Page 64 of Fierce-Matt

“He took yesterday off last minute,” Tim said.

She put her finger to her nose and tapped it a few times. “We’ve got a meeting now, but I think between the two of us we might be able to solve this riddle fast.”

“Here’s hoping!”

“How is it going?”his mother asked him on Friday afternoon.

Matt put his phone down after seeing the text from Anya that she was pulling a double shift today. He’d hoped to see her tonight, but knew there was a possibility that it’d be so busy and they’d ask her to stay longer.

“It’s going,” he said. “Everything okay?”

His parents didn’t normally drop into his office together without there being a reason or a meeting scheduled.

“Always,” his father said. “It’s the end of the workweek and we haven’t seen much of you.”

“We just wanted to make sure everything was okay since you took the day off last-minute yesterday. It’s not like you,” his mother said.

He frowned. One setback to working for family. They knew your every move if you were in the building, or didn’t come into the building.

“I’ve been slammed and needed a day off. I didn’t have court or anything pressing. I wasn’t aware I had to clear that with you.”

“Get that grin off your face,” his mother said. “You don’t.”

“That’s right,” Matt said. “We all have vacation time to use and rarely do in full.”

“We never want anyone to feel that way,” his father said.

It was the nature of their business. He understood that.

“I don’t. It comes with the territory. Which is why I take time off last minute and try to unwind.”

“Did you do anything fun?” his mother asked. “Or sit home and drink some beer in your shorts while watching movies?”

He laughed. “I might do that tonight.” It’s not like anyone was around he wanted to spend time with.

He could call a friend to go out, but that would mean a bar and the last thing he needed getting back to Anya was that he was out drinking. She might think he was looking to pick someone up.

Not that he ever did in a bar. Unless it turned into a relationship.

He had a reputation to uphold in the area and drinking and driving wasn’t part of that. Never.

Nor picking up strange women and bringing them back to his place.

“Guess you didn’t get to have any beer yesterday,” his father said.

“I had one,” he said. “Any more might not have stayed in my stomach.”

His mother frowned. “Were you sick?”

“No,” he said, laughing and leaning back in his chair. “I found myself on some rollercoasters yesterday. I don’t have the same stomach I did as a kid, but it was a great time.”

“Did it bring back memories?” his father said. “Of you torturing your sister to get on with you?”

Matt watched his parents looking back and forth at each other and couldn’t figure out what was going on.

“Phoebe was a good sport.” Just for the hell of it, he added, “Anya was the one that liked the rides more. She was a better sport about it.”

His mother’s eyes flickered. His father looked at her again.