I didn’t sleep well the night after Payton had bolted from my room. I had become so comfortable with her that I didn’t think twice about tickling her like I would a little sister. But the look on her face as I pinned her to the bed screamed panic, and then waves of defensive aggression came off her as she crouched near the wall. She had told me that fighting had become essential to her survival the night we met.
What in God’s name did she have to fight her way out of? That thought left a sour taste in my mouth and caused my stomach to twist. I would do almost anything to not have Payton look at me with that much fear again. I needed to be more careful with her.
After the way we had left things, I was worried that Payton would not show up for our morning training. I was pacing near the large green warped wall when I spotted her walking towards me from the parking lot. I had so many questions buzzing in my head about her past that I knew she wouldn’t answer. When she stopped to stand before me, I couldn’t find the right words to say. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t care what was in her past, that we could just move forward together, but the words never left my mouth.
The silence stretched between us until she just nodded her head slightly, straightened her shoulders, and looked at the ground. I could feel her pull further away from me in that moment and had no idea how to stop it. She cleared her throat and moved to start our warm-up jog around the field. I ran to catch up and we continued the rest of our hour and a half workout in a tense silence that tore me up on the inside. I needed to say something to fix this. Something to let her know that I didn’t think any less of her. Something to let her know that she could trust me with anything.
We were just finishing up in continued silence when I heard someone call my name and looked up to see Ethan. “Oh my God, that’s Ethan. Chris’ team leader.” I told Payton as we stopped and looked over to where Ethan was waiting for me. “Come on I will introduce you.” Payton looked hesitant but followed me.
“Hey Ethan. Good to see you! I thought the whole team was down in Cuba.” I reached over to shake Ethan’s hand enthusiastically and then turned to introduce Payton. “Ethan, this is Payton Taylor, the reason I have not ran back to Silicon Valley with my tail between my legs. Payton this is Ethan Carter, the brave leader of my brother’s team.” Ethan reached out his hand and after a tense moment of consideration Payton returned the gesture and shook his hand.
“Hello. I was just talking with Ford and he said that you two are out here every morning. I thought I would stop by and see if you wanted to join me for breakfast.” I had noticed some team leaders and current Whistler agents starting to come to the training sessions and interacting with recruits and was relieved that Ethan hadn’t forgotten about me.
“We would love to join you! But you better let us shower first. We will meet you in the dining hall in fifteen.” Payton looked surprised to be included but there was no way I was letting her miss this. My plan was to show Ethan how incredible Payton was, so he had no choice but to let her join his team too.
When we walked away from Ethan, Payton finally spoke for the first time that morning. “Listen, I need to go back to the hotel to shower and I don’t want to crash your reunion with Ethan. I will just catch you later.”
I reached out and gently grasped her arm to stop her from walking away. I was glad to notice that she didn’t flinch away from my touch like she did more times than not. “Nope. You’re not getting out of this. Ethan is good people and right now your only perspective of Whistler agents comes from Dwight, and that cowboy is just plain crazy. You can shower in my room. And then we will both go and have breakfast with Ethan.” Payton took a moment to search my eyes for something. She must have found what she was looking for because she nodded and followed me back to my room.
Twenty minutes later we walked into the dining hall and found Ethan sitting with Ford, Dwight, and two other men that I didn’t know but assumed from their hardened looks that they were other team leaders. Payton and I grabbed food and then sat to join them. After Ethan had introduced us, the team leader Ethan had called Jackson addressed me.
“Hey, you’re the wiz kid that hacked into our system within days of getting here right?” I felt weird taking credit for Payton’s hack when it was clear that this man was impressed with the work. But I couldn’t correct him with Dwight sitting right there so I just nodded. “Impressive work kid. I could use a tech guy on my team. We should talk later.”
This surprised me. I had always assumed the only way I would be picked to work on a Whistler team was through my brother’s connections. I paused for a second to consider what it would be like to work independently of Chris. I had always operated within Chris’ shadow and I had grown accustomed to always having Chris in my life. It could be freeing to possibly get away from that.
Before I could comment Ethan spoke up. “No poaching my recruit Jackson.”
“Hey, he is fair game for the next three weeks. And I am going to show him what is missing by joining your hack team.” Jackson retorted as he winked at Ethan.
I noticed Payton watching the interaction with interest and attempted to include her in the conversation. “Well if you are looking for computer skills you should talk to Payton here. She is helping me build a tougher firewall to prevent future breaches to the system.”
Jackson turned to look at Payton. “Yes, you are the one that took out the entire team in the first challenge before your ‘client’ even entered the building. That was very smoothly done.”
Before Payton could respond Dwight added, “I attribute that success to Amir Safar. Military snipper. Very efficient and very deadly. I can introduce you to him later today Jackson.” I couldn’t believe that Dwight had just disregarded Payton like that. Amir and Payton had worked as a team, working together seamlessly to get the job done. Dwight wasn’t very good at hiding his feelings about female recruits but this was the first time I heard him say something this sexist.
