

“It is an honor. Objectively speaking.”

He takes a long sip of his beer. “But you don’t want it.”

“No.”

Foster nods slowly. He doesn’t ask why. Doesn’t make me explain. He already knows about my anxiety and OCD. He’s one of maybe three people in the world who does.

“What did you tell him?”

“That I’d think about it.” I stare at the ceiling. “He asked if I had compelling reasons to stay.”

“And?”

“And I don’t. Not the kind that matter to the Bureau.” I gesture at the apartment—pristine, organized, lifeless. “Overpriced mortgage. A cat who tolerates me. A track record of driving away every roommate in under sixty days.”

“Seven roommates,” Foster says. “Eighteen months.”

“Thanks for keeping count.”

“What happened to the last one? The accountant?”

“He used my coffee mug.”

Foster stares at me.

“My designated coffee mug. It was labeled.”

“Crew.”

“It’s not about the mug.” The words come out sharper than I intend.

“It’s about… when someone moves my things, when someone disrupts the order I’ve built, my brain goes straight to worst-case scenarios.

One moved mug becomes what else did they touch becomes they don’t respect my space becomes everyone leaves eventually, so why bother. ”

I stop. I don’t usually say this much. I don’t usually let anyone see behind the curtain.

Foster is quiet for a moment. “That sounds exhausting.”

“It is.”

Another silence. Murphy purrs in Foster’s lap, oblivious. “You know what you need?” Foster finally says.

“A time machine? A different brain? A personality transplant?”

“A girlfriend.”

I stare at him. The word bounces around in my brain with nowhere to land.

“Think about it.” He shifts forward, dislodging Murphy.

“Daniels wants compelling reasons to keep you here. Ties to the community. What’s more compelling than a serious relationship?

You tell him you’ve got a girlfriend, someone you’re building a life with, and suddenly you’re not the loner workaholic with no attachments. You’re a guy with roots.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

He lifts one brow. “So get one.”

“Foster.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I can’t keep a roommate for two months. You think I can maintain a relationship?”

“You’re interviewing roommates anyway, right?” He leans back, something shifting in his expression. “Find one who’s willing to play the part. Fake girlfriend. Problem solved.”

The words hang between us.

Fake girlfriend.

“You’re joking.”

“Obviously I’m joking.” He waves a hand. “That’s ridiculous. Forget I said it.”

But I can’t forget it.

My brain—which usually works against me—is suddenly working for me, turning the idea over from every angle.

A fake girlfriend. Someone who could pose as my partner for work events.

Someone Daniels could meet and approve of.

Someone who needed something from me in return—reduced rent, maybe. A safe place to live.

It’s insane. It’s manipulative. It’s exactly the kind of emotionally detached arrangement I might actually be capable of maintaining.

“Crew.” Foster’s staring at me. “I can see the gears turning. That was a joke.”

“Was it?”

“You cannot fake-date your roommate to avoid a job transfer. That’s not a real plan. That’s a plot from a bad movie.”

“Why not?”

“Because—” He sputters. “Because it’s insane? You’d have to find someone willing to go along with it, and then actually pretend to be in a relationship, which requires human warmth and emotional availability. Neither of which are exactly your strong suits.”

I ignore the insult. He’s not wrong. I don’t have the first clue about how, uh, warmth or emotion work within the confines of a relationship.

“I have a roommate interview tomorrow.”

Foster groans and drops his head into his hands. “You’re not actually considering this.”

I lift one shoulder. “I’m evaluating options.”

“You’re going to put this in the roommate contract, aren’t you?” It’s not a question. “Some clause about fake dating. You’re going to make it official.”

I don’t answer.

“Crew.” Foster stares at me for a long moment. Then he picks up his beer, drains it, and reaches for another. “I’m going to regret this conversation for the rest of my life, aren’t I?”

Probably.

But for the first time since Daniels dropped the bomb, I feel something other than panic.

It’s a plan. Ridiculous. Ill-conceived. And almost certainly doomed.

But it’s a variable I can control.

And right now, that might be the only thing that saves me.