Page 3 of Out Of A Fix

“I was wondering that myself,” Nick said distractedly, tucking a wayward piece of Locryn’s hair behind his ear. “It seemed so odd.”

“No, not a vault,” Cooper repeated. “The vault.”

“All you’re doing is repeating the same words over and over,” Ella pointed out.

“Explain it to those of us who didn’t attend the lecture and only received the CliffsNotes,” Benji insisted.

“I’m going to text you all now,” Ash stated, because apparently, he knew, which was good, because it saved me the trouble. The fact that he had everyone’s numbers in his phone spoke to how important Cooper’s friends were to him. I liked that a lot.

The entire group was quiet as they read, which was probably a relief to the other wedding guests around us. But then we were all suddenly shoving over as people I hadn’t seen in years, fixers who had left us ages ago, joined us, squeezing in, introduced to everyone by me because I was the one who’d been at Torus Intercession the longest and still remembered them.

Later, we were joined at our tables at the reception by Croy Esca and his husband, FBI Special Agent Dallas Bauer, and the sheriff of Ursa, Montana, Brann Calder, and his husband, high school English teacher Emery Dodd. It was nice to have them there, as well as more recent fixers who had left Chicago, like Locryn. It was funny, but a lot of the time, the person who came to put your life back on track, was the one you couldn’t imagine your life without. Many fixers had been “kept” over the years, meaning fell in love and stayed put. I always wondered how that could possibly be true love. It seemed more like gratitude to me. But as Nick Madison told me as we both watched his husband cross the room to get drinks, it wasn’t that he felt grateful for what Locryn had done, but instead, his eyes had been opened to the possibility of what his life could truly be.

“No one else could have done that, and I wasn’t about to let him go.”

“Same,” Dallas Bauer chimed in from the other side of the table, cheek pressed into his fist, watching Croy and Ella grab drinks. “And he wasn’t even my fixer. But we met and boom—that was it. I knew that fast, it had to be him.”

“I feel the same,” Ash murmured, visibly choked up as he watched Cooper and Sienna dancing, looking like professionals out there. “The thought of him not being with me—” He took a breath. “—was simply untenable.”

“So when are you two getting married?” Nick asked him.

“In January, so you should all plan on another ridiculously long, nauseatingly sentimental, over-the-top ceremony.”

“Yeah, but you’ll have famous people at your nuptials, won’t you?” Shaw asked him.

“Yes, I will, so there will be that perk. And Cooper has four sisters, and they’re sure to liven things up.”

Brann chuckled. “I know all his sisters, and yeah, that’s a good time right there.”

Emery, his husband, was compelled, it seemed, to kiss his cheek. Apparently, simply Brann smiling and being happy was enough to make him the same. It was really nice. The two men had pictures of their girls to show off as well.

Jared came to the table then, looking every bit like the millionaire ex-spy he was in the Armani tuxedo that fit like a glove. He’d always been a handsome man, but since he started loving Owen, and was loved in return, he was absolutely stunning.

He was happy to see all his fixers, hugging them and shaking hands with their spouses. Agatha Yang, one of his first hires at Torus, had made him a plaque for the office that said syzygy, his favorite word, and gave the definition, a word he used often that was the bedrock of our directive. A conjunction or opposition in alignment, but how he used it was more to mean the alignment of all things. He always wanted us to leave things better than how we’d found them.

Walking around the table, he was greeting everyone, but when my phone buzzed, I saw it was forwarded from work and got up. Everyone else had a plus-one there at the wedding but me, so I’d made sure to be the guy watching over the office.

Crossing to a quiet area of the gorgeous ballroom at the Drake, I answered on the fourth ring. “Hello, you’ve reached Torus Intercession. How may I help you?”

“Please hold for Abel Roarke.”

“Certainly,” I said and sighed. That was always weird when an assistant or secretary called for someone else.

“Go ahead, Mr. Roarke,” the woman instructed.

“Hello, to whom am I speaking?”

“My name is Nash Miller. How may I help you?”

“Mr. Miller, I⁠—”

“Nash is good.”

“Oh, all right, excellent,” he said and exhaled, and it was a good sound, like I’d soothed him in some way. “Nash, I’m reaching out on behalf of my brother-in-law, Luke Duchesne, and you see, my sister she—wait. Let me start over. I⁠—”

“Pardon me, sir,” I began gently. “But is this about the family in Washington where the mom went into WITSEC a year and a half ago and the family may or may not be on the radar of the guy she’s set to testify against?”

“Yes,” he replied, sounding relieved not to have to go over it. “Yes, it is.”