Jackson turned back and addressed his question directly to Payton. “Do you feel that Amir was responsible for that job?”
“Amir is incredibly skilled. But please don’t forget that Oliver guided us through the building using the camera feeds and Jon came up with the operation plan. Jon and Victor didn’t get to participate in the action, but they provided personal protection to our client and that was the purpose of job. We succeeded as a team that day.”
The table remained silent for a while after Payton finished her little speech about teamwork. And then the other team leader, Wilson, slapped his hand on the table and laughed. “Now here is someone who really gets the Whistler way. We both succeed and fail as a team.”
“Speaking of teams,” Payton said, “I have to go meet mine. It was lovely to meet you.” She nodded at Ethan and then left the room. I glanced down at my watch and noticed that I had plenty of time until I was supposed to meet up with my team. Either Payton’s team had planned on meeting early or she just wanted to get away from this conversation. I didn’t like that we hadn’t settled things between us. In the month Payton had become such an integral part of my life, that I felt off balance not knowing where we stood.
“Damn that one is a looker. Has she hooked up with anyone yet?” I looked over at Jackson with surprise and a little disgust. Why would he talk about Payton like that?
Dwight pointed his chin at me and drawled, “Those two are inseparable.”
Jackson laughed and pounded me on the back in a congratulatory manner. “Good for you boy. No one said you had to spend these six weeks living like a monk.”
I was further disgusted by this comment and tried to defend Payton. “It’s not like that. We are just friends. She has been helping me train.”
“You don’t need to use euphemisms with us, boy,” Jackson continued. “We have all been through the same program. We know how it works with the female recruits.” I looked around the table and noticed that they all agreed with Jackson. I started to feel sick to his stomach. Was that all Payton was to these men? A distraction that they could laugh about. Did any of them take Payton seriously as an agent? Did Ethan? I was about to speak up and clarify things about Payton when I heard my voice being called along with a girly laugh.
“Hey there, Oliver,” Elena purred as she moved to in Payton’s vacated seat. “You didn’t tell me you were meeting with our brave leaders this morning.” She turned and leaned on her elbows to introduce herself to the table, giving everyone a clear view of her cleavage. “I’m Elena Petrov. I am working with our Oliver here.” Inside I recoiled from Elena’s statement. I didn’t belong to Elena in any way shape or form.
Jackson’s easy chuckle filled the hall. “Damn boy. Got both of them eating out of your hand, do you? Yes, I think we need to talk later. You would fit in great with my men.” He then turned his attention to Elena and intoned, “Hello beautiful. We were just headed to training courts to observe you fine recruits. Do you care to join us?” With that he, Dwight, Ford, and Wilson left with Elena, leaving me alone with Ethan.
I turned to Ethan and whispered, “You know it isn’t like that right. I have barely even talked with Elena and Payton is just a friend. She is doing great in this program and has had my back when no one else did.”
“Yeah I heard about the indecent outside the bar on the first night. Has anyone else been giving you any trouble here?” I wondered how he could possibly know about the fight with Brett and Vincent. Ethan must have read the confusion on my face because he explained, “The kind of guys that come through this program can be kind of rough and judgmental to those who didn’t put their time in through the military. If anyone is giving you any flack, I can protect you.”
In that moment I realized that I didn’t need Ethan’s protection because I already had Payton’s. No one had come at me since that first night. And ever since I took credit for the hack most of the guys around here treated me with respect. But if Ethan was right about the guys ganging up on non-military types, I wondered how Payton was faring in her group with Derik and Brett. She never complained but then again, she probably wouldn’t complain if she was on fire. And come to think of it, she did seem to be banged up more than everyone else and had seemed more withdrawn this last week. And then I had to go pin her to the bed and freak her out even more. Fuck, I really needed to fix things with Payton. Make sure she knew that I was on her side. Maybe I could do something to help.
“Listen Ethan I need to tell you something,” I figured if Ethan could protect me then he could also protect Payton. “I didn’t hack into Whistler’s network, Payton did. And I haven’t had any trouble with guys like Brett since she knocked him out cold and warned that anyone that messed with me also messed with her. When I told you that the only reason I haven’t gone home was because of Payton, I wasn’t exaggerating. She deserves to be here. She deserves to be a Whistler agent.” I took a deep breath before continuing, “And I think that her current team is giving her a hard time. Can you look into it?”
Ethan rubbed his hand over the stubble that was forming on his chin before answering. “Listen Oliver there is a reason that most teams don’t have any women on their team. This might not be the right place for Payton.”
I refused to believe that. Payton was one of us.
“Please Ethan.”
“Okay I will look into it.” Ethan promised in a resigned voice. “I will look into this if you would look into the job in Cuba. We would really benefit from a look at the financials connected to the chemical manufacturing plant.”
I thought that was a small price to pay to protect Payton, plus I could prove to Ethan that I could contribute to the team. “Consider it done!”
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