Everything to Everyone

by Sherryl Hancock

  Everything to Everyone

  Sherryl D. Hancock

  Copyright © Sherryl D. Hancock 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Vulpine Press in the United Kingdom in 2017

  ISBN 978-1-910780-83-1

  Cover by Claire Wood

  Cover photo credit: Tirzah D. Hancock

  www.vulpine-press.com

  Growing up my mom always called me a "whirling dervish," teachers called me high strung, and said I wasn't working up to my "potential." We used to call my son the "Tasmanian Devil" because he was always going at top speed. We also have called my daughter our "cute little odd duck" because she never did things like anyone else and was hard to figure out. I have ADHD, my son has ADHD, and my daughter has ADD.

  So this book is dedicated to everyone, like us, who has an attention disorder. You are AMAZING, you are BEAUTIFUL, you are AWESOME and you can do ANYTHING. Never forget that!

  Chapter 1

  Harley Marie Davidson climbed out of her black Nissan 370Z, lighting a cigarette as she did. She walked to the back of the car, popped the trunk, and pulled out her black canvas and leather messenger bag that contained one of her most prized possessions: a customized Alienware 18 laptop. It was the tool she used to do her work, and she’d done everything to make it the fastest processor she could get her hands on.

  She finished her cigarette and stubbed it out with a booted foot. She wore faded jeans and a blue tank top that said “Harley Davidson” down one side and had the Harley Davidson logo on top. Along with her Harley Davidson leather boots. At her belt was a gold shield badge and at her hip was a gun. Walking into the building, she waved at the security guard at the front door.

  “Harley?” someone queried from her right.

  Harley stopped in her tracks and looked over and thought she recognized the woman, but wasn’t sure for a long moment.

  “Shiloh?” Harley queried, her look speculative.

  This didn’t look like the Shiloh Styles she remembered. The one she remembered was highly polished and dressed to the nines. The woman who sat in the outer lobby of the Department of Justice building looked like she needed a good hairdresser and a serious session with a stylist.

  “Yeah,” the woman said, nodding. “I thought I recognized you. You look… Well you look different, but the same,” she said, smiling.

  Harley nodded, her blue eyes looking amused, knowing she looked very different from high school. In high school, she’d tried to fit in, even though she never would. Now she didn’t care what anyone thought about her.

  “So what are you doing here?” Harley asked evenly.

  “I have an interview,” Shiloh replied. “Do you work here?”

  “For now,” Harley said, quirking a grin.

  Shiloh nodded, looking very hesitant and shy at that moment. Regardless of what Harley knew about Shiloh Styles, she felt her heart tug. She’d never been good at being a bitch, though Harley remembered that was actually something Shiloh had been extremely good at.

  “What are you applying for?” Harley asked then. She took a drink of the Java Monster in her hand, her many silver rings sparkling in the sunlight filtering through the windows.

  “It’s an office assistant job, with the… CPU. You know what that is?” Shiloh asked hesitantly.

  Harley grinned. “Shouldn’t you know what that is if you’re applying for it?” she couldn’t help but ask.

  Shiloh looked embarrassed and nodded. “Yeah, you’re right I should. I just don’t really have computer access right now so I really couldn’t research it.”

  Harley narrowed her eyes. “How is that even possible in this day and age?” she asked, her tone ridiculing.

  “When you don’t have money to pay for internet access, it’s possible, trust me,” Shiloh said sharply in her acute embarrassment.

  Harley closed her eyes, blowing her breath out through her nose and shaking her head.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, realizing that although she hadn’t meant to be a bitch, she’d become one rather quickly. “That was a shitty thing to say.”

  Shiloh bit the inside of her cheek and nodded. “I get it. I was shitty to you back in high school. It’s your turn now.”

  Harley blew her breath out loudly this time, dropping her head in self-frustration as she sat down next to Shiloh.

  “No, that’s not actually where that came from,” Harley said. “I’m in IT, so to me the concept of not being able to utilize the Internet is completely foreign.”

  Shiloh pressed her lips together, grimacing slightly. “So I guess that would just be me projecting then, huh?”

  Harley gave her a pointed look. “Maybe a little bit,” she said, grinning.

  “I’m sorry,” Shiloh said, shaking her head. “I’m just really nervous about this interview and I have no idea what I’m going to say. I really need this job.”

  Harley nodded, her look understanding, but a bit perplexed. Shiloh’s parents had money like money was going out of style, so why was she so obviously destitute?

  Shiloh saw the confusion on Harley’s face, and she knew exactly what she was thinking. Once again, she felt completely embarrassed at her situation. This was the kind of thing that nightmares were made of, like showing up at work naked, or suddenly being back in high school and realizing you didn’t do the homework or study for the big test. Or, in this case, running into someone from high school that you treated like shit and who now had a job at a place where you were begging for one. Shiloh thought of one word: karma.

  “Okay, look,” Harley said. “The unit you’re applying for is called the Crime Prevention Unit. The position they’re hiring for is for the hi-tech crime task force called CHTTCF. What they need is someone organized who can keep very unorganized people on track, and is able to multi-task like there’s no tomorrow.”

