The Middle Man

by Gadziala, Jessica

  "What did you get yourself into, Gemma?"

  TWO

  Gemma

  Maybe it was naive of me to think I would get away with it.

  Indefinitely.

  I guess the reality was what gave me a false sense of confidence.

  And the reality was I had gotten away with it for two weeks already.

  It was easy to think that Quin and his team had somehow just gotten sloppy or let security lax. The reality was, for many years, they had placed their trust in me.

  That trust meant I knew the codes. I had access to the computer systems. I knew exactly how to get in and out untraced, to make sure no one was scheduled to be staying in the rooms at any point.

  Thanks to my sister, I knew that everything in the fridge and the cabinets was kept in fresh rotation, that the place would be cleaned of any trace of me by the cleaning staff that would come in once a week.

  It was a damn near perfect plan.

  Except, of course, there was no accounting for a tired team member who decided to crash in one of the rooms.

  I hadn't even factored in the possibility. In all the times I worked in the office, I had only maybe seen it happen once or twice. Usually only when there was a really serious case that everyone was working on, when no one was allowed to go home.

  But there were no big cases at the moment. Miller was working one, and so was Gunner. Nia was always up to something.

  There hadn't been an all-hands-on-deck sort of situation since the last time Fenway got himself into international trouble.

  It seemed like I could get away with it for as long as I needed to.

  Without doing any harm.

  That was always my mission in life.

  What they didn't know certainly wouldn't hurt them. And it would help me.

  It was a win/win if I ever saw one.

  Except, of course, for Lincoln.

  In all the time I spent temping at the office, I never really knew him to sleep in the rooms above. He usually had a girl at home. A horribly matched girl, though he always seemed so wholly unaware of that fact even when everyone else saw it perfectly.

  But that was Lincoln. A bit of a hopeless romantic. When between steady girls he had no business trying to make something work with, he could be a bit of a bed-hopper.

  Rarely was he sleeping alone.

  I couldn't have anticipated him.

  Yet there he was.

  I knew these guys well enough to know they would never let me just walk away from this without a solid explanation.

  And, well, maybe it wouldn't be too terrible for me not to be so alone in it.

  While I knew I was safe at night when I was locked in the fortress these men called a workplace, it was a whole other story about twenty minutes after sunrise when I had to clear out all the obvious traces of my inhabitance and leave the security of the building.

  As a whole, I had led a somewhat charmed life. I was self-realized enough to know that I hadn't experienced much heartbreak or hardships in my time. I didn't know true hunger or extreme physical pain or prejudice.

  But no one, absolutely no one, could say that I didn't know fear. True fear. The kind that sank in through the skin, infected every organ, and became a part of your very marrow.

  I knew that fear.

  I had lived it day in and out for weeks.

  The way things were going, there didn't seem to be an end in sight.

  I needed help.

  I just couldn't seem to make myself ask for it, even though I knew it would be right there for me if I did.

  It was just that, well, it would be a mess. One of my own making.

  I had a lot of respect for these men and women. I didn't want them looking down on me for the situation I had gotten myself into.

  And I really, really, really didn't want my sister to tell our parents.

  Sure, that made me sound a bit like a teenager, but anyone who had ever met our somewhat over-protective family would understand my need for them not to know what was going on.

  "Gem?" Lincoln asked, snapping me out of my thoughts.

  I guess if it had to be someone, I could count myself lucky that it was Lincoln. The only possible better person would probably be Bellamy. He would be absolutely no help, of course, but he wouldn't spill the story to everyone else. Mostly because he would immediately move onto a new subject directly after. Something equally important to him. Like salsa dancing or the best truffle oil on the market.

  But Quin, Gunner, Smith, Miller, Nia, and Finn would all call meetings, get everyone involved. And Kai, well, he was married to my sister. So there was no way he would keep anything from her.

  Lincoln was the most likely to not get too worked up over it.

  He was just a laid-back kind of guy. You couldn't work as a middle man between two feuding individuals as your daily job if you were prone to anxiety or anger or tended to overreact to every little thing.

  If I was going to need some help, he would give it. And so long as things didn't get too crazy, he would keep my secret.

  "It's a bit of a long story."

  "It always is, isn't it?" he asked, brow raising.

  It was right then that I realized how exhausted he looked. It was well after two, likely closer to three. He'd been in the office. He needed some sleep.

  "Why don't we talk about it in the morning? You look exhausted."

  "You want me to pass out, so you can slip out without giving me any answers."

  "That's not entirely true," I admitted, reaching up to brush my half-dry bangs out of my eyes.

  "But true enough for me to make some coffee and sit through this story," he countered, already moving close to my side to go for the coffee machine.

  All the guys at the office, in general, were a bit of, well, an assault to the senses when you were around them. Tall, strong, great voices, fantastic faces, authoritative and confident auras. They were a lot to take in. Especially when they got close.

  It had been a long time since I was sharing personal space with any of them. Kai aside. And I think everyone who had ever met Kai would agree he was a bit of a puppy dog.

