DorkFish 3- Alls Fair in True Love and War

Ours Not To Reason Why, Hmm?

5:08 P.M.

"I can't believe you insist on wearing Oxfords in this kind of weather," Misha grumbled.

Jared slammed the door shut and glared at him across the darkness of the SXT's cabin. "I don't need any more shit right now, Misha. And they're boots, so back off."

Misha gave him a long look. "Rough day at the office?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Right. Buckle up."

Jared strapped in while Misha merged the back into traffic on 8th, but instead of staying the course for home toward Park, he banged an unexpected right on 42nd.

Jared looked at him. "Where are we going?"

"The guys miss you," Misha reported. "We're going out."

"You could have asked," he said, but his burgeoning smile belied his scolding. Ever since he'd put the kibosh on pistol practice on account of his pregnancy, he didn't get to see his mob brothers in arms very often anymore and he'd found himself missing their companionship and repartee.

"I didn't think you'd mind," Misha countered. "Now tell me what the hell happened today."

Jared's sullen mood returned with a vengeance. "Let's just say Murray's divined a bit more than I'm comfortable with."

"What does that mean?"

"It means you called it the other night and Jensen didn't need to bother with a date to the Met to do it."

"Not following you."

"You said he wanted a different piece of propaganda out of me. That he wants the world to think I dropped my crusade against organized crime because I'm romantically involved with him. Well that's more or less what happened in there today."

"So, either Murray figured it out, or you quit the paper."

Neither, but the result is the same – the Syndicate's out a propagandist."

The instrument panels cast just enough light to catch the marmoreal look in Misha's eyes. "Let me tell him this one, Jared."

"Why? You don't think I can handle it?"

"No, I don't. Besides, I don't even know whether you two are on speaking terms. You never told me what happened with your conversation the other night."

"Oh, the usual," Jared sneered. "He told me he loved me, and I called him a son of a bitch."

Misha's grip tightened on the steering wheel, his knuckles going as white as his mounting anger. "Boy, so help me God -"

"What was I supposed to do?" Jared demanded. "Tell him I love him back? When I'm trying my hardest to keep him an ocean away from me until we're ready to make a break for it?"

Misha opened his mouth to argue with him and then promptly shut it again when he came up empty. "I don't know," he grudgingly admitted. "But whatever you did, it worked because as far as I know the Atlantic still separates him from us."

"Amazing, isn't it," he shook his head. "Chrissake, Misha, give me a little credit once in a while."

"Oh please, Jared, I give it when it's due. Like back in December. That whopper you told him about the nightmares was genius."

"Okay, you know what? Let's just drop it."

"Fine. We still have a few days to fight over which one of us gets to tell him. But let me remind you of something; if he calls you first, whatever went down in that office today didn't happen until after the weekend because you're still in Montana, capisce?"