#mnqbond

Truthfully, Eve had no idea what to say to the woman standing in front of her. James had never told her much about his childhood, and she never pressed him, knowing that it was clearly a hard thing for him to deal with. She couldn’t blame him. But looking at Monique, she couldn’t help but want to blame her for the way that James was now.

     It was already shaping up to be one god damn mess of a shit day.

     He was running on empty in every sense of the word; his rent was due in a week and a half, his pay was two and a half weeks late ( again, god damn it all ), and he’d hardly gotten a full night’s sleep in a week. His grocery list was steadily growing as the cupboards were steadily emptying.

     Grumbling to himself, Sharpe scuffed his combat boots on the concrete, digging into the large pockets of his fatigues for what little cash he had on his person. His free hand rubbed against the stubble on his cheek and then up, carding through his hair. He probably looked like hell--he hadn’t even looked in the mirror before he’d left, just up and went with a curse on his tongue and only five pounds and change in his pockets.

     He’d wanted a coffee and, damn it, he was going to get one.

     As if his day was destined to get ultimately worse, his boot caught on the uneven edge of the sidewalk when he stepped up onto the curb of the café and he nearly dumped the meager amount of money he had into the lap of the woman sitting at one of the tables outside the building.

     “Shit--!”

     He righted himself, feeling heat begin to creep up his neck at how foolish he suddenly felt... and looked.

Just when he thought he’d gotten out of espionage, somehow, it always seemed to reel him back in. Truthfully, it was no surprise. When someone spent all that time manipulating secrets and spies, they never quite left one alone.

[ Text: Delacroix ] WHAT?

[ Text: Delacroix ] Oh, no. No, no, no.