  Lincoln, yeah, Lincoln was not a puppy.

  I remembered when I first started at the office that every week I had a new crush on one of the guys. Of course I did. No one could blame me. Everyone else in my position would feel the same way. Especially since teenage girls, as a whole, were a bit boy crazy and swoony. Or, at least, I was.

  At first, it was Quin. Because he was the boss. The intimidating man in a suit who ran the place like a well-oiled machine. Then, after seeing him with his shirt off, I'd had a bit of a fascination with Smith.

  Gunner got to me because there was something undeniably sexy about his cocky aloofness, his quick wit, his sarcastic comments.

  Ranger was someone I had drooled over whenever he--very rarely--made it into Navesink Bank.

  Finn was someone who had grown on me. I hadn't been able to get a feel for him for a long time. Always standoffish. Always cleaning. Always with that haunted look in his eyes. He'd always been attractive, but there was a deep well of sadness there that could sometimes almost overshadow that. But he won me over one week when Jules had given me a particularly embarrassing lecture about the office being a mess after she'd left me to handle it because she needed to be in a meeting with Quin for a couple of hours. By the time I had pulled myself together in the bathroom, I had come out to the overwhelming scent of industrial cleaner, a spotless office, and Finn with bloodied nails and a sweet smile for me. That had done me in for a long while.

  I'd even had a little thing for Kai way back when even though it was always painfully obvious he was all heart-eyes for my sister.

  That said, the strongest of my little girlhood crushes might have been on Lincoln. Or, at least, the longest lived of them. Who could blame me? He was tall, fit without being too bulky, with an oddly sexy shaved head, perfect bone structure, that amazing skin thanks to his English mother and Jamaican f
ather, and those dreamy brown eyes that had flecks of copper in them. He belonged on a movie or TV screen so everyone could get heart palpitations over him.

  He was also just a good man. Personable, kind, open. He had a deep love and appreciation for women.

  And, God, he smelled good.

  As a whole, I hated ninety-nine percent of perfume and cologne. I liked natural scents. Essential oils used just right. I found that most scents people wore smelled overwhelmingly chemical to me. And that many people practically bathed in the stuff.

  Somehow, though, Lincoln managed to find the one cologne that didn't make me hold my breath when standing beside him. In fact, I often found myself wanting to lean in, take a deep breath, draw that scent in.

  I had completely forgotten all about it.

  So I was not prepared for him standing nearly shoulder-to-shoulder all smelling like that amazingness still.

  Because, despite knowing that it was incredibly unlikely, it smelled like natural ingredients to me.

  Woodsy, earthy.

  Delicious.

  "Are you going to lecture me about drinking coffee?" he asked, making me realize I had been staring at his hands while he got everything all together.

  "What? No. Coffee actually has some health benefits too. Especially about preventing mental decline and such."

  "But you don't drink it."

  "I don't drink a lot of things," I reminded him. As a whole, I avoided anything that was created in a lab. "But my system has never been able to handle caffeine. Even when I wanted it to in college when trying to stay up studying."

  "Just admiring my perfect hands then," he said, making my head snap up, finding him smiling down at me. Friendly, open. "Alright, start talking, Gemma," he demanded, pouring coffee, slipping in a little sugar, then turning to go over toward the seating area, pressing a hand into the small of my back to make me do so as well.

  Tucking one leg under my body, I faced him, taking a sip and a breath to steady myself before speaking.

  "Alright. Well, I started a new job about... eight months ago."

  "I'd say 'Good for you,' but I get the feeling this job has something to do with why you're hiding out here."

  "You could say that," I agreed.

  "Where are you working?"

  "Blairtown Chem."

  I waited for the expected reaction. The one all my family and friends had given me. The one my previous employers, professors, and my neighbors in my apartment building all gave me.

  I wasn't disappointed.

  There was a long moment of a blank stare, like the words couldn't quite sink in. Immediately following that, there were the pinched-together brows lowering over squinted eyes paired with the slight parting of the lips.

  Yep.

  That was the classic Gemma is working where?! look.

  It was very familiar to me.

  With good reason, if you knew me at all.

  I was the person who spent her high school years begging her mom to stop buying chemical-laden all-purpose cleaners, room sprays, and laundry detergents. I would spend my weekends making my own concoctions out of vinegar and essential oils. I was using reusable grocery bags before it was a thing. I wore natural fabrics and ate organic. The girl I roomed with in an apartment through college used to complain because the entire balcony of our place was loaded with my personal garden of fresh veggies. And a blueberry bush.

  I was someone that everyone else imagined would work in some up-and-coming 'green' company, some place that was thinking forward, reducing waste, working toward sustainability, and cutting down on toxins.

  I was not supposed to work at a chemical company. As in a You need to wear gloves and hold your breath while using our products chemical company.

  But that was where I worked.

  Which was why the look currently on Lincoln's face was so damn familiar to me.

