The shrug wasn't as final as Harris wanted to make it. But then, the smile on Ablaze's lips was also far from final. It was teasing, anticipating, maddening. She was playing a game and at least he knew what it was.

Harris leaned against the counter, arms crossed. Sarkisian swag clothed him like sturdy armor. "It's the best news you could give me."

"Oh?" She cocked one brow up and didn't ‌close her lips even after the sound of 'oh'. This pout was so pretty, he'd scoop her in his arms if he could. But it was too early for such an advanced move in their game. All he could do for now was to brag about how attractive he was to other people. Preen. Open his tail as wide as it went. Stupid animal fun, like all the courtship displays.

"I just met a girl. I think she might be the one." No harm in laying it thick, right? "Wanted to invite her to the gala, but didn't want to trigger the third wheel syndrome."

"You have a sensitive soul."

"Guilty as charged."

What was getting charged was the air between them. Ablaze touched the inside of her top lip with the tip of her tongue. A huntress, a true huntress, Artemis or Black Widow.

"If I knew you had life-altering plans, I would have insisted on another guide around the station, Harris."

His pulse quickened. Jung. She meant Jung, because who else could she mean? She picked on the energy between his boss and him, their rivalry, and wanted to lure him out into confessing it.

Perhaps he could give her an inch of truth. Harris forced his shoulders to relax. The easy posture of an alpha predator in this jungle. "What's life without a few twists and turns? I'm delighted I've gotten to know you ."

Maybe it wasn't an inch. An inch was a lot. A quarter-inch? Seemed sufficient, for a sly smile flitted to her lips, like something was brewing. Yellow alert!

He rushed in to head off her smirk by good-natured rambling. "And now I'll meet Oliver too. He must be one hell of a guy to capture your attention!"

For a second, her eyes held some emotion, then it was gone. She didn't spend her whole life perfecting her social skills, but she sure knew how to hide it like a pro. Harris clung to the sliver of the raw feeling she'd shown, because to identify it would bring him closer to the real her.

"This is wonderful! You saved my life..." There was a tremor in Ablaze's voice. Perfectly natural when someone spoke about nearly burning alive, but if he had any money to wager, it would be on the same fear that had darkened her gaze a second ago. Yes, the emotion she was hiding from the world was fear. Harris' gut twisted: something about Oliver, about their relationship, was rotten.

"Oliver is so devoted to me," Ablaze said, as if she could read his thoughts and wanted to dispel them. "He'd hate to miss a chance to meet you."

"Now he won't. Wonderful!" Harris said. She called her boyfriend devoted. Such a curious choice of a word to describe a lover.

"And the lucky girl, this—?"

Her querying gaze dug inside his soul, but he knew better than to cough up the name for a pair of pretty eyes. "I want to surprise her, so with my sincere apologies, I won't mention it on camera."

If Desiree had other plans for the weekend, his dad's matchmaking obsession should come in handy. There had to be a beautiful woman in Milwaukee—he'd settle for a pretty one with a beautiful soul if he had to—there had to be a woman in Milwaukee willing to accompany him to this fancy party. So fancy, in fact, he couldn't have afforded it. Only thanks to the assignment, he had a ticket, and this ticket said 'and a guest'. He could treat one lucky girl at the Station's expense.

Shame mixed with frustration blocked his throat. Some player he was!

"Excuse me, I'd like to—" He dug up his phone, hoping Ablaze would ascribe his embarrassment for impatience to ask Desiree out.

Once out of the breakroom, he slumped against the wall and opened Desiree's contact on the text app, but the phone weighed his sweating hand. God, will this penny-pinching existence ever end? He just wanted to wake up one morning without knowing to a dollar how much he owed. Then a girl of Ablaze's caliber could take him seriously.

Speaking of the devil—Ablaze stuck her head out into the hall. "Harris?"

"A minute!" His frantic typing looked like he was composing an epic poem at a minimum. Yet, all his texts said was:

Harris: Want to meet up Saturday night?

Not much, but he made Ablaze look for him, and that brought a grin to his face. He'd just scored some major points in their game.

While Harris had a fun day, Sam seemed dazed when they reached the Duke and Whistle, a local bar. Harris squinted at the giant TV screens to get his bearings and help Sam do the same. With some football game's endless close-ups, everyone's faces looked greenish. It was a much bigger crowd than he was used to, because he finished his day at the same time as the office workers from the buildings he drove by on the way to work. Men and women huddled at the tables, their eyes aglow. They inched forward to listen, then sat back and laughed at every story. It was an awkward way to chat, but it let them off the hook from actually listening. So long as they could stay on this social teeter-totter and copy facial expressions from those who cared about what was being said, they were good.

