Chapter 6 Rocks Off

• Nancy missed the shocked expression on his face and the tea everywhere. She put her lip gloss away and smiled at him.
• “Sex,” Nancy said again. “You know.”
• “Excuse me?” Brice coughed, and more tea dribbled down his chin. He wiped at the spill and then his lips. “What I need is to leave. I have a meeting.”
• “Don’t worry about a thing. I have it all set up.” Nancy shoved her bag to the side and plucked the mug out of his hand. She walked to the sink and washed the cup out while she talked. “It’s an intervention.” Smiling, she hung his mug and then folded her arms over her large breasts.
• “What is?” He had no idea what they were discussing now.
• “You’re sex life.”
• “You can’t have an intervention involving my sex life.”
• “I can too,” Nancy chirped as she returned to the seat across from him. “After you lost your foot, you were struggling, and I’ll admit it, I didn’t know how to help. And on the mission to save Doctor Gears, you had that panic attack. Essie reminded me of that.”
• “Nancy.” Brice sighed. “I’m fine. And I give Essie a B minus for having such a great memory. But I don’t panic like that anymore.”
• “You don’t panic because you don’t take missions any longer. You haven’t gone outside the wire for like, um, I don’t know, forever. I can see that you’re still struggling, and I don’t have any suggestions for any of that.” She paused. “But…” She wiggled her eyebrows, and Brice decided he would give all the trainers extra duty as soon as he saw them. “If you need a date.” Nancy clapped happily. “I can do that.”
• “I don’t need a date.” Brice scooped up the list of names for the new men. Dating was the last thing he needed. “What I need is a nap.”
• “When was the last time you saw anyone or dated or even had sex?” Nancy grabbed his documents and then took his pen. Her expression turned to stone. “I mean it. When?”
• “Well...” Brice pressed his lips into a grim line. Part of him didn’t want to answer her because that question was highly personal. Nancy didn’t need to know about his sex life or lack thereof. And also, none of the instructors should be talking about what he was or wasn’t doing in the bedroom. Brice was their leadership. He should remind them of that fact.
• The other half of him didn’t answer because he didn’t know. If Brice thought back hard enough, he guessed that the most recent time he’d dated or had sex was before his last mission to save Gears.
• After his embarrassing panic attack, Brice took the head instructor’s job over the trainers that managed the H.S.P.C. Basic Agent Training Course. He hadn’t taken the position exactly. Rea and Keith insisted that the duty would give him time to heal.
• And then time passed.
• The training was all he did now. Brice looked after every aspect of the Basic Agent Skills Course and the six instructors who worked under him. He was currently creating a specific program for the men and women to hone their individual gifted abilities. When it came down to it, Brice didn’t have time for sex. There was a pandemic going on in old Canada and the North, and it crept closer to them every day. Containment was going slow. Snow Flu had people dying in mass. They had water bases to protect and an infrastructure to rebuild. All of that took skilled agents and guards. So that’s what Brice did. He created capable and proficient H.S.P.C. agents to protect the water bases in the Northern Earth Dens, and H.Q. Sex wasn’t on his agenda.
• “I’m going to take that really, really, really, long silence as a yes.”
• “A yes for what?”
• “A yes for your blind date.” Nancy did her happy clap again. “His name is Wykes, and he’s a cook here for a short time. He is cooking exclusively for Keith. Normally, he lives on another water base. He’s not one to stick around H.Q. No long, messy, or deep relationship. He is totally okay with a hook-up. I even checked out his paperwork. His blood work is clean, and this can be casual.”
• “Casual.” Brice’s mouth went dry. “Hook-up?”
• “You can charm him and fuck him. And if you don’t like him, I know women too. I can introduce you to Hanna from Custodial Services. She is kind of grumpy, but she knows what she’s doing. You know.” Nancy dropped her voice and winked. “You know.”
• “No.”
• “You don’t know?” Nancy’s expression switched to puzzled. “I didn’t think I’d have to spell it out for you. Hanna is good at—”
• “No,” Brice snapped. “I know what you mean, but no.”
• “No to Hanna?” Nancy nodded sagely. “That’s what I thought. My guy is much more your type. He’s cute. He’s got clean blood work, and he’s ready to have sex all night. You’ll meet him on the top floor of the building. Have a bottle of wine and see where the night takes you.”
• “I don’t have wine.” Brice wanted to rip out his hair. As he rose from his seat, like magic, Nancy produced a bottle from her bag. Brice’s shoulders dropped. When did the word no lose all meaning?
• “I told him you’d bring the wine, and he would bring his….” Nancy waved to her crotch. Using her hands, she spaced out ten inches.
• “Nancy…” Brice tried again, but she kept talking.
• “And you two will hit it off. I told him all about you.”
• “He wants to have sex with a scar-faced, washed-up, panic-stricken, former H.S.P.C. agent with one foot?” Brice was silently judging the man already. He wasn’t going to meet him. Anyone who wanted Brice probably wasn’t right in the head.
• “He doesn’t care about all that. He is getting over someone right now and needs to get under someone new. He’s looking to screw. The two of you could get your rocks off and go your separate ways.”
• “Rocks off?” Brice would make a decree that Nancy was no longer allowed to hang out with Essie and Ponce and the Deans. If he repeated this story, he was sure that Rea and Karma would agree to the new rule.
• “And then Essie said you’d be in a better mood once your balls were empty.” Nancy nodded like she was the authority on the subject of men’s testicles.
• “I appreciate the thought, but...” Brice started for the door hunting for a way to let her down without hurting her feelings. Brice understood that this idea came from a place of care and concern, but honestly, he was fine. The other trainers, the Deans, Nancy, and Essie, didn’t need to worry about him.
• “It would be nice if you were happy for a change. We’d all like it if you were less cynical and jaded and bossy.” Nancy took Brice’s arm and steered him into the hall.
• “I’m not bossy. I’m your leadership.” Even though he said it, right now, he felt like if anyone was bossy, it was Nancy. She did seem to be able to take charge at the drop of a hat. Brice just got railroaded.
• “Remember the top floor.” She hugged him. “You have a meeting. I’ll talk to you later.”
• Brice didn’t need to go to a redundant meeting about training tomorrow. He’d done this work long enough to have the schedule burned into his brain, but he nodded. While he smiled politely, he tried to come up with a way to get Nancy to understand he wasn’t going on a blind date with Wyatt or Wyman. He could see that she had her hopes up, but Brice wasn’t in the right place for romance. He couldn’t pretend to be normal or less cynical about life or love. Brice couldn’t even fake it for a night. It didn’t matter if his date was with a man or a woman.
• Staring down at the bottle of wine, he took a deep breath. When he looked up again, Nancy was already at the end of the hall. How a woman that chubby could move that fast was beyond him.
• “Top floor,” she called as she hurried away. Her backpack bounced on her shoulders. At the corner, she waved before she disappeared.
• Brice glared. He would have to leave the stranger dangling. There was no way he was heading to the top floor of H.Q. His rocks would just have to stay where they were.