Chapter Text
“I think I’ve found us a potential client,” Eliot said by way of greeting as he entered the apartment.
“Is it another ex-girlfriend?” Nate asked, not looking up from his morning newspaper.
“What? No!” Eliot sputtered indignantly, and maybe a bit too quickly. “We worked for the same PMC a few years ago.”
“Sounds like he can probably help himself,” the older man continued. Nate really was an asshole before his morning coffee. Well, more of an asshole than usual.
“She –”
“So it is a woman,” Sophie chimed in from the kitchen counter. She was just getting the coffee machine started.
“What’s a woman? Are we playing twenty questions?” Parker bounded in the door at that moment. Frankly, Eliot was surprised that she’d even heard what Sophie had said.
“Eliot wants us to help his other girlfriend,” Nate answered. It was times like this that Eliot seriously considered going solo again.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Eliot growled. “Never was.”
Sophie did that little hum she did when she thought she’d extrapolated some key piece of information out of next to nothing (and was about to be annoyingly accurate).
“So, the one that got away, then,” she said, coming to sit next to Nate. The hitter leveled his best death glare at her. She was completely unaffected, which didn’t really surprise him. The wink she shot him, however, was not appreciated.
He was ready to start banging his head against the nearest wall when Hardison chose that moment to saunter in with, “Why does Eliot look like he’s about to kill someone?”
“He wants us to help his girlfriend,” was Parker’s reply.
“For the last time, she’s not my girlfriend,” Eliot growled.
“She’s the one that got away,” Sophie offered unhelpfully.
“I thought that was Aimee,” Hardison said.
“No, no. She was simply the high school sweetheart.”
“Either way, you don’t have the best track record when it comes to not getting emotionally involved in jobs,” Nate cut in, thus stopping the inevitable squabbling.
Eliot resisted further forehead-to-wall contact by stocking over to the freshly prepared coffee and pouring himself a cup.
“Will you at least talk to her?” he asked. “She’s not gonna be in Boston very long and she doesn’t have many options besides us.”
“Of course we’ll help, Eliot,” Sophie replied, cutting off Nate before he could say no. “Have her meet us at the pub this afternoon.”
Nate sighed in resignation, knowing better than to argue once she’d made up her mind. With that, the team moved on to other things.
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Sophie wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting from one of Eliot’s ex-coworkers, but she certainly didn’t expect the woman to be accompanied by a service dog. In true southern gentleman fashion, Eliot stood to greet her at the door and lead her to the booth at the back.
“Nate, Sophie, this is Emma Grey. One of the best negotiators I’ve ever seen.”
Sophie noticed the slight dusting of pink on Emma’s cheeks as she shook their hands. Eliot sat back down, angling his upper body toward her and draping his arm across the back of the booth, but making an effort to make it seem casual. Not to mention the fact that he was giving the poor girl moon eyes. Oh yes, Emma was definitely the one who got away.
“So, how’d you get the dog?” Nate asked without preamble. Eliot shot him a warning look and Emma looked unamused. The dog in question, a sleek, black german shepherd, situated itself under the table and laid down with little preamble.
“Normally, I’d say it wasn’t any of your business, but it has to do with the . . . situation.”
Sophie put aside her matchmaking scheming for the moment to focus on the task at hand. “Start at the beginning and try to give us as much detail as you can. We’ll stop you if we’ve got any questions.”
Emma nodded, took a deep breath, and launched into her story.
“A couple of years ago, I was back in the states between jobs and got in a pretty nasty car accident. I was left with some brain damage and a condition that causes me to pass out occasionally. I lost practically all my independence. I started looking into service dogs, but they’re expensive and they’re not covered under medical insurance. Eventually, I found a training organization that partners with a charity. That’s the only way I was able to afford King,” she indicated the dog under the table.
“You’re not gonna pass out on us, are you?” Nate asked wryly.
“King will give me a ten-minute warning,” Emma replied, ignoring his tone. “Which is eight minutes longer than I used to have.”
“What happened after that?” Sophie asked, trying to keep them on track. “I assume something happened with the trainer.”
The other woman nods, “King wasn’t trained properly. Once I took his vest off, his obedience went out the window. Dogs are a lot smarter than some people give them credit for, but they also have the logic of a toddler. If you don’t reinforce obedience out of their vest, they don’t think it counts. Now, I’ve been around dogs since I was little, so I had no problem filling in that gap. But some people don’t know how to train a dog, or don’t have the time.”
They spent the next half hour or so gathering more information on the charity and the training facility they partnered with. It would have taken less time, but Sophie couldn’t help throwing in questions about dog training and service dogs just to watch Eliot and Emma interact. She wondered if either of them knew the clear signals they were throwing at each other.
Eliot probably didn’t. For as much situational awareness he had, there was little to no self-awareness. But if Emma was as good a negotiator as Eliot claimed (not that Sophie doubted him), then she should be very good at reading people. She had to be picking up the hitter’s signals.
Right?
Then again, sometimes people had trouble seeing what was right in front of them. If both of them thought that their opportunity had passed them by . . . good lord, Sophie really had her work cut out for her. Not that it ever stopped her before.
“Well, we’ve got to nip off. Lots to do today,” she said. “I’m sure Eliot wouldn’t mind telling you how things will go from here on.”
“What?” Nate looked confused. “We don’t –”
Sophie kicked him under the table.
“Besides, I’m sure the two of you have lots to catch up on,” she continued before Nate could open his mouth again.
Eliot gave her a look that was somewhere between “long-suffering” and “sick-of-this-shit.” She returned it with her own pointed, “take-the-opportunity-you-moron” look before grabbing Nate’s arm and dragging him out of the pub.