In the Company

“I just—”

“Not one word!” Rose snapped, turning back around at me. I’d thought I would get to tease her about being Patrick’s ‘girlfriend’ but she’d cut me off every chance I got. Jon had done a good job of keeping his mouth shut, and while we’d exchanged a few jokes over text message about it that was as far as any teasing had got. Patrick missed the meeting with Deena, and us and according to Jon he was a complete mess when he woke up. Rose had confused the hell out of him, to say the least – he woke up mumbling about a girlfriend and then had panicked when he realized what he was saying.

“One word about what?” we both whipped around to see Tyler and Taylor coming down the hall behind us. I thought they’d already left, and so had been about to bring it up again.

“Nothing,” we chorused. The looks on their faces told us they didn’t believe us however.

“Really? Didn’t sound like nothing to me,” Taylor pushed, and I sighed before shaking my head.

“Did you two get drunk or something and get hauled out?” Tyler asked, and with a relieved laugh we both shook our heads.

“God no, nothing like that,” Rose assured them, and they fell into step beside us as we made our way to our office.

“Does it have anything to do with why Kaner didn’t show?” Taylor finally came up with something plausible, and our silence confirmed that for them. They laughed and chuckled like a couple of kids before bombarding us with questions.

I opened the door to our office and let Rose through before turning to them. “We had to help Jon get him out of a club, and that’s it. We were both really tired and Rose didn’t want to bring it up again, that’s what we were talking about.”

“Sure, sure. You know he’ll tell us what happened,” Tyler sing-songed as they began to walk toward the elevators. Rose groaned and let her head drop to her desk, before giving me a glare that could have killed a lesser person. I, however, was long since immune to it.

“Now they’re going to ask him… mierda,” she swore. That was a Spanish word I actually knew.

“It’ll be fine – according to Jon he doesn’t have a freaking sniff of what happened. I guess he panicked and called Jon wondering if he’d told some random girl he’d be her boyfriend or something like that,” the smirk wouldn’t stay off my face. Served Kane right for being such an egotistical ass when he drank. Jon had told me about how Patrick was acting prior to the phone call he’d made, which was ridiculous. Patrick obviously needed a swift kick in the ass to get his act together.

“Serves him right… ruining our girl’s night and all. And why was David there? I thought you said he was gone somewhere?” I asked, and she sighed before shrugging.

“He had a change of plans… we’re going to talk it all out. He’s pissed about the whole thing with Patrick,”

“I can understand that, but it was work! It’s not like you did anything with Patrick, you just got him out of the bar for Jon,” I huffed. David got ridiculous over things like this. I’m sure he’d flipped when Rose explained what this assignment was going to have to entail.

“I know, I know. He’ll understand, it’ll be fine,” she insisted, offering me a small smile. I wasn’t sure it would be, but I let it slide.

It only took about another half hour before the Flyer’s teammates showed up outside of our office. Max waltzed in as if he owned the place – something we were becoming accustomed to – while Claude and Brayden followed in behind.

“So, do you guys always have to work on Sunday?” Claude asked as he made himself comfortable sitting on the edge of my desk. Max took the chair in front of Rose’s desk while Brayden seemed to hover in the middle of the floor, looking just as out of place as he probably felt. I still hadn’t figured out why the hell the poor kid was here – he had a nearly spotless record. It was like one day he’d just snapped for a couple of months and now he was back to the shy little Canadian kid.

“You can sit down,” I offered, and with a shy nod he pulled out the chair and took a seat. Claude was going through the pens, office supplies and papers on my desk, picking up the next thing as I snatched the old out of his hands. He was worse than a toddler.

“Who’s this?” he asked, holding up a photo. It was always tucked behind the one in my frame, and I’d been distracted by Max long enough for him to find it. The urge to flinch was pretty great, and I don’t think any of the three hockey players missed it.

“Um, my parents,” I managed to whisper, and he trained his eyes back on the photo before looking up at me.

“I can see the resemblance, now that you’ve said it. You said you came from Oklahoma, right? Are they still there?”

I could feel Rose’s concerned gaze on my back as I took a steadying breath. Claude had yet to notice my discomfort, but the bright blue eyes that belonged to Brayden met mine as I raised my head.

“Y-yeah, I guess you could say that,” I allowed, and Rose cleared her throat, ready to come to my aid.

“She really doesn’t like to talk about it Claude—” the look of confusion was evident as he turned to me. He’d come from a “stereotypical” family – it was obvious he had no idea why I wouldn’t want to talk about my parents.

“You don’t get along with them?” he asked gently as he set the photo back down on my desk. I shuffled through some papers as I tried to get a hold of myself, knowing that I was quickly losing the battle as I felt four sets of eyes on me, waiting for an answer.

Rose tried one last time to intervene, her voice shaking slightly as she addressed Claude. “Look, it’s really none of your business—”

“They’re dead.”