“Jesus. Matty really got your number, didn’t he? No wonder he picked us for his patsies. He saw you, got one look at you, at the fucking twenty-six-year-old virgin who was dying, just dying for somebody to come along and fuck his cherry out of him. Jesus Christ, Shaw. How hard did you even make him work? What did he do? Bat his eyes, blow a kiss, and drop his trousers, and you were down there gobbling his cock like a fucking dog? Twenty-six years, and you give it up to the first guy who even looks in your direction because you’re so fucking desperate. Twenty-six years, and you pick that fucking sociopath in there because you’re such a fucking loser that you can’t get a normal guy on a normal date to so much as buy you fucking dinner. It’d be funny if it weren’t so fucking pathetic. And now, because this guy slipped you some dick, you’ve got hearts in your eyes and you’re willing to go to the wall to protect him. If I’d known you needed dick this badly, maybe I should have just bent you over your desk one afternoon and taken care of the whole problem. At least that way we could have done our fucking jobs.”

Shaw froze with his hand combing back the hair that had fallen in his face. The color drained from his cheeks. He wobbled, and over the hiss of blood in his ears, North heard something, a kind of whoosh like his words had driven the air from Shaw’s lungs. The white-out rage drifted. Settled. North blinked his vision clear, and he could see the wreckage of his speech like a landslide, tearing down everything in Shaw’s face.

“Christ. Shaw. Christ. I’m sorry—”

“Get out.”

“I was way over the fucking line. That was totally inappropriate. I’m really sorry.”

Shaw seemed to be trying to speak. His hand was still glued to the side of his head. Then, after a swallow, he said, “Get out.”

“Ok. I’ll go. Just—I am so, so sorry. I don’t know what I was—”

“Get out, North. Get out and don’t ever come back. Don’t ever call me. Don’t ever talk to me. You’re fired.”

“You can’t—” North rocked back, his weight crashing down on his heels. “You can’t fire me.”

“Why? You’re fucking nothing. You’re all fucking bluster. Who put up the money for this place? Me. Who pays the bills when we don’t work for months—for months—because of you? Me. Who’s got all the paperwork in his fucking name so Marvin Hanson couldn’t take the business when he sued you? Me. Who’s got—”

“Shaw, please—”

“Who’s got his fucking private detective license? Me. Not you, North. You’ve got nothing. You are nothing. You’re not even a detective. You know that right? You’re like—you’re like my sidekick. You were allowed to tag along. Now you’re not. So get out.”

“Fine. You want to fire me, that’s fine. I deserve that. I deserve whatever you want to do. I can’t even believe I said those things, and that’s not what I think about you, it’s not—it just. It just came out.”