  “And you just happen to know this why?” Shiloh asked, looking dumbfounded.

  “’Cause they’re trying to find someone that can put up with my ADHD ass,” Harley said, grinning.

  “You?” Shiloh asked.

  Harley nodded. “Me.”

  Shiloh looked back at her, her moss-green eyes reflecting surprise.

  “Well, if that don’t beat all…” she muttered.

  Harley raised her eyebrows at her comment, grinning as she did.

  “So are you on the panel?” Shiloh asked.

  “Oh, hell no,” Harley replied, looking horrified at the very thought.

  Shiloh couldn’t help but laugh at the look on Harley’s face. Then she looked crestfallen. “So should I just go ahead and leave now?”

  “Why?” Harley asked, shocked by the question.

  Shiloh shrugged, shaking her head.

  “Thought you said you really need the job,” Harley said then.

  “I do,” Shiloh said, “but I figure there’s no way you want me working for you, so…”

  “Why?” Harley asked her tone matter of fact. “Because you were mean to me in high school?” Her look indicated how ridiculous she thought that reason was. “That was what… fifteen years ago… I think I’ve gotten over it by now.”

  Shiloh pressed her lips together in mortification. “I guess I need to get over it too, huh?”

  “P
robably be a good idea,” Harley said, grinning as she winked at her.

  Shiloh blew her breath out, nodding her head. “Okay, I’ll just go in there and do my best, and what happens happens, right?”

  “Sure,” Harley said, grinning again.

  An hour later Shiloh was informed that she’d been hired.

  “You should know,” the woman said in a condescending tone, “that although your qualifications were, at best, minimal, your success was due to a direct request from the person you’re being hired to work for.”

  Shiloh’s eyes widened, not only because of the woman’s attitude, but because apparently Harley had just done a very nice thing for her and it shocked her. In truth, she had figured that she’d just hear that she’d not been selected, that even though Harley had acted like their past didn’t matter, it really had. Shiloh realized again that she was apparently the only one holding on to that past and she needed to let it go, especially if she was now going to be working for Harley.

  Downstairs in the lobby, she asked the security guard if there was any way she could see Harley Davidson. The guard looked back at her for a long moment, and then nodded, picking up the phone. When he put the phone down, he gave her directions to Harley’s office.

  Shiloh wandered around, getting slightly lost, but then found the door that was marked “Harley Davidson – Consultant.” She knocked on the door. She could hear music playing behind the door and it was loud. She could also hear the quick clicking of a computer keyboard. She had to knock a second time.

  She heard a short, “Yeah?”

  “Harley?” Shiloh queried, opening the door slowly.

  “Yeah?” Harley answered as she reached over to turn her music down. “Come on in,” she said smiling.

  Shiloh walked into the office and looked around. There were a number of posters, with various quotes on them, obviously pertaining to computers. One had a picture of a computer and a cup of Starbuck’s coffee, and it said, “Programmers are tools for converting caffeine to code.” Another poster had a Windows logo on it, and it said “Difference between a virus and Windows? Viruses rarely fail!” The one just above Harley’s computer had a picture of a computer and a woman working at it. The caption said, “The Internet: Where men are men, women are men and children are FBI agents!”

  Harley watched Shiloh’s eyes go to the posters in her office.

  “Some of my friends have extra time on their hands,” Harley said, grinning.

  “So you’re a programmer?” Shiloh asked.

  “Sort of,” Harley said, reaching over to remove her messenger bag from the other chair. “Do you want to sit down?”

  “Sure,” Shiloh said, nodding.

  She continued to look around the office as she sat down. Then she stared at something over Harley’s left shoulder. She stared at it dumbstruck for the longest time, so long that Harley had to turn around to see what she was looking at. Shiloh was staring at the degree on the wall.

  “You have a doctorate from MIT?” Shiloh asked, sounding stunned.

  Harley nodded. “That’s how I justify my outrageous paycheck,” she said with a sardonic grin. “Well, that and a fuck-ton of experience with alphabet city.”

  “Alphabet city?” Shiloh asked.

  “FBI, DEA, CIA…” Harley rattled off.

  Shiloh looked back at her, blinking a couple of times. “You’ve worked all those places?”

  “Yeah,” Harley said, her tone completely nonchalant.

  Shiloh nodded, thinking that Harley had gone a lot farther in life than she had.

  “I guess you really didn’t need Mount Sinai that badly, did you?” Shiloh asked, referring to the Christian college preparatory school they’d attended.

  Harley chuckled, her look wry. “No, I guess not.”

  Shiloh looked uncomfortable suddenly. “Harley, I really should apologize.”

  “No,” Harley said, shaking her head, “you don’t need to apologize. We were kids; you were doing what your father told you to do.”

  Shiloh shook her head. “I should have told him no.”

  Harley shook her head again. “Why? He would have done what he did anyway.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, he would have,” Shiloh said. “But he wouldn’t have made me into a villain in the process.”

