Page 18 of Fierce-Jax (Fierce Matchmaking #18)

SHOULD HAVE BEEN EASY

“ A re you going to the new building anytime soon?”

Garrett Fierce looked up from his computer to see his wife standing in his doorway. “Grant and I are going to meet with new potential renters this afternoon, why?”

His wife laughed and walked in, sat across from his desk, and had a beautiful charming smile on her face.

One she’d had the first day he met her.

He was toast then and now he was about to be a soggy mess while she asked the world of him.

“Can you stop in and see Jax?”

He returned her smile. “No.”

She put a pout on her lips and he laughed. “How come?”

“Because you’ve been bragging to everyone you had this covered. Look at it this way, you’ve got the privilege to tell everyone that someone said yes to being set up. You don’t want to come back and blame someone else for messing it up now, do you?”

“Garrett,” she said sweetly. “There is no messing anything up. You just need to stop in and say hi. See how he’s doing and how nicely the space is set up. It looks great by the way. I’ll write the message down for you to give him.”

She reached for a pad on his desk, but he slapped her hand on it.

“No,” he said. “I’m not passing messages as if we are in grade school. Are you crazy? Just call him.”

“I can’t call him again,” she said. “I left him a message that day and I haven’t had a chance to see Dillion and get her information. You know I’ve been sick. Just tell him that. Please?”

His wife had a touch of a cold for almost a week. That didn’t mean he was going to do her bidding.

“You can go over and see him just as easily as me,” he argued.

“Then his staff might wonder why I’m there again,” she said. “It would make sense if you were there and not me. It could be he doesn’t want anyone to know what is going on. Would you?”

His lips twisted. “No, I wouldn’t want anyone to know,” he said. “But I handle it differently than you. Why can’t you just give a message to Tori when you see her next? Or better yet, give it to Hyde to give to Tori to give to her boss.”

“Do you hear how ridiculous that is? That is just like elementary school.”

“Exactly,” he said. “No different from what you’re asking me to do,” he said, putting his chin up. “I’m not doing it. Give it to Roni.”

“No,” she said. “He might not want Roni to know either. I want to keep it between us for now.”

“Us means you and him, not me.”

“It’s always about the four of us,” she said firmly. “Don’t you forget it.”

“Garrett,” Jax said on Friday afternoon. “Come on in. Did you walk around and see how everything was set up?”

“I did,” Garrett said. “It looks great in here. I know if you had any problems you could have talked to Roni about it.”

“No problems here. I think my staff loves the newness of it all.”

“That’s what we love to hear,” Garrett said.

“Is everything okay?” he asked Garrett, smirking. The man looked uncomfortable.

“If you’ve got a minute,” Garrett said.

“Always,” he said.

Garrett shut the door. “My wife wanted me to tell you she’s been under the weather. She was going to try to get Dillion’s information, but she isn’t as easy to stop in and see as she hoped.”

He smiled. “That’s fine,” he said. “It looks as if it pained you to pass that message on. You were pretty active in my sister’s setup. The same with Tori and Hyde’s.”

He hadn’t realized his new program director had been set up until Tori mentioned she was dating an engineer at Fierce who was Ryder Fierce’s best friend.

It was easy to see everything falling into place after that.

“My wife says she has this,” Garrett said. “I’ll get in trouble if I admit this, but she wasn’t expecting you to say yes. Then she worried Dillion might say no. When you both said yes, it should have been easy after that.”

Jax laughed. “She seemed surprised. But what seems easy isn’t always the case. I understand.”

“You’re being a good sport about it,” Garrett said. “How come? What am I missing? What did my wife not see? Are you dating Dillion already?” It was the narrowing of Garrett’s eyes with the mischief mixed in.

He and Dillion hadn’t talked about this or how they were going to handle it if it came up.

He was glad that they hadn’t waited for the Fierces’ next step. They’d had three dates already in the past week. Date number four was going to be on Saturday night.

Dillion’s mother was taking Gianna for the night.

That didn’t mean he was going to spend the night with Dillion, but it meant it would be more than an hour-long date with them rushing so she could get her daughter in bed.

His phone rang on his desk before he could answer that. “Could you excuse me for a minute?” He walked over to pick it up. “Sorry to bother you, Jax, but Zachary has been emailing you and said it’s an emergency. There is a crisis going on at one of the residential homes with a client.”

“Thanks, I’ll take it,” he said.

“You need to go,” Garrett said. “I understand. My wife will get Dillion’s number, but something is telling me you don’t need it. I’m going to keep that information to myself too. Let my wife sweat it some.”

Jax grinned. “Thanks.” When Garrett walked out, he picked the phone up to find out what was going on. “Hi, Zachary. What’s the crisis?”

“One of our clients is having a breakdown. He won’t take his meds, he shoved a staff member, and has locked himself in a supply closet.”

“You can unlock the closet,” he said. “Right?”

“We tried,” Zachary said, “But he slammed it shut again and one of the staff’s fingers got shut in it. They are on the way to urgent care. No one else wants to try. I called the police.”

Which was protocol. “Do you need me to come over or do you have it covered?”

There would be enough paperwork on this incident, between workers’ comp and the client’s situation they’d have to file with the state since they were government-funded.

“I think we’ve got it covered for now,” Zachary said. “I’ll update you once the police leave. Looks like they are pulling up now.”

By the time he got there, everything would be under control anyway. “Keep me posted,” he said. “And good job as always.”

He hung up after that, then picked up his cell phone to send Dillion a text and let her know the latest on the Fierce matchmaking scheme.

That’s what they were referring to it as.

When his phone rang, he looked down to see Dillion calling. She rarely did.

“Hi,” he said. “Not with a patient?”

“I was going to check on one and saw your message. It made me laugh. I need to know the details.”

He smiled over that. “Not much to say other than Carolyn sent her husband here to do her bidding. You could tell right away he wasn’t so happy about it and would not bend over backward. He guessed we might have already reached out to each other ourselves.”

She laughed on the other line. “Did you verify it?”

“I didn’t have a chance. I got a call for work and had to take it. Garrett left. What’s our play here?”

“It took them a week to come in, I say we see how long it takes for me to be contacted next. Then we’ll figure it out. Are we horrible for doing this?”

“Nope,” he said. “I didn’t realize how much fun it actually was when you are yanking other people around.”

“It’s not a bad thing,” she said, laughing. “Is it?”

“I’m not looking at it that way,” he said. “I figured they’d get a kick out of it. They’ll take the credit for it regardless, but we know the truth.”

“Yes,” she said. “The truth is if Carolyn didn’t push you, I’d still be waiting for you to ask me.”

His jaw dropped. “You could have asked me,” he said playfully.

“Good girls don’t do those things,” she said smartly.

“Yeah, well, we know you’re not always so innocent, are you?”

There was silence to that statement, then laughter. “That’s not very nice,” she said sweetly.

“I think you like me not being nice right now,” he said. “Bye, Dillion.”

He hung up before she could dispute it.

Maybe it felt good not being so nice himself too.

Not in a bad way.

Playful for sure, but it felt more like sensual dancing.

All he could hope for was their moves finally got into sync soon.