“Hazel! Right!” Mike laughed, mostly at himself, and then out of sheer relief. A new partner. Already! Somebody on high had answered his prayers (and near-constant emails).
She was a petite, serious-looking woman wearing a polite smile—something he was very familiar with seeing when it came to meeting new people. Especially when those new people were first being introduced to him in his less-than-organized office. Between him and Connor, the place didn’t exactly scream professionalism. There was order to Mike’s chaos, but to an outside observer, it probably just looked like chaos, pure and simple, with no rhyme or reason.
“God, no, you’re welcome to stay and get caught up—you probably want to get this over with so you can catch half a breath, right?”
He swept over to Connor’s old desk and picked a few haphazardly thrown files off the chair and then swiveled it to face Hazel; a twenty-first century attempt at holding out a chair. In turn, he flopped back into his own. “I’m really glad to meet you, and very relieved that you’re here. It’s been a hell of a week.” And without Indigo’s help, he likely would have drowned rather than merely floating by. “I never kept stuff on Connor’s—old partner—desk before, so I promise I won’t make a habit of using this entire office as my own personal garbage heap.”