Bad Judgment

by Sidney Bell

  Ford glanced at him again, and Brogan was taken aback by his expression. While clouded by anger and defensiveness and suspicion, underneath there was a hint of something else, something far more upsetting. As if Ford was scrambling for solid ground while the world fell apart beneath his feet.

  Fear.

  Brogan sat up straight, troubled. Then that elegant jaw hardened and all emotion disappeared.

  “Mr. Smith,” Ford said, and Brogan was startled to hear his last name, because he had, after all, spent the last week thinking that Ford didn’t know who he was. “I’m flattered. But I wasn’t lying when I said I’m not interested. And I think you should practice more caution. This isn’t appropriate, and Touring isn’t a tolerant company.”

  Brogan studied him for a second, not bothering to ask what Ford was scared of. Ford would only deny being scared at all. And besides, even a truthful answer wouldn’t lead anywhere good. Brogan’d started out intending to pick at Ford’s straight laces a little, and ended up flirting despite his better judgment, so the slope was already slippery. He needed to remember his priorities, and none of them involved prying into the business of a smart-mouthed office drone, no matter how lovely he looked when he blushed.

  Then the door to the conference room opened and Ford slid his laptop into his shoulder bag and stood. He was as remote as he’d ever been, everything approachable and human neatly tucked away. Brogan got up more slowly, trying to shift his attention to work while Henniton made his way over after shaking a lot of hands and nodding a few good-byes.

  “Good meeting, sir?” Ford asked. All business.

  “Short and to the point,” Henniton replied. “Just as they should be. Do you have what you need?”

  Ford nodded, tucking his coat over his arm, and Henniton looked at Brogan. “Are your people ready?”

  “One moment please, sir.” Brogan radioed his backup—Wiley Santos—to bring the car around. The meeting had let out early so it took a few minutes and Brogan tuned out the discussion between the other men during the wait. When Wiley was ready, Brogan escorted Henniton down in the elevator, and Ford came with them, a terse, cold presence on the ride down. They walked out to the car together and Brogan stalled out at the passenger side rear door, because he assumed Henniton would stop to say good night to Ford here. Henniton had plans to see his mistress, but Ford wasn’t walking away. He was standing there with Henniton, and it took Brogan a second to realize that Ford was going with them to the second property.

  Almost on autopilot, Brogan opened the door for them. Henniton got in first, chattering about something that no one else was listening to. Ford followed, meeting Brogan’s gaze for the length of a heartbeat, his chin lifted against the expectation of judgment, and then Ford was in the car next to Henniton.

  Brogan slid into the front passenger seat. Wiley made a couple attempts at conversation, but Brogan’s responses must’ve left something to be desired because he gave up. The rest of the ride was silent but for the muted tones of Henniton and Ford talking in the backseat on the other side of the privacy partition.

  Brogan didn’t know what to be shocked about most—that the person Henniton was cheating on his wife with was male, that he was a subordinate, or that it was Ford.

  No, actually he wasn’t shocked about the first two at all.

  And it wasn’t only shock that he felt about the last one, although he wasn’t firing well enough to think of the names for the other things he was feeling.

  He found himself going back over every interaction he’d witnessed between Henniton and Ford, looking for hints of the relationship, wondering how he’d missed it. Wondering if he’d missed other signs as well. He thought of words like coercion and sexual harassment and pretty much drove himself crazy the entire way to the apartment.

  After all, it wasn’t like Henniton made Ford particularly happy. Brogan would’ve noticed that for sure. But Ford never laughed, and until tonight, Brogan had never seen him smile, so he couldn’t be ecstatically in love. And he’d bet a thousand bucks that Henniton had never played a video game in his life.

  Granted, Brogan’s ability to observe Ford had been limited to working hours until now. Maybe Ford loathed his job so much that even the private worship of his lover couldn’t make him chipper during the day. Or maybe they were just that good at hiding it. Henniton was married, after all, and Ford was his employee. They had excellent reasons to keep it a secret.

