“Like the private shower,” Taylor said.
“Exactly. When Leigh was first hired here, she said she absolutely couldn’t pee or shower in the same room with a guy. She’d been assaulted and raped in the past. So we had the private shower and bathroom put in downstairs. It was the right thing to do.”
Taylor liked that. No, she freaking loved how accommodating Eagle and his friends were.
“Come on, I’ll take you downstairs,” Eagle said.
They went down the stairway into another huge room. This looked more like a place people came to play rather than relax. There were more comfy chairs around the space, but also a Ping-Pong table, a few foosball tables, and video games. Taylor’s fingers itched to play the pinball machine she saw in the corner, but she followed Eagle across the room instead.
He smiled when he saw where her eyes kept going. “I’ll let you play a few games later,” he told her.
“I don’t have any quarters,” she said.
His grin grew. “Don’t need any. They’re all set to free.”
Of course they were. Taylor should’ve guessed. She saw a few doors and assumed one was probably the private shower Eagle had talked about, and the others were maybe some closets.
Eagle headed straight for a very formidable-looking door tucked away in the corner. Instead of a keypad next to this one, there was a biometric reader of some sort. Eagle put his thumb on a little black square, and she heard a lock disengage.
For a second, she thought about one of the romance books she’d proofread where the bad guys had gotten past the biometric lock by chopping off the guard’s hand after they’d killed him and holding it up to the reader.
But her inane thoughts dissipated the second she walked into the large room, where three men stood as they entered. Taylor swallowed hard, feeling completely out of her element. She had no doubt these were Eagle’s friends.
There was a round table to the left, as well as computers, a small kitchen, and a bathroom in the back, which Taylor could see because the door was open. She had no idea what Eagle and his friends talked about in this room, but it was more than obvious to her that it wasn’t just a regular meeting space.
“Eagle,” one of the men called out. He walked toward them and gave Eagle one of those man-hugs where they slapped each other on the back really hard instead of actually embracing.
“Hey, Smoke.” Then he turned to the others and gave them a chin lift. “Bull. Gramps.”
The other men returned the greeting.
“Everyone, this is Taylor. Taylor, these are the best friends a man could ever have. This is Smoke,” he said, gesturing to the man who’d greeted them at the door. He was around the same height as Eagle, with dark-brown hair.
“The tall asshole is Gramps, and the guy with black hair is Bull.”
Taylor appreciated Eagle pointing out the features of his friends. She didn’t always remember what color hair people had, but it went a long way toward helping her keep the four men straight in her head.
“Hi,” she said quietly, giving them a lame little wave.
“Come sit,” Gramps said, gesturing to both her and Eagle.
Taylor did her best to memorize as much about the men as she could as she approached them. Gramps was indeed the tallest. He and Smoke both had shortish brown hair, so that wouldn’t help her distinguish them, but their height would. Bull was also the only one of the three who didn’t have brown hair; that would help her as well. Bull was wearing a red shirt, which would be easy for tonight, as the color reminded her of bullfights and waving red capes. Smoke was the only one wearing a pair of cargo pants, so that would distinguish him.
She nodded to herself, pretty confident that she’d be able to tell the four men apart. But when she saw them again—if she saw them again—it would be trickier since they’d be wearing different clothes.
“What’d you come up with?” Smoke asked when they’d all sat down at the table.
“What?” Taylor asked.
At the same time, Eagle said a little menacingly, “Careful.”
“I was just wondering how she decided to tell us apart,” Smoke said easily.
“Was it that obvious?” Taylor asked.
Smoke shrugged. “We’re an observant bunch,” he hedged.
Since she didn’t hear any morbid curiosity in his tone, and the other men simply looked interested, she decided, What the hell. “I should be good for tonight, but after you change, I won’t know you from Robert or Thomas or anyone else. But Bull’s wearing red, like a bullfighter’s cape, and has black hair; Gramps, you’re the tallest; and Smoke, you’ve got different pants on than everyone else.”
All three men nodded, as if in approval.
“She’s not a fucking carnival sideshow,” Eagle grumbled.
“What was the name of the woman who was in that car accident three weeks ago?” Bull asked. “You know, the one in the minivan with all the kids?”
“Meredith Oxgarden. Why?” Eagle asked.
“Didn’t she have like five kids with her?” Gramps asked, smiling.
“Yeah. Billy, Carly, Riley, Aaron, and Christopher. Again, what does she have to do with anything?” Eagle asked impatiently.
Taylor tried to hide her grin. She knew what his friends were doing. She put her hand on Eagle’s arm. “They’re just curious,” she said softly. “It’s fine.”
“Then why are they asking about Meredith and her kids?” he asked, completely confused.
Taylor chuckled. “They’re making a point.”
“Well, it’s a shitty point if I don’t understand it,” Eagle griped.
“You remember everyone. I remember no one,” Taylor said, still smiling. “We’re different. It’s probably fascinating to them. We make a weird pair.”
“Fuck you guys,” Eagle told his friends. “I can’t believe you haven’t gotten sick of doing that shit by now.”
“It’ll never get old,” Bull admitted.
“And you guys aren’t weird,” Gramps told her. “Opposites attract.”
“We’re just friends,” Eagle and Taylor said at the same time.
Bull, Smoke, and Gramps all grinned.
Taylor looked at Eagle and couldn’t help but giggle. He looked so put out, but she thought it was hilarious. She turned her gaze back to his friends. “I know Eagle told you about my prosopagnosia. It’s a pain in the ass, but there’s nothing I can do about it. When I meet people, I do my best to memorize things about them that stand out. Scars, tattoos, things like that. Anything distinctive that helps me recognize them when I see them again. I was hoping at least one of you would have some huge wart or something on your face so I’d immediately know it was you, but alas, you’re completely normal looking.”
Smoke gasped and held a hand to his chest. “Normal? Aw, come on. We’re the most handsome men on the planet. It’s a shame you can’t see that.”
Everyone laughed.
“But seriously, we’re just as interested in your condition as we are in Eagle’s. That’s where his name comes from, you know . . . because he’s got an eagle eye. If we rib you about it, it’s because we like you, not because we’re being malicious.”