  Harley held Shiloh’s gaze, her look telling Shiloh she wanted to say something, but was hesitant. Part of Shiloh wanted to ask what Harley wanted to say, but the other part said to just keep her mouth shut. This was her new boss.

  “So,” Harley said, “when did they say you could start?”

  “Um,” Shiloh stammered, “they said I needed to get fingerprinted and get a background check done.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Harley said, nodding, “I always forget about that part.”

  “They didn’t do one on you?”

  “They just had to do a quick update on mine. I have like clearance for miles,” she said, grinning.

  “Alphabet city and all, right?” Shiloh said, with a wink.

  “Damned skippy,” Harley replied.

  “Anyway, I really wanted to thank you for this,” Shiloh said sincerely.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Harley said, with a rakish wink. “You haven’t seen what a pain in the ass I’m gonna be to work for.”

  “Either way,” Shiloh said, maintaining her serious tone. “This was really nice of you. The lady that did the hiring made it very clear to me that I was highly underqualified.”

  “Eh,” Harley said, waving her hand airily. “She’s highly underqualified to be a human being with a heart, so I wouldn’t take anything she has to say too seriously.”

  “Will you just let me thank you?” Shiloh asked, her tone strident.

  Harley held her hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. Thank away.”

  Shiloh laughed, shaking her head. “I think I’m beginning to see the pain in the ass part…”

  “Ohhhh…” Harley uttered, her eyes sparkling mischievously. “I see how it is!” Then her look grew serious. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Okay,” Shiloh said, nodding.

  “Why aren’t your parents helping you out?” Harley asked gently.

  Shiloh took a deep breath, blowing it out in a sigh. “Because they kicked me out and cut me off.”

  Harley looked surprised by that information, but didn’t ask any other questions, simply nodding.

  “Well, hopefully this job will help you out,” she said after a couple of long moments.

  “It will, you have no idea,” Shiloh said, smiling. “Well, I better get out of here and leave you alone so you can work. Again, thank you so much.”

  Harley nodded. “You’re welcome,” she answered seriously.

  ***

  “Now, who is this girl again?” Devin asked that night at the bar. Some of the group was sitting out on the patio at The Club.

  Harley sighed, leaning back in her chair. “She’s the daughter of the headmaster of the school I got myself kicked out of.”

  “Do we want to know what you did to get yourself kicked out?” Jet asked raising a black eyebrow.

  Harley grinned. “Well, let’s just say I was doing a little early experimentation in the lesbian field.”

  “Wait, I thought Devin was your first,” Skyler said, looking at her wife.

  Harley started laughing looking up at the night sky. “Sweet file not found of the Puget Sound!” she said. Then she looked at Devin. “You told your wife?”

  “Wait, what the hell was that?” Quinn asked.

  “What?” Harley asked.

  “File not found…” Quinn repeated.

  “Just my way of saying holy shit,” Harley said, grinning.

  Quinn blinked a couple of times. “Alright then,” she said simply, causing everyone to laugh.

  “Harley doesn’t do anything like everyone else,” Devin said, grinning at Harley.

  “Broke the mold,” Harley said, grinning.

  “While you were still in it,�
� Devin replied, winking.

  Harley laughed, nodding. It was obviously something they’d said to each other a few times.

  “So you two were in college together?” Xandy asked.

  “Yeah, at MIT,” Harley said, nodding.

  “Are you a doctor too?” Dakota asked, winking at Cody.

  Harley laughed. “I have a doctorate, yeah.”

  “Too many fuckin’ doctors round here these days…” Quinn muttered good-naturedly.

  “You say that now…” Xandy said, shaking her head with a smile on her face.

  “But when I need one,” Quinn said, giving her girlfriend an openmouthed glare. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I don’t think we’ll be very useful,” Devin put in, gesturing to herself and Harley. “Especially not with the kind of trouble you get up to,” she added, waggling her finger at Quinn.

  “Wot?” Quinn asked, sounding very Irish and looking very guilty at the same time.

  The group laughed.

  “So, wait, wait, wait!” Devin said, holding up her hand and pinning Harley with a look. “So what exactly did you do to get kicked out?” she asked, repeating Jet’s question.

  Harley rolled her eyes heavenward, putting her tongue between her teeth. “I kind of made out with the headmaster’s daughter.”

  “Wait, that’s the girl that you just got hired?” Skyler asked.

  Harley shrugged, nodding.

  “Was she that good of a kisser?” Dakota asked, her eyes sparkling with amusement.

  Harley laughed aloud. “No, she really wasn’t, but I just felt bad for her today.”

  “Why?” Quinn asked.

  “Because her parents have all this friggin’ money and they’ve apparently cut her off completely. She said she couldn’t even afford to get Internet.”

  “That’s criminal,” Devin said seriously.

  “Right?” Harley replied.

  “Why’d they cut her off?” Skyler asked.

  Harley shook her head. “I don’t know. I didn’t want to pry too much. Regardless, she needed the job, and I figure I know her.”