  Which brought Brogan back to sexual harassment.

  And here was another word that kept springing up: unfair.

  It seemed very unfair indeed that the first man that Brogan had ever shared such potent, instant chemistry with was not only already taken, but taken by a raving asshole who apparently left Ford apprehensive at the idea of flirtation with someone else.

  Not that any of this mattered, he told himself. Because Brogan was going to do his job and keep his personal life separate and simple, just like always.

  He tried to tune out the voices of Ford and Henniton behind the privacy partition.

  When they arrived, Wiley remained with the car and Brogan, once more blank-faced, led the way inside. Ford was stiff and quiet. Henniton didn’t say anything, but he kept glancing at his executive assistant—or whatever Ford was now that he was on his second job. Brogan wasn’t sure if there was a male term for mistress, which seemed a glaring failure of the English language at the moment.

  On the sixteenth floor, Brogan walked down the empty hall, hyperaware of Henniton and Ford at his back. Brogan used his own key, and began to clear the apartment.

  Brogan thumbed in the security code when the alarm started beeping, and then he took a moment to center himself before working his way through the rooms and balcony, keeping his right hand free in case he needed to go for his gun. He saw the place anew as he went, checking the bathroom and the bedroom, and finished by peeking in the armoire—full of gorgeous suits, which would’ve been a dead giveaway had he bothered to look on his first visit—before hesitating in front of the enormous bed. Standing there, he realized that Madonna of the Pinks and Nina Simone and the French poetry and the painting over the bed, which Google had since informed him was called Summer, were all Ford’s choices.

  “Apartment’s clear,” he told support, and got a confirmation.

  When Brogan returned to the living room, Henniton was easing Ford’s suit jacket off his very rigid shoulders. Not for the first time, Brogan noted that Henniton was a giant compared to Ford, who stood slim and straight-backed in his considerable shadow.

  Brogan cleared his throat. Ford jolted away and Henniton’s hands closed hard on his upper arms, forcing him still and making Ford’s cheek jerk in a small wince.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Henniton asked Ford, who shook his head.

  “The apartment’s clear, sir,” Brogan said, his tone as professionally neutral as possible.

  Henniton spat, “Then you can get the hell out, can’t you?”

  Brogan left with no small amount of gratitude to be out of there.

  He stood in the hallway, tracing the pattern in the tasteful but boring wallpaper with his eyes, doing his absolute damnedest not to think about Henniton’s hands on Ford’s body. Tried hard to forget that just twenty minutes ago, he’d been thinking if he played his cards right, he might be able to convince Ford to let Brogan touch him. Definitely ignored the nagging voice saying, Ford is scared. Ford doesn’t want to be here. All things considered, Brogan was unsurprised at the size of the pit in his stomach.

  Chapter Three

  It occurred to Brogan that Ford had the considerable upper hand after their conversation, and he spent the next few days waiting on tenterhooks, but his instincts there had been right on. Ford didn’t say a word to anyone about either Brogan’s orientation or his haphazard attempts at flirting, and Brogan tried to repay th
e favor by pretending he hadn’t seen Henniton treat Ford like a piece of meat.

  Brogan didn’t have another evening shift in that time, so he didn’t have to deal with any more “meetings,” assuming there were any. He spent his time towing Henniton from one place to another: lunches, dinners, rotary, networking events and the like.

  Late on Thursday afternoon, Henniton came out of a session with Oriole Touring and knocked aside a woman in the hallway with all the consideration of a boulder rolling downhill. Brogan steadied her with one hand before hurrying past, trying to keep up with his half-rabid client.

  Henniton shoved his way into an elevator to go up to his office, and then stalked past his own receptionist. Brogan followed him inside, checking the room, pausing when he saw Ford typing on his laptop at Henniton’s desk, and so missed his chance to escape the inevitable temper tantrum. By the time Brogan had notified support that the room was clear, Henniton had slammed the door behind them so hard that it shook the walls. Brogan jumped despite his best efforts not to—he’d had way too much experience associating loud noises with onrushing death—and curtailed his hand’s instinctive twitch toward his gun.

