Free Roll Against Discovery (3d20 Book 3) by Allyson Lindt Page B

now. Good. Let them stare and whisper.
    Brad shut the door the moment I was inside. “Sit down.” His words were clipped. He didn’t do the same, standing near his desk instead. “What the hell was that? Quality assurance was on that call, you know.”
    “Too bad.” I shouldn’t snap at Brad, but the guy on the phone had me that furious. “If they’d given me thirty more seconds, I would have told that asshole where to stick it.”
    Brad raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips. “This isn’t like you.”
    “Do you blame me?”
    “I can’t let you talk like that to customers.”
    “That’s not what I asked.” My rage was ebbing, but I still didn’t feel I was in the wrong.
    He gave a snorting laugh. “I don’t blame you, but I still have to write you up.”
    “Not fire me?” I needed my job. At least until someone came up with a way for me to do anything I wanted without having to pay bills.
    “You’re good at what you do. Take the rest of the day off. When you come back tomorrow, don’t let it happen again.”
    Except part of me wanted to let it happen again. It felt good to tell that guy what I thought. Even more, I’d rather not come back at all. I wanted to be doing something else. With someone else. Or rather, two someone elses. I couldn’t afford to think like that, and I couldn’t take any more time to straighten out my head. Real life wouldn’t wait while I did.

Chapter Twelve
    Most of a day off work, completely unplanned. I should be thrilled, regardless of the circumstances. Instead, I found myself sitting in my apartment, staring at the TV without really processing what was on. Now I’d stepped away from the situation at work, I could look at it objectively. What had I been thinking? Yelling at a customer, making things personal…
    Except he’d started it. As childish as that sounded in my own mind, it was the best description of the situation. I shouldn’t have to roll over and play nice, just because some douche nozzle had wife issues. I expected a surge of nausea at the self-justification. A physical reminder I wasn’t allowed to think that way. A ghost of the discomfort was there—an itch that had no source. On the other hand, I felt good about not taking the verbal abuse and speaking up when I needed to.
    The con weekend had flipped a switch in my head. Not that I was willing to make myself the life of every party now, but something inside me had changed. Some of my trepidation was gone. The realization brought a sudden wash of sadness with it. A nudge I’d lost something too. Two men I wasn’t meant to have.
    They’d wanted to end things then and there, but I couldn’t let it go. With any luck, now that they’d had time to chill out—that we all had—they’d be more receptive to talking. Who was I kidding? This wasn’t a rational decision on my part, the same way yelling at the customer had been completely impulsive. I wanted to see Trevor and Evan again, and I wasn’t going to sit around and hope they read my mind from wherever they were.
    I sent them a quick DM, copying both of them like I had before. Thinking of you. There. Basic enough. Impulse snaked through me, and as an afterthought I also included my phone number.
    I didn’t have a chance to sink back into the couch before my phone rang. The number on the screen wasn’t familiar, and I pressed Answer with more enthusiasm than I should have. “Hello?” What I meant to be a cheerful, upbeat greeting came out as tentative.
    “Kitten.”
    A huge weight lifted from me, and I grinned at the empty room. “You called.” Not the most brilliant thing I could have said, but I’d done worse.
    “I was thinking of you too.” Evan’s voice calmed the chaos in my head. “I don’t like the way we left things at the con.”
    That made two of us. “Can we meet somewhere? Nothing formal. Coffee or something, all three of us? Take a step back, get to know each other… Just hang out.”
    His sigh echoed over the