  "Blairtown Chem," he repeated, shaking his head a little. "The place that makes weed killer and bug killer and, you know, shit that kills everything. That is where you are working? The woman who would shriek if one of us tried to kill a spider, getting up on the chair to catch it in a cup and relocate it. The woman who I once heard lecture someone for putting weed killer on the dandelions growing in their front yard."

  "I didn't lecture him," I objected, taking a sip of my tea.

  "Sweetheart, I was there. You lectured. I felt secondhand-chastised."

  "Well... dandelions aren't a weed," I defended myself. "They're vital to the survival of bees. And they are bunny food. And they make a fantastic tea that is great for digestion and reducing inflammation and..."

  "Gem," Lincoln cut me off, making me look over to find his lips twitching, reminding me that I was going off on 'one of my tangents' as my mother would call it. "So you're working at Blairtown Chem," he reminded me.

  "Right. I started there a while back. And everything was... alright. You know... it's a job." A job I hated, resented, but those were cards that needed to be played close to the vest. "They have a great benefits package. And steady hours."

  "Sometimes you gotta take the job you don't love because you need the stability."

  "Yeah. Something like that." Nothing like that, actually. I chanced a look over at him, trying to discern if he could see through me, if he knew there was a heady dose of lies mixed in with the truth.

  "What's your position?"

  "I'm the, ah, executive assistant to the CEO."

  "You're a secretary?" he asked, brows furrowing once again. "You have a fucking degree in like Earth science or some shit..."

  "I have my bachelor's in Environmental Science," I corrected even though he was close enough.

  "Yeah. We were all excited for you. Jules was going on and on about how you were going to be an ecology consultant and that you could make a fair seventy-k doing that. Why are you working as a secretary?"

  Here was where the big lie had to come in.

  It was funny. I had told the lie at least a dozen times over the past few months. To my friends. To my family. To everyone around me. I--someone who hated lying--had somehow managed to do so without much guilt over it. Yet there was no mistaking the wringing sensation of my stomach.

  I was feeling guilty at the idea of telling this lie to Lincoln.

  Why, I wasn't sure. It should have been there when I had told it to my parents, the people who had footed most of the bill for my college degree. Or my sister who had helped me sit and fill out all the paperwork for the loans for the remainder. Or the friends who had kept me sane through those first rough years where I struggled to adjust to college life.

  But, no, it hadn't been there.

  Until now.

  It made no sense. Except maybe if you factored in that he was trying to help me, protect me. And by lying to him, I was making that job harder. If not impossible.

  I had seen it happen too many times to count with the clients in the office. Despite Quin being very clear about needing absolute honesty when they came into his office, no matter how incriminating or humiliating the truth might be. It was the only way for them to be able to do their jobs effectively. To fix whatever their problem was. But, almost without fail, before Nia was around to dig up their deep, dark secrets, they lied. Over and over. Making everyone's jobs harder. Sometimes making the situation blow up in everyone's faces.

  I knew better.

  Yet here I was.

  Being one of those idiots I told myself I was too smart to ever be.

  There just wasn't much of a choice this time around, though.

  So, gut-wringing or not, I had to tell this lie. I had to keep telling this lie.

  "It's not the best time for my career. It looked promising when I started school. But more and more people are denying that there is even such a thing as climate change. Governments are rolling back regulations about clean air and where you can or can't spill toxic chemicals. Companies just aren't hiring ecologists to tell them how to get greener, lower their impact. There isn't much of a
n incentive for them to do so." Despite the earth melting, but saying that wasn't going to help me here. "There just weren't as many jobs as I hoped."

  "There are companies that still give a shit."

  "There are," I agreed. "But they aren't here." That was, at least, mostly true.

  "You don't want to move away from your family."

  "Exactly."

  "I get that. So, you took what you could get."

  "I have loans that need to be repaid. Lights that need to stay on. All that fun adult stuff. This job pays well. I mean, only a company as big as Blairtown Chem would require bachelor's for assistant work."

  "I'm surprised they would hire someone with your degree at all."

  I would have been too.

  If human resources even knew that.

  Oh, the lies were stacking up.

  And up.

  And up.

  I couldn't help but wonder when they would get too high, too heavy, sending everything I had carefully constructed toppling to the ground.

  And if I would survive the wreckage.

  That was a problem for another time, though.

  "I don't think they even really looked that deep. The human resources lady was a bit frazzled. My boss is not the kind of man who could function without an assistant. I mean, I don't know if he would know how to open his blinds if I wasn't there the first thing in the morning to do it."

  "It never ceases to amaze me how complete fucking morons manage to rise to positions of power," he said, shaking his head.

  I had to agree. Working with them had shown me a never-ending parade of complete incompetent individuals with far too much influence. Then taking my job at Blairtown Chem, yeah, it only reinforced those impressions.

  "I know. He once bleeped in over the intercom at me to scold me about the plants in his office. He said they were wilting."

  To that, Lincoln's eyes danced. "The fucking plants are plastic, aren't they?"

  "They sure are," I agreed, smiling because it was nice to share my exasperation with the man with someone else.

  "So what went wrong? Aside from having an idiot for a boss?"