  Ford rose without saying a word and jerked his chin at Brogan. Brogan stepped into a corner, hoping that Henniton would forget that he was there. Henniton had a habit of killing the messenger, and Brogan had never seen him this pissed off before.

  “Tell me,” Ford said.

  “It’s not enough,” Henniton snapped. He started pacing, his eyebrows folding into a V as he glared at his carpet as if it had done something offensive, which seemed unlikely, considering how expensive it was. “The countermeasures aren’t enough. He wants Coop on this.”

  Brogan didn’t miss the slight tightening of Ford’s eyes before the expression was controlled. “Touring called Coop?” Ford asked.

  “Not yet, but it’s only a matter of time. God, I hate that bastard.”

  “What else?”

  “He wants the Vindler issue resolved. He told me to set up a meeting.”

  Brogan’s attention sharpened. He’d heard of Vindler before—he was in the packet Brogan had received on his first day, and he was one of Henniton’s many enemies. He worked at Grailer & McNeil, a rival company with which Touring competed for big contracts.

  Timmerson had listed Vindler as a potential suspect for the death threats Henniton had received, back before Henniton had shut down Timmerson’s investigators.

  “There are things we’ll have to do before—”

  “I’m fucking aware of that, Embry.”

  Ford leaned back, folding his arms across his chest and watching Henniton turn on his heel to start another circuit around his desk.

  “I’ll need seventy-two hours,” Ford said finally.

  “You have forty-eight.”

  “I appreciate your faith in my abilities,” Ford said, but he didn’t sound appreciative—he sounded strained.

  “You won’t need half of it and you know it,” Henniton said, the words sharp as knives. He kicked his chair on the next pass, hard enough that one of the roller wheels struck the edge of the desk and spun off with a loud thwack. “Fucking Vindler. I’ll have his teeth for this. In fact, I want you to arrange—”

  “Joel,” Ford said, the word like a crack of thunder. Henniton looked up, red-faced and ready to rend flesh for being interrupted, until Ford cocked his head in Brogan’s direction.

  Henniton seemed on the verge of kicking Brogan out, but then he took a deep breath instead. “Fine,” he said. “Fine. What time is it?”

  “Twenty after five,” Ford said.

  “We’re leaving. Get your shit together.”

  “Destination, sir?” Brogan asked.

  “We’re going to the apartment,” Henniton snarled. “Is that all right with you?”

  Brogan only thumbed his mic. “Support, we have a change in itinerary. We’re proceeding directly to the apartment.”

  After a faint sigh of annoyance, support asked, “Estimated length of meeting?”

  Brogan considered posing the question, but the storm clouds on Henniton’s face convinced him not to. “Unknown,” he said.

  “Copy.”

  Henniton grabbed his coat and Ford’s mouth twisted. “I only have forty-eight hours—”

  “That leaves me plenty of time to drink a glass of Scotch and fuck you over the back of the couch,” Henniton said, searching for something in his pockets with short, jerky movements so that he didn’t catch the way Ford’s jaw hardened. Henniton’s obliviousness was good, considering that Brogan’s mouth fell open. He’d heard and seen a lot in his time as a bodyguard, but he wasn’t sure what surprised him more—Henniton’s sheer lack of class, or the fact that Ford didn’t put him in his place.

  “Is that bottle of Highland Park still at your place?” Henniton went on.

  “Yes,” Ford said, slowly collecting his things. He didn’t look at Brogan.

  Once at Ford’s, they left Dillon—today’s backup—downstairs with the car. He was one of the newer guys, younger and a little high-strung. Despite a near-constant vacant expression, he’d proven reliable so far. He gave Brogan a smug smile, because even though staying with the vehicle seemed like a shitty job on the surface, Dillon got to drink coffee and listen to the radio. Brogan got an empty hallway with wainscoting and beige wallpaper.

