Page 38 of Dirty Daria

“No can do.”

“I can’t do it. I can’t go.”

“Why not?”

“For one, I don’t want to.”

“Me neither,” he says.

“Two, if I have to spend any more time with him, I may kill him.”

“Me too.”

“What the fuck, Mack?”

“Look, Reed, I know this is tough on you—”

“You don’t know shit.”

“Would you shut the fuck up and let me finish?”

He looks at me, waiting for an answer. I assumed it was a rhetorical question, but I nod anyway.

“I don’t know what it’s like to feel so betrayed by someone you’ve been friends since childhood. I can only liken it to our partnership and how I would feel if you’d been keeping something from me.” His face goes pensive for a moment, as though he’s considering it. “Personal feelings aside, we have a job to do, and I can’t do it alone. I’m still not sure if other guys from Tremblay’s operation are here. You know the other FBI guys are useless.”

He’s right. Not that I plan to admit that to him. I set my coffee cup down on the small table next to us and bury my head in my hands, rubbing roughly at my face. “I can’t get out of my head, man,” I whisper.

“I get it. I don’t think I’d handle it half as well as you are.” He pauses and takes a large drink of his coffee, wincing at the taste. “I just need you to pull it together for a few days so we can get ahead of this. The chief is convinced we’re going to get something valuable out of following Tremblay on this trip—”

“Yeah, a vacation,” I chuckle.

Mack lets out a short laugh and hands me my coffee again. “Finish this, we leave first thing in the morning and still have to go in for a short briefing, pack our shit, buy tickets, and get to the airport. Do you remember where he’s going?”

“Somewhere tropical?”

“Maldives, fucker.”

“All the way over there? We’ll spend a day and a half on planes just to get there.” I pull out my phone and start scrolling the travel sites for flights.

“Ah, but once we’re there—” Mack rocks his hips back and forth and waves his hands at his side, mimicking a hula dance.

“They don’t hula in the Indian Ocean, dickhead.”

He shrugs.

A small knock on the door frame has us both looking in that direction. Daria pokes her head in asking, “This a private party or can anyone join?”

“Come on in, beautiful. We’re just planning our upcoming vacation.”

She raises her brows in question as she walks in the room.

“Reed and I are going to Maldives,” he says quietly, holding a finger to his lips. “Keep it on the down low.”

“Oh, I’m so jelly,” Quinn says following Daria in. “I’ve always wanted to go to the Caribbean.”

“Lower your voice, Cutie,” Mack says as he peeks his head out the door to make sure no one heard.

“Maldives isn’t in the Caribbean,” Daria tells Quinn.