Oliver
“What the hell are you doing?” Joyce appears in my doorway after lunch. I’m finally wearing proper lawyer clothes: a suit and tie. Still, no one has the power to intimidate me the way Joyce does. She’s part secretary, part administrative assistant, part Wonder Woman, I think.
“What?”
“You know what I’m talking about, dumbass.” She walks into my office and slams the door a little too hard, rattling the walls.
“Is this about Anna?”
“Yes, it’s fucking about Anna. Fuck her all you want, Oliver. Fuck her, make her come, make her scream, I don’t care. Just don’t use her, Oliver. Don’t you dare you use my friend because when you’re done, I’m going to have to be there to pick up the pieces, and I don’t want to see the mess you’ve made.”
My eyes narrow at Joyce. She’s always been protective of her girlfriends. This isn’t anything new, but it is more intense than usual.
“Why do you care so much?”
“Because you’re a private asshole who doesn’t share anything about himself with people, Oliver. Nobody knows anything about you. I don’t know what your favorite color is. Hell, I don’t even know what your hobbies are, and we’ve been working together for years. Not six months. Not a year. Years. As in plural.”
“Just because I don’t talk about myself very much in my place of business doesn’t mean I’m private. I just don’t think work and social life should always mix.”
Joyce lets out an irritated screech and kicks the wall.
What the actual fuck?
I’ve never seen her lose her temper, much less get so angry she felt the need to kick something. This is a side of Joyce she doesn’t let loose very often, and for some reason, I get the feeling this isn’t a good thing.
“She. Is. My. Friend.” Joyce grits the words out between clenched teeth.
“Everything okay in here?” Ronan appears in the doorway. He’s eating an apple and acting like he doesn’t have a care in the damn world. I wish I could be so lucky.
“Everything’s fine,” I say.
“No,” Joyce spins around and glares at him. “Everything is not fine.”
“What’s wrong?” Now Ronan does look a little concerned. Good. He can enjoy the wrath of Joyce right along with me.
“What’s wrong is that Oliver fucked my friend.”
“Oliver is an adult. He can have sex with people if he wants to.”
Realizing she isn’t going to win Ronan to her side, she looks back at me.
“She’s important to me, Oliver. She’s really, really important to me. Please,” she lowers her voice, and for the first time, shows a little bit of vulnerability. What the hell? Where is this coming from? Joyce is nothing if not fierce. She’s certainly not vulnerable. She’s certainly not a worried mother hen. I would never think that of her.
“I’m not going to hurt her, Joyce.”
“Is she your mate?”
“You know I don’t believe in mates.”
“Just…be careful, Oliver. She’s been through hell and back again. I know she seems strong, but don’t we all?”
“Joyce, is everything okay?” Something tells me the question could be the wrong one, but I need to know.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” Ronan pipes up.
“What are you talking about?” She asks, but she doesn’t look at him. Her scent isn’t angry or scared. Her scent is embarrassed. What the hell? Why would she be embarrassed, ashamed? Joyce, as far as I know, is an incredible person. She’s a model employee. She’s funny. She’s interesting. She’s fucking beautiful.
Ronan looks at me and raises an eyebrow. I shrug because I don’t know what he’s getting at. If Joyce is having problems in her personal life, I don’t know. I don’t have any idea.
“You’ve been working late,” he points out. “You’ve been working weird hours. You’re here when we get up and you’re here when we leave for the day. You’ve been working weekends, but you haven’t billed us for overtime and I assume we aren’t paying you for that time since you haven’t said anything. You haven’t been going to all of your classes on the weekends anymore and you’ve been ditching a lot of the clubs you’ve been a part of. Oh, and I haven’t heard you talking about your friends in awhile.”
Joyce is silent, but Ronan isn’t done.
“Something’s going on with you.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Joyce finally looks up at him. She tries to glare, but her eyes are glistening with tears, and I quickly move to her and wrap her in my arms. Ronan hugs her from the other side: a big, awkward, family hug. We hold Joyce as the tears slide down her cheeks. We hold her as the whimpers turn to sobs.
“What’s wrong, baby girl?” Ronan’s words are soft, gentle. We both love Joyce like the sister we never had. She’s an integral part of our office, yeah, but she’s more than that. She’s sweet, and she’s gentle, and she’s compassionate. She takes care of us, and I realize suddenly that we haven’t been taking very good care of her lately.
