Until Merri: Happily Ever Alpha World

by Suzanne Halliday

  He pulled his helmet off and wiped a hand over his face. It wasn’t a surprise that he needed to shave. Military habit kept his hair on the conservative side but facial scuff? What-fucking-ever.

  Swinging his leg over the bike, he placed the helmet on the seat and stretched to dispel some body aches. When his leg throbbed, he didn’t hesitate this time and pulled out his phone to call his chiropractor.

  “Hey, Anne. Tom Franklin, here. Working late?” he said to the familiar voice answering the phone at the doctor’s office.

  “Hi, Tom. Yeah.” She chuckled. “But it’s only one night a week,” the friendly front desk woman told him. “And Doc Schwartz makes it worth my while.”

  “Yeah?” he said. “How?” It was a real question. Over the past year, Enigma had started taking on employees. Mostly part-time but he and Brad hated paperwork, so they hired an office manager and a gopher. Keeping his staff happy was the easiest way to retain them because fuck to the no when it came to ever having to interview, hire, and train again.

  “He has dinner brought in, and we schedule accordingly so the day timers get a break before the evening office hours. One time, he brought in a masseuse who gave us all head and neck massages. It’s not always about the overtime money.”

  “I like it. Thanks for sharing. Can you guys squeeze me in tomorrow? Anytime except ten.”

  “Let’s see,” Anne murmured. “Looks like nine o’clock is open and then in the afternoon, we have two thirty, four, and four forty-five open.”

  “Nine is great. Pencil me in.”

  He ended the call after confirming the details and headed for the office. When they first took over the building, the entire first floor was a giant open shitshow. A shitshow they made shittier with lackluster organizational interest. It wasn’t that they couldn’t be organized—the military slaps that option out of your head straightaway—but with him and Brad, it was more a case of intentionally not giving a fuck. The result? Chaos.

  So they brought in a consultant and redid the whole building. Instead of a warehouse environment, large workrooms, equipment lockers, and storage spaces were separated from the business area by a long, brightly lit hallway.

  His office was near the back of the building where he had access to an enclosed outside area. If he spent too much time inside, he got testy.

  It was after hours, so nobody was around except the nighttime guards. They watched every window and door on monitors in the security room. He didn’t think of the Enigma security team as employees. They were freelance badasses—vets just like Brad and him. Knowing when to turn matters over to professionals, Enigma decided right out of the gate to use an outside agency for round-the-clock property protection.

  Brad’s office door was partially open, and the lights were on, so Tom rapped softly and pushed it open.

  The first words out of his mouth were, “What the hell is that?”

  “Miniature drone,” his partner mumbled. He was focused on the controller in his hand. A small round object zipped around the room. “I call it the Enigma Snitch.”

  Tom snorted, and his laughter rang out. “What’s this thing do? Tattle on people?”

  The miniature device hovered in front of his face for ten seconds and then gracefully flew across the room and drifted slowly to the top shelf of a bookcase. Brad powered down the unit, put the controller on his desk, and turned.

  “Isn’t every drone a sort of snitch? Zipping about watching what’s going on.” He gestured at the parked device with a thumb over his shoulder. “It’s a prototype. Still needs more work. And the reason it’s a snitch has more to do with Harry Potter than being a narc.”

  “Very cool.” Tom stepped farther into Brad’s office. He picked up a magazine, pretended to care about it for a few seconds, and then a low, rumbling chuckle started—and it wasn’t coming from him. Brad was looking at him with one of his signature gotcha smirks.

  “What?” He feigned innocence despite knowing he was going to spill his guts.

  “You were with the delightful and wickedly charming Millicent Merriweather again.”

  Incredulous that Brad was right, he muttered thickly, “How the fuck do you know that?”

  His partner thumped Tom on the back and let out an exasperated sigh. “Dude”—Brad chuckled—“you smell like her.”

  He shook his head in wonder. “I have no idea how you do that.”

  “The good news is,” Brad quipped, “neither do I. But enough of me. How’d it go?”