  He cleared the apartment and escaped as quickly as possible, relieved that he wasn’t subjected to another glimpse of Henniton stripping Ford. Instead, Henniton was pacing through the living room, taking gulps of Scotch as he went, muttering while Ford watched cautiously from the sofa, his own Glencairn glass sitting untouched on the coffee table.

  An hour later, Brogan was humming to himself in an attempt to stay focused when the door behind him opened. He turned, expecting Henniton. Instead, Ford stood there, far less put together than Brogan had ever seen him. He’d cast his jacket off somewhere and rolled his sleeves up, but he didn’t have the look of a man who’d been having sex for an hour—at least not the way Brogan would’ve had Ford looking after an hour of sex. Every hair remained in place, and while his tie had been loosened, his vest remained buttoned over it. He was still wearing his shoes.

  “Can you give me a hand putting him to bed?” Ford asked, sounding annoyed.

  “In your bed?” Brogan asked, well aware that it was a stupid question even as it came out of his mouth, so he wasn’t surprised when Ford asked acidly, “Are you going to stand there or help?”

  Brogan locked the door behind them, and notified Dillon that he was inside before wrinkling his nose at the half-conscious COO slumped on Ford’s couch in his crumpled suit and tie. Hauling drunk assholes around wasn’t in Brogan’s job description, but Ford might stab him with something—the man wasn’t the most patient creature under the best of circumstances—if he pointed that out.

  So he helped Ford tow Henniton down the hallway to the bedroom.

  Henniton was too unsteady to walk and nuzzle Ford at the same time, not that this stopped him from trying. He reeked of liquor and breathed fumes on both of them, his face unpleasantly red. He probably wouldn’t remember in the morning if Brogan “accidentally” dropped him.

  He decided he was too professional.

  They had to pause in the doorway to shuffle, and then they tipped Henniton onto his back.

  “We should roll him over so he doesn’t suffocate if he pukes,” Brogan said.

  Ford made a face that implied he wanted to dispute that, but then he sighed and shoved Henniton until the man lay on his side.

  Henniton blinked up at them. The change in elevation had woken him up a bit.

  “Embry,” he slurred, sounding pleased. “You should suck me.”

  Ford froze in the middle of tugging a blanket over Henniton’s legs. He took a deep breath, and Bro
gan stared at the pink tinge coloring the back of his neck. “You’d only fall asleep halfway through,” he said, almost—but not quite—managing to sound affectionate. He dropped the blanket into place, a muscle in his jaw working.

  “Get him out of here so I can fuck your mouth,” Henniton mumbled. “C’mon.” He closed his eyes and started to snore, and Ford shook his head and walked out. Brogan glanced at Henniton one more time—who was open-mouthed, sweaty and making walrus sounds—and wrinkled his nose in distaste before leaving. Why the hell was Ford sleeping with this man?

  Chapter Four

  Out in the living room, Ford was staring out the window. It had gone fully dark now, the world lit only by stars and distant streetlamps. Brogan searched that gorgeous profile for signs of distress at the demeaning things Henniton had said and found none, which annoyed him more than anything. Ford might as well have been watching paint dry for all the emotion he showed.

  “That guy?” Brogan asked caustically, and then clamped his mouth shut. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Ford said.

  Brogan reminded himself that Ford was a grown up and could decide to let his boyfriend treat him like shit if he wanted to. He told himself that he had no right to butt in and that commenting on the situation would be unprofessional and intrusive. Brogan was only on this detail in the first place because of his supposed ability to remain cool no matter what assholish behavior Henniton displayed, and this was a good opportunity to demonstrate that cool.

  His rational arguments didn’t work. He only managed to keep his mouth shut for about ten more seconds before the mixture of anger and indignation had him bursting out, “But seriously, that guy? My charming wastrel routine does nothing for you, but that guy—”