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Mike cranked up a middle finger toward the hysterical individuals, while Joe bit back a giggle.
“Something you taught them?” she asked innocently.
“Are you kidding?” Kyle snuffle-snorted. “Those are Mike’s ‘live-by’ words. If we’ve heard them once, we’ve heard them a thousand times.”
“And now, we know you don’t practice what you preach…” Doug shook his head in mock disappointment.
“…so we’re going to have to take away your man-card,” Cisco ended, with a very loud sigh.
“Not on my say so,” Joe responded first. As far as she was concerned, Mike was all man, and then some.
“That’s because you haven’t compared him to the rest of us,” Welker asserted, puffing up his chest.
The team broke into a bragging contest that seemed endless.
“They do this all the time,” Mike leaned in to tell her as they ate.
Joe chuckled. She was enjoying the hell out of the banter, and realized it was something she hadn’t experienced for a long time. When she’d first graduated from the academy, and been assigned to her regional office, the boss at the time had put her on a three-person unit. She and her partners had investigated cases together, and watched each other’s backs at all times. Even when she’d gone off script, her two cohorts had rolled with the new trajectories. More often than not, they solved their cases because of her intuition.
But then, after that first year, her reasonable CO had been transferred, and spit-head Lester had come on board. After being in charge for less than a week, he’d stripped her of her small team, citing the fact that he’d examined her record and determined she was a loose cannon who would lead her two fellow agents down a bad path.
From that point on, for ten years, she’d worked solo.
Joe sighed. This is what she’d been missing. The comradery. The teasing. The trust.
Her one-man show sucked.
All she was now was a glorified, solo investigator. Her job was to dig into whatever Lester assigned to her, then once she had the information compiled, Joe would be recalled, and a “housecleaning” team—inevitably led by Lester—would be sent in to sweep up whatever bad guys Joe had outed.
If and when she went above and beyond fact-finding, arg-hole Lester would write her up. Then he’d taunt her that she might have previously been in line for a raise or a promotion, but because of her actions, nothing would be forthcoming.
Joe looked around at the fun this group was having, knowing that they not only did their jobs, but found ways to keep things light and fluid. They rolled with the punches, each with their own strengths, then came together to make things happen.
Drangit. Joelle had—more often lately—played with the thought of putting in for a transfer, but every time she contemplated it, she backed off, wondering what Lester kept in her files that would be inflammatory. After hearing the bucky-puck he spewed to her, would her records be full of the same? If they were, a transfer would be a non-starter.
“Hey. Where’d you go?” Mike gave her an elbow to the ribs, and she noticed his bowl of stew was half gone. She’d only taken a single bite, but quickly remedied that.
Spooning a morsel into her mouth, she swallowed before answering. “Mmm. Good.” She sent a nod to Everlee, who was watching her closely. Right. Joe already had that woman’s number. She played the sweet one, but was most likely the sharpest tack in the box, which means there’d be no pulling anything over on her.
For a number of reasons—Ever’s scrutiny included—Joe decided to go with honesty.
“I’m envious of the way you’re all friends.” She screwed up her face in displeasure. “At my office?—”
“And which office that is, you won’t divulge.” Welker pointed at her with his spoon.
“An office I won’t divulge,” Joe almost word-for-word agreed. “We… I don’t have a team. I work alone. I was just remembering how much I liked it when I had a couple other…operatives by my side. Work was more enjoyable.”
Mike made a choking noise and she looked over at him, seeing his brows drawn together as he cleared his throat. “You…don’t have back-up?” he growled.
Joelle shook her head. “I really don’t need it. I’ve been designated and assigned as a fact-finder only. Once I have the whole story on a case, other…people come in after me and take care of business.”
“That sucks,” Doug stated. “You do the leg work, and others get the glory.”
Joe had never quite thought about it that way, because she’d always been a team player, at least in her head. But yeah. Doug was right. Lester always wrapped her cases up; his signature on the bottom line. Which meant his poo-poo ended up smelling like roses to the higher powers because of… Right. The legwork Joe had done. Here she’d always speculated that the prilk was keeping her isolated and undercover because of her past transgressions, but now that she looked at it afresh… She had more questions.
Everlee spoke up before Joe could follow that line of reasoning to its conclusion. “But you obviously keep your body well-honed for action,” she said. “I couldn’t help but notice you’re in top form.”
Joe shrugged. “I decided, early on in my investigative role, that I didn’t want to lose my physical edge in case something went sideways.”