  He inspected his boots and tucked his shirt in—stalling maneuvers. “Uh, well she had a cable explosion going on behind the entertainment center and nothing worked, so I customized her setup. She made dinner and asked if you were FBI.”

  Brad snickered.

  “Yeah, and then I asked her out.” Tom held his breath on the last word.

  His friend slow blinked and frowned. “Did you answer the FBI question, and what do you mean you asked her out? You mean on a date? Like real people do?”

  “As far as the FBI goes, if anyone asks, I just say whatever drivel pops into my head. It’s not very convincing and never consistent, so for the most part, I think everyone assumes you’re doing undercover.”

  “And the date thing? Real or friends with no benefits?”

  “I asked her to be my date for Dad’s awards banquet.”

  “Was it weird?”

  Tom scraped a hand over his face. “It got weird, that’s for sure.”

  Brad’s brows shot up. “Wow. You finally pulled the trigger. What did she do?”

  “As I said, it got weird, but we’re gonna see what happens.”

  “Shit,” Brad muttered.

  It was hard to miss the shadow of concern moving on his friend’s face.

  “Buddy,” Brad began with considerable hesitation. “I know you’ve been groovin’ on this chick for a long time.”

  He wasn’t sure why, but he growled, and his hand curled into a fist. If Brad stepped over the line, he was going to put him on the floor.

  “Oh, Jesus. Give it a rest. I’m not taking a dump on your love life. Shake out your fucking fist and let me finish.”

  “Be careful,” he snarled. “That’s all I’m saying.”

  Brad nodded. “It’s cool, dude. I fucking like Merri. That girl is off the reservation but in a good way. And that’s why I have to say something. You two are friends, like BFF friends. I’d be jealous, but I see how you check out my junk.”

  “I’m not the one checking out zipper real estate.” Tom delivered the snarky line with one arched brow.

  Thank god Brad was good-natured. He needed to be chill in order to shrug off having experimented in a threesome. Of guys. Didn’t matter if it was just the once or that it happened in Hong Kong and all of the parties involved were on leave and completely skunk drunk. It happened and never letting his friend forget it was one of life’s joys.

  “Whatever. We aren’t talking about me. This is about you and Merri. The friendship thing isn’t a joke. She’s more loyal than a dog, and I mean that in a complimentary way. That girl stood by you and never flinched while the ex-Mrs. Franklin did five shows a week and three on the weekends. Fuck, man, she even took it on the chin with her own sister when the side-taking frenzy broke out.”

  Brad’s contempt took the form of a juicy-sounding spit—on the floor. Thank god it was polished concrete and not carpet under their feet.

  His final take on the matter was straightforward and unvarnished. “Fucking divorce bullshit.”

  Tom mumbled, “Word.”

  “Anyway, what I’m getting at is obvious, right? You two have a great thing going. Are you sure you want to release the Kraken? What if the old saying is true?”

  “You mean the one about sex messing up friendships?”

  His worried friend nodded. “Yeah. That’s the one.”

  “Well,” he answered. Choosing his words carefully, he broadened Brad’s viewfinder. “Let me add this to the point you’re making. It’s tru
e. We have a great thing going, and maybe dating is a bad move. Who’s to say? All I know for sure is this. If she finds someone else, even if it means she goes off and has a happy life, it’ll kill me.”

  “So you sort of have to see if a claim can be staked?”

  He shrugged. “The stake is already there. That’s the thing, Brad. I don’t think either of us wants to rock the boat any more than we want to date others. And that makes us screwed. Doing nothing stopped being an option a while ago. It’s just taken me all this time to find my balls and do something about it.”

  “Man, I’m glad I don’t have your problems. Women,” Brad scoffed. “Fuck and forget. That’s my motto.”

  He didn’t mean it to, but Tom’s eyebrows shot up. Thank god his glasses concealed his mask of surprise.

  Bradley Patterson was a card-carrying member of the bachelors for life club. Hell, it wasn’t a real thing, but there was even a hashtag for it. #bachelors4life. His mom and dad embodied every awful thing two warring spouses were known for. Tina Patterson literally fucked the pool guy—out of revenge. And why? Because over time, Ken Patterson had fucked his secretary—all three of them—and she found out. Right there was the classic recipe for everything wrong with society. Privileged men and spoiled women. When those two things were at odds, all kinds of gnarly shit was possible. In that light, it was understandable why Brad was a non-believer in love.