Since Harris planned to pump Sam for information, he found a table at a maximum distance from the screens and the loudest groups. The smell of French fries vied for dominance with booze, but Harris ignored the rumblings of his stomach. Dad would be cooking. No need to waste his money on the glorified chopped potatoes.

After they settled down, he laced his fingers around a sweating mug. It chilled his skin so pleasantly; he wanted to draw it across his forehead after Sam toasted him. "We survived, mate. Cheers!"

"Yeah. Cheers." He took a sip. Even his Dad wouldn't say 'no' to this beer. Though, he was starting to suspect his dad liked beer in secret because there were bottles in the trash, but not a single case in the fridge. Why would he hide it, beat Harris. People were weird. "So, what's up?"

"Uhm, I ‌wanted to give you a heads up." Sam said, looking from his beer up at Harris. "I'll be bailing out before Oliver shows up."

"And the filming?"

"She'll manage somehow." He chuckled unhappily. "Oliver wouldn't do it for her, that's for sure."

The way he said it..."Not a fan of the guy, right?"

Sam rotated his mug and nodded. "He's too smooth, ya know? Like he's shaving three times a day in the desert, and it's about as natural as Lawrence of Arabia's baby-cheeks."

Harris frowned, trying to remember anything about the old movie. Some British spy doing spy things during WW1? "Is he British?"

"Hell knows, but sounds like one. Oliver-bloody-Appleby, a right proper chap."

Harris laughed at Sam's changed accent, since both sounded pretty British to him. There was also more under the surface than a natural dislike of a laid-back man toward a posh one. The kind of bitterness that comes from the 'one who got away' business. "So, Ablaze and you...?"

"Friends." Sam chugged his beer in giant gulps. "Good friends. That's why I'm getting the heck out. Can't watch her simper over that ass."

"Heh." He felt Sam's sentiment in his bones. They were bros for now, united in detesting the guy who beat them both. "You aren't employed by her then?"

"Just hanging on for the old times' sake. I met her in our last year of high-school—"

Harris' breath caught. He prayed the server would stop wandering over to refill Sam's mug and interrupt the flow of their conversation. Luckily, some new arrivals stomped into the bar. Apparently, hump day or not, the party never stopped.

"I know I don't look like it, but my parents are big shots. They're all about international trade missions, receptions, country hopping and all that jazz."

Harris sucked his teeth. "Not gonna lie, I wouldn't mind living a day or two of this kind of life."

"A day or two, surely! For more, you need to be like my sisters. They lap it up. With me, well, it was clear before I was twelve that I wasn't cut out for it. Didn't stop my folks from making a last ditch effort when they went to Singapore."

Sam's eyes misted over as he squinted into the past, but luckily, it didn't take him long to get to the point.

"Yeah... Singapore is a great place if you don't mind crowds. Good food, good people. I would have been a happy camper, but my folks had to mess it up for me. They found this private school— a slice of hell on Earth."

"Rich snobs?"

"The worst. The right people to rub shoulders with if you're a future elite, but if you're your own guy...hell."

"And Ablaze?"

"She was another outsider. The Leungs had just moved her back to Singapore from a sanatorium in the States... you know about her parents, right?"

Harris nodded.

"Okay. So, they wanted her out of sight while her health was 'embarrassing' them. The moment she was well enough, they wanted to use her. The only girl in the family, and lots of eligible young men from useful families to go around."

Harris gripped his beer mug. "That's medieval."

"You and I may think that, but old ways, they don't die out fast. When peeps are into it, it works as well as marrying for love. Who are we to judge?" He shrugged, hinting that they were drinking the night away instead of chasing love. "Anyway, Ablaze ended up in that hellish school."

The waiter finally came to take the refill on Sam's order. Fortunately, this pause wouldn't ruin their conversation. No way Sam would clam up after he got so far into the story.

"The rumors started the minute she stepped there. Two outcasts, we bonded." His blue eyes veil over, remembering. "Not going to lie, I thought there was going to be more than bonding, but she said a guardian angel was looking over her, so she must remain pure."

Harris nearly jumped out of his seat. "An angel? A fiery angel?"

"She didn't share pictures." Sam shrugs. "I thought it was just her way of friend-zoning, and I'm not into haranguing girls who're not interested. They usually come onto me, not vice versa. So, we were friends."