Ronan and Landon are both caught up with their mates. Ronan’s wife, Lara, just gave birth to their first child, and Landon recently moved in with his wife and son. Everyone has families and spouses now except for me and Joyce, but still, it’s no excuse. We should have been taking care of her. Shifters take care of their own.
It’s part of what makes us who we are.
“Nothing,” she shakes her head.
“Sweetie, I think the time for lies has come and gone.”
“Everything.”
“That’s more like it.”
Lara appears in the doorway and knocks gently.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she says quietly. “But I made tea.” She brings in a tray of tea and cookies and sets it on my desk. She’s wearing a sling with her baby nestled inside of it. I had never seen these baby sling things until Lara gave birth to Everly. Now I know all about slings. There are about a million different kinds and I can tell you which sling is best for which age, how effective they are for helping kids fall asleep, and even which type you should buy if you want to breastfeed discreetly in public.
Once upon a time, I had balls.
Not anymore.
“Thanks,” Joyce sniffles. “You’re a good friend.”
Ronan and I pull away from Joyce so she can give Lara a hug.
“I’ll be upstairs if you need me,” Lara says. She kisses Joyce on the forehead, gives Ronan a hug, and then heads back upstairs. Lara still has a few weeks of maternity leave left before she goes back to work. In the meantime, she’s been baking like crazy and I wonder if she isn’t thinking about a career change.
Only time will tell.
Joyce, Ronan, and I make our way to the chairs in front of my desk. I perch on the edge of the desk as Joyce sits down and I hand her a cup of tea. Ronan sits next to her and grabs a cookie from the tray, biting into it. I sit patiently as Joyce sips her tea, wondering what’s going on with her, but after she takes a sip, she sets it down and starts talking.
“I was dating someone,” she says. “A professor.”
“What?” Ronan says. “You didn’t tell us you were seeing someone. How long? What’s his name? How’d you meet? What happened?”
“Slow down there, cowboy,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m not telling you any identifying details. I know you well enough to know you’re just going to want to go fight him, and that’s not drama I want to deal with.”
“Joyce, what happened?” She said she was dating someone. This means that not only did Joyce have a relationship none of us knew about, but that she was hurt and she’s been trying to deal with it alone.
If there’s one thing being friends with Casa and Fee has taught me, it’s that you should never have to go through something like this alone. You should never have to be on your own when you’re hurting, when you’re wounded.
She holds the tea in her hands like it’s a lifeline, like it’s the only thing keeping her safe.
“He was cheating on me with a student,” Joyce says. “A girl in his English Literature class.”
“Fuck,” Ronan says. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry, Joyce. What a dick.”
“That’s not…that’s not the bad part,” she says. “He…she’s missing. The cops were at my place yesterday. They think he had something to do with it.”
“What the actual fuck?” Ronan growls, and for a second, I think he might freak out and shift. No wonder Joyce didn’t tell us the guy’s name or where he lives. He’s suspected in the disappearance of a student?
“I didn’t even know he was cheating on me,” she says. “We weren’t together too long. It was only a couple of months, but I…I don’t know, you guys. I guess I thought we had something special. Isn’t that stupid?” She looks up at us with tears in her eyes and my heart breaks. No wonder Joyce is being so protective of Anna. She doesn’t have anyone else right now. It’s just us and that’s it.
Right now, it’s Joyce against the world, but I’m going to make damn sure she knows it doesn’t have to be.
“You’re moving in,” I say.
“What?” She says, and looks confused. Yeah, that caught her off-guard.
“Excellent idea,” Ronan agrees, snapping his fingers. “You can have Landon’s floor. He doesn’t need it anymore. He moved out, but left the furniture because Tina already has stuff at her place. You can move right in. We’ll help you.”
“What…why?”
“Because if this guy actually killed or kidnapped someone and the two of you were close, you might know something, Joyce. You might not even realize you know something. More importantly, he sounds like a damn psycho, and I want you to be safe.”
“You’ll be safe here,” Ronan agrees. “You’ll be on the floor between me and Oliver. Nothing will be able to hurt you there. Plus, if you need anything, you can get either one of us, or Lara, and we’ll be able to help you.”
“You guys,” she sniffles. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“Just say yes, Joyce. We’re going to take care of you. We take care of our own.”