  Or he had been until one of their outside contractors, Dahlia Snow, put him in his dumbass place four months ago. In what was an epic stupid guy move, Brad assumed Dahlia’s tattoos and steampunky meets gothic wardrobe signaled someone he could fuck with, so he brazenly offered his dick for a ride. Dahlia was not amused. In fact, she took the dick pic Brad sent her—along with his filthy proposition—and shared it on her Twitter feed. Ever since, he’d been brooding like a fucking Jane Austen character and not because he gave a shit about his dick being on display. Poor Brad had a hard-on but only for Dahlia. Not even the girls at Peyote, the tittie bar down the street with the killer roast beef sandwich, had any luck getting it up.

  He could have said nothing, but hey, what were friends for, right? Tom cleared his throat and pointed at the mini-drone. “Dahlia’s working on that, right?”

  Brad’s expression turned stony. His jaw pulsed from how hard he clenched his teeth. Tom wondered what might come next.

  “She wants credit. On the patent.”

  Well, shit. That wasn’t at all what Tom had expected him to say. But then again, maybe this was exactly what he should have expected. Brad had no fucks to give when it came to things like being polite. He could be nice, but anyone with half a brain cell could tell he was faking it. It was the hint of uncertainty in the guy’s voice that got Tom’s attention.

  It would seem that Dahlia Snow had gotten under Brad’s skin.

  “Credit where it’s due, right? Until she came along, you couldn’t make it work. Now, you’ve got a working prototype, so she deserves to be recognized.” He thought of another angle and tacked it on to the end of his statement. “Do the right thing, and maybe she’ll take your balls out of the jar she keeps ’em in.”

  A loud snort let Tom know what Brad thought. But the guy didn’t say anything, and that was more than a bit unusual.

  “What?” he barked. “What did you do?”

  “Don’t Hulk out on me, bro.”

  “Bradley? What the fuck is up?”

  His friend and business partner winced. Not a flinch. An actual, goddamn wince. Tom exhaled and crossed his arms, waiting for whatever Brad was about to throw at him.

  “Yeah, so here’s the thing. I might have, sort of, maybe, definitely offered Snowflake the back room.”

  “Excuse me, what? And who the fuck is Snowflake? Oh, wait a minute.” Tom narrowed his eyes and studied Brad. The guy was maybe, sort of, definitely blushing.

  “Uh, yeah. Anyway, so Dahlia was looking for a workbench cubbyhole, and everything downtown is like off the chart rent-wise so, I, uh”—Brad coughed and shrugged—“told her she could use one of our vacant spaces.”

  An amusing tableau sprang to life in Tom’s imagination. Dahlia was one of those brilliant types who really oughta be working as James Bond’s Q. She could make a tie clip into a grenade, create holograms in her sleep, and had the ability to conceptualize all sorts of crazy shit. He envisioned her and Brad hunkered down in some nerd-tech workroom building a workable mini death star. It would do his friend some good if he’d finally encountered a female who wasn’t into his brand of shit.

  “Whatever, man,” he told Brad. “I don’t make all the decisions around here, so it’s your call. I’m fine with it, by the way. Your snowflake is wicked talented.”

  The conversation was veering into personal territory, a place Brad rarely went. Tom wasn’t surprised in the least when he suddenly decided it was time to go home.

  After Brad left, he continued into his office, flicked on the overhead lights, and made a face at the pile of work on his desk. Enigma was taking on clients like the Titanic took on water. The world of communications was ever-changing and constantly evolving. Their custom approach to every problem rather than a one-size-fits-all philosophy made the business stand out. Pretty soon, they’d need to bring on more computer wizards, technicians, and installers.

  Spending most of the day taking care of Merri’s audiovisual shitshow meant he had to make up for the time off. Lowering into his desk chair, he ignored the ache in his side and got to work.