Blond, rich, tall, nice. Yes, Sam would be used to things going his way. It was commendable that he was such a gentleman, too. Harris squirmed, because this couldn't be the complete story. "But?"

"But weird shit started happening."

"What weird shit?" Talk to me, man, please!

Sam smiled, enjoying his impatience.

"First, there was that girl, the richest, prettiest and, consequently, the meanest of the lot. Ruled the roost, so to speak. She wouldn't let Ablaze go two steps without saying something demeaning."

Acid rose in Harris' throat. He wanted to be in that school, in Sam's place—

"The bitch got a new iPhone. You remember those times, right? People slept in lines to get the new model, that kind of insanity. Thank God those times are gone."

"Thank God," Harris echoes.

"Her newest and greatest toy went missing. The hubbub she raised was insane! She was robbed! Oh, the disgrace! Two days down the road, our poor rich girl opened her locker—"

"And she found her phone?"

"Oh, yes. But it was worse than that. Not sure why, but somehow, all her posse was with her, because, naturally, a Queen can't travel the halls alone. Also, there was a teacher there. They all saw her retrieve it, and she couldn't bully them to keep it quiet."

Harris laughed.

"Unfortunately, the rest isn't funny. The phone rang, she answered to cover up her embarrassment—and the bloody thing caught fire."

"Shit."

"Yes, shit. She's gotten serious burns, a mark she could never hide on her face. Ablaze went into a religious frenzy. Fasting, praying... I was too weirded out to ask if she did anything to atone for."

Harris hadn't touched his beer, but his head swam. It sounded like a coincidence, sure, but her parents died in an explosion. There were separate bobby traps in the Avantgarde and the other hotel. She obviously wasn't well, and young, and impressionable. A perfect storm.

"Then—" Sam drawled.

"There was more?"

"Oh, yes. One of her cousins secretly upskirted her. At home, where she should have felt safe. The pervert then posted his videos. Of course, it got shared and re-shared before it got to her. She went to complain to her family, but, naturally... 'boys will be boys', they told her."

Harris bit back a cuss. "The precious boy versus an inconvenient niece?"

"Precisely. That little punk had a car. In Singapore, they're packed like sardines in their highrises, so cars are not for an average citizen. And his car wasn't some Toyota Corolla."

"Lemme guess. It caught fire?"

"Uh-huh. Burned down to ashes. They had insurance, and Ablaze was at school when the fire had started, but they packed her off back to the States. That was when I started wondering if there was something to this guardian angel business."

They sat in silence for a bit as Harris absorbed the story. A vision of a car—a Ferrari, no less—going up in flames replayed in Harris' mind like a video clip on repeat. Revenge was a bad thing, and he was a firefighter, so under no circumstances he could commend this... but daaamn! The mean girl lost her good looks, and a toxic male lost his dick mobile. This was epic revenge, if it was revenge.

If she was motivated by retribution, though, what did Avantgarde do to her? And that other hotel? Why would she want to perish in the flames with it while naked? Was it the cleansing of sins by fire? And speaking of sins...

Harris cleared his throat. "How does Oliver fit in with her decision to stay away from romance? Has she changed her mind since high school?"

"Ah, that." Sam drained his second mug and slammed it on the table. "When the Leungs unearthed her to introduce them, she hated the idea. For whatever reason, she went to Singapore anyhow, met him, and..." he shook his head ruefully.

"And?" Harris insisted. His hackles were rising.

"It was like she fell under a spell. So, mate, what I'm trying to tell you is..." Sam gave him a crooked grin. "She ain't for me, and she ain't for you either. You think you have a shot, but you'll see. Next to Oliver we might as well don't exist."

Then Sam threw a few bills on the table—more than enough to cover the bill—and walked out of the bar, leaving Harris alone in the crowd. His thoughts came together in clumps and broke into shards again.

His every instinct screamed that Ablaze liked him. Yes, that way. But, but, but! Sam saw them together, even filmed it. He knew Ablaze for—what? Four or five years? She couldn't be much over twenty... Sam knew her well, and was obviously in love with her, and he'd given up. And Sam sounded absolutely sure that Harris would give up, too.

Sam was wrong, though. Competition only spurred Harris on. He wanted her more, not less because of Oliver coming into the picture. That's how he was wired, and he couldn't help it, curse it!

Then, there were these old fires from her past to add to the ones in Milwaukee. He had to stop thinking with his dick and to think about that.

He had to think...and his phone beeped with an incoming call.