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The barista clicks his tongue for what must be the thousandth time. “Look, man, you sure you want this? C’mon, at least let me put some sugar or milk or something in!”
“I’m sure,” Phoenix says for the thousand-and-first time. Exasperation seeps through, but he fights it back. He’s a nice person — or at least, he tries to be. He likes baristas, respects them. God knows he’s given them enough of his money back when he was in college — not too long ago, technically — pulling late nights and even later caffeine runs.
He doesn’t want to be the guy who yells at some poor soul who’s just trying to do their job. If only his employers felt the same way.
“Okay, okay,” the barista says, raising both hands in defeat. “I just don’t want you to say it’s disgusting and try to argue with me, because there’s no way I’m giving you a refund.”
“Trust me,” says Phoenix, “I don’t want a refund. All I need is the coffee.”
He resists the urge to glance at his watch; he’s already been gone for too long. If he doesn’t come back soon, there’ll be hell to pay.
Not for the first time, he wonders if this new job of his really is a good idea. It should have been obvious from his résumé — Phoenix is barely qualified to set foot in a law office, let alone work in one. But he isn’t being entirely fair. One of his bosses — the only one, technically, since she’s the one who hired him — is great. No complaints.
It’s the other two he’s worried about.
The cups of coffee are finally pushed across the counter toward him. Phoenix throws his remaining change in the tip jar, an apology — he’s about ninety-nine percent sure he misses, but he doesn’t even have the time to care about that.
He doesn’t care if he gets hurt, scrapes his arms or bangs his legs on the doorframe on the way; the main thing is to not spill a single drop of coffee.
When he makes it back to the office, Phoenix takes a deep breath. “Coffee!” he calls before carefully maneuvering the cups into one hand and pulling the door open. He’s learned to announce himself before entering.
All three of his bosses are inside; they spring apart quickly as though they weren’t expecting him. As though they were doing something they didn’t want him to know about.
Phoenix resolutely tries not to think about that.
“About time,” Godot says as Phoenix hands him one of the inhumanely large cups of coffee. He tries not to stare directly into the man’s visor; not ashamed to admit that yeah, maybe he’s a little afraid of him. “What, you get lost on the way, Trite?”
Phoenix’s face burns, though his embarrassment is somewhat pacified by the way Mia throws Godot a reproachful look. Good old Chief.
Though it seems even she can’t do anything about the nickname.
Diego, at least, has no criticisms. Instead, he looks to Godot and raises his eyebrows. Phoenix turns long enough to see the other man nod slightly, as though giving him permission to drink.
Godot and Diego take long swigs from their cups at the same time; they sigh in unison, as though they would have fallen apart had they gone one more minute without caffeine.
Once again, Phoenix is struck by how similar they look. But he’s never been brave enough to ask either of them about it, and sometimes, by the way they look at each other, fingers brushing as they pass, he hopes they aren’t related.
“Thanks, Nick,” says Mia, giving him a warm smile. Phoenix tries to return it, if it weren’t for the way that the other two men in the room glare at him behind her back.
He looks down to avoid both of their eyes, and instead, his gaze lands on the stack of papers on the table in front of them. They’re kind of messy — probably from the trio’s earlier activities — but the headings on them are still large and bold enough to catch Phoenix’s attention.
“What’s this? A new case?”
“Something like that,” says Mia. “You could say this one’s…more of a personal project, though.”
“Hey, kitten,” Diego says softly. “You sure you wanna tell him?”
His fingers brush against the back of her neck — a gesture so soft, so intimate, that Phoenix feels as though he’s a kid again, covering his eyes every time his parents kiss. The three of them have a knack for forgetting that he’s in the same room; he can’t even find it in him to be insulted.
That does make it hard, though, for him to prove himself to them. Phoenix opens his mouth to refute, but to his surprise, it isn’t Mia who sticks up for him. It’s Godot.
“Don’t worry, kitten,” he says to Diego — tossing the shared nickname around easy as breathing. “The true measure of a man is in the amount of work he’s done, isn’t that what we always say?”
“And you think he’s done the work?”
“Maybe not yet,” says Godot thoughtfully. “But he will. Isn’t that right, Trite?”
Three pairs of eyes turn to him. Phoenix has no idea what they’re asking of him, what it is that he’s agreeing to, but he nods all the same.
“All right, Nick,” says Mia, gesturing for him to take a seat. “Let me start at the beginning. It’s kind of a long story.”
And that, he finds, really isn’t an understatement. Mia tells him all about her village, her family. Her mother, who Godot had helped her track down. The man in question takes her hand at that, an uncharacteristically soft look on his face.
She tells him about the DL-6 case, about a spirit channeling gone wrong. She tells him about how Redd White ruined her family.
“We’re gonna take him down,” Diego says firmly, with no room for argument.
“So what do you say, Nick?” asks Mia. “You in? ”
It really takes no time at all for him to decide. For the people who have saved his life, who gave him an opportunity, who saw something in him when no one else did.
“We’re going to find this Redd White,” says Godot. “And when we do, he’ll have to answer to me.”
Despite the fact that Phoenix knows what Redd White has done, he still finds himself pitying the poor bastard who ends up on the wrong side of these three.
“Of course,” says Phoenix. “The measure of a man, right? Let’s get to work.”