  Chapter Three

  Merri tapped her pencil on the desktop and stared at the bookkeeping ledger. They were the same entries as five minutes ago, but nothing was sticking. Exhausted following a restless night of wicked dreams, she needed either a six-pack of Red Bull or a nap. Unfortunately, neither of those things was on today’s agenda.

  Her phone rang. The Jaws shark music was her ringtone. She had a love-hate thing going on with her phone, so the music seemed appropriate.

  A quick glance told her it was Cyndi calling from the woods. Her BFF lived in the middle of nowhere. Not quite on a mountaintop but damn close.

  Glancing around to make sure she was alone in the little office she kept at Maplewood, she picked up the phone and answered.

  “Kill anything yet today?”

  Cyndi cackled with laughter. “Nah. Hunting season is still in full swing for a few more weeks, but we’re tapped out. Now that Butch and Sundance are in first grade, I have to be on my mommy game.”

  “How are the twins? Did they like the Memphis sweatshirts?”

  “Are you kidding? Thing 1 can’t wait to visit Tennessee again. He’s practicing his Elvis pelvis. And Thing 2 wants to eat more barbecue. It’s all he talks about whenever your name comes up.”

  “Aw, they’re so damn cute. We had a blast in Memphis, didn’t we? That was a good time. You tell the boys that Aunt Merri is making plans. We’ll do the Graceland tour for Philip, and I found a barbecue joint that Mikey will love. How’s your granddad, by the way?”

  Cyndi’s sigh sounded unhappy. When her parents up and moved to Arizona for year-round golf in a retirement community, they basically left her to worry about Grandfather Latour. He lived by his lonesome in a big rambling house on the outskirts of Memphis. He refused to move into a senior community where he’d have stuff to do and folks his age to hang out with, so Cyndi and her husband, George Sloan, traveled from their farm in upstate New York whenever they could to check on him and give the twins time with their grandpa.

  “He’s driving me nucking futz.”

  “Uh-oh. What’s going on?”

  “Are you ready to hear some fucked-up shit?”

  Merri didn’t like how that sounded. “Sure. Give it to me.”

  “He’s got a girlfriend. A Mrs. Romero. Widow. They met a bingo. He wants to bring her up here for Christmas. Some bullshit about snow angels and building an igloo with the boys. Pfft.”

  Her jaw dropped. She could barely wrap her mind around a seventy-four-year-old man in
the dating game.

  “Hello? Are you still there?” Cyndi snapped.

  “Oh, fuck. Sorry. Yeah, I’m here. That sound you didn’t hear was me being speechless.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d like to come north for the holidays? This one calls for reinforcements. Can’t pour the wine by myself.”

  “Bah! I hear ya. Of course I’ll come. Maybe not for the actual holiday because my mom would rightfully shit a brick, but I get time off from the school in December, and it shouldn’t be a problem at the diner.”

  “Oh jeez,” Cyndi groaned. “Thank you so much. I feel calmer already. My fucking parents are being assholes again. Mom booked them on a cruise. Once again, being a grandmother takes a back seat.”

  “I’m sorry. Want me to have my mom overnight some beignets? Something deep-fried always cheers you up!”

  “No shame in my game. I will never turn down something from Denise Merriweather’s kitchen. Bring ’em on.”

  Her friend chuckled softly, and the emotional storm passed.

  “What did I catch you doing?” Cyndi asked.

  “I’m in the office at school. It’s November, so the end-of-year financial reports are due, and we’ve just finalized a budget for next year. I should be paying attention, but my brain is all over the place. Your call had perfect timing.”

  “Why are you so distracted? Are you okay?”

  Merri answered in one long word.

  “TomaskedmeoutonadateandIsaidokaysoyeahwe’redating.”

  “Was that English?” Cyndi asked.

  “Cyn,” she murmured into the phone as though divulging confidential information. “I’m going on a date. With Tom.”

  “Get the fuck outta Dodge,” her friend screeched. “Which one of you grew a set? Did he ask you, or did you grab him by the balls?”

  “There’s been no ball grabbing or anything else, and he asked me. Henry is getting an award, and there’s a banquet, so he asked, and I said yes.”