HOW TO SLAY A DRAGON

"I'm so sorry I'm late," Amanda said, trying not to fumble with her purse as she pulled back the chair and sat down with a thud across from Billy Melrose. All the booths were full, in spite of it being before noon on a Tuesday. "I just had the weirdest thing happen."

Billy chuckled. "Not involving national security, I hope."

"Well…" Amanda settled in her seat. "In a roundabout way, I guess." She saw his brows shoot up in question. "I ran into Freddy Doyle at the supermarket." She sipped from the glass of ice water in front of her.

Billy looked out the window, as if the supermarket Amanda was talking about wasn't a five minute drive away. "Well I guess she must eat."

"I found out we're almost neighbors," Amanda said. "She just moved to the subdivision next to us."

If Francine had been at the table, Amanda knew she'd say something along the lines of how she'd read the property values in that neighborhood were starting to decline. But Billy was always more circumspect than Francine, and even if he disliked Doyle as much as everyone else, he kept his observations to himself. He wasn't one for wry asides.

Billy had invited her for lunch to talk about how her job was going. She'd never had lunch with Billy on her own before, only meetings. He'd been to her wedding and over at Christmas and he'd even had breakfast with her mother once — her mother — but she still felt odd about sitting at a table across from him without Lee or Francine or the noise of the bullpen outside his office door.

They could have met at the Agency as easily as anywhere else. Amanda would have gone right past it on her way home from her meeting. But Billy wanted a pastrami sandwich and a piece of blueberry pie, so he suggested they meet at The Pie Plate. And now here she was with her silly excuse for running behind, still feeling out of her element, and he looked perfectly content, anticipating the sandwich with its fresh marbled rye, grainy mustard, and sour pickle on the side.

They ordered their lunch and sat for a moment in a silence that was almost awkward, until Billy asked if she'd heard from Lee since he'd called the day before to ask them to send someone out to their hotel to check in on an informant.

"No," she said, "but Fred Fielder had a great time telling me about what happened to my car."

"Do I dare ask?"

"Someone backed into it." She felt her brows draw together. She couldn't believe the four men in her life had managed to let that happen and not called to tell her about it, even as she could believe that very thing had happened. "They broke a window and gave it a good dent. It's nothing Leatherneck can't fix, but I'm not going to let on I know."

"Lee didn't mention it when he called," Billy said, and Amanda knew he'd give Lee the benefit of the doubt, something he'd done so often it had probably become a reflex. "But maybe it hadn't happened yet."

"Oh no, it had already happened. Fred said they — my two husbands, he said, so I know Joe is in on it, too — they were taping up the window when they saw Benedek."

Billy turned his attention to his coffee, and Amanda knew he was smothering a smile.

She sighed and sipped the iced tea their waitress had set in front of her as they'd talked. She had thought about coffee but she was already jittery enough. "Anyway," she said, "I'm sure I'll get the whole story when they're back."

"I hope so," Billy said. "I'd like to hear it."

Amanda didn't say it, but she had a feeling the story Billy would hear might be closer to the truth than the version Lee would give her. It would certainly be closer to the truth than the narrative Fred Fielder had concocted.

She'd been stewing over Lee's little lies of omission as she'd moved through the supermarket, annoyed more by the lack of disclosure than the incident itself. As if they were all afraid of her reaction, when she'd never had an outsized reaction to anything they'd done on their trips, not even the horrible gash on Phillip's knee. The car was just an inanimate thing, and they had insurance, and it sounded like it wasn't even their fault. So why not tell her?

She hoped it wasn't because they were having a terrible time. Lee and the boys had so far seemed to have fun on their trips, but Phillip and Jamie had wanted to invite Joe along and Amanda knew Lee had worried about it a little. And so had Joe. And, to be honest, she had, too. She'd been relieved to see her "two husbands" trying to mend fences and make an effort to do things with the boys jointly. But vacationing together was a whole other animal, and a road trip with kids — even if they were teenagers — was another beast altogether.

"Anyway, speaking of Doyle," Billy began, cutting into her thoughts. "I wanted to check in with you about the team."

Amanda nodded. "What about it?"

"Well, how's it going? I know there are some, uh, strong personalities in the room. Everyone getting along?"

"Oh." Amanda shrugged. "Sure. You know." She paused. "Doyle's been fine."

"Fine?" Billy prompted.

"No worse than usual," Amanda said, though her vision of what might be "usual" for Doyle seemed to require some revision now.

She'd barely recognized the other woman in the supermarket. When Doyle was at work, she was as buttoned-down as you could get. Amanda was a relatively conservative dresser, not because she was a prude but because she wanted to present a professional front to her coworkers, all of whom knew her background as what Francine referred to as a "recovering Dolly Domestic." Even she thought Doyle was too severe most of the time — a caricature of a government official. She wore her slate-gray suits and impossibly starched white blouses like a suit of armor; her heels beat a tattoo on the polished floors of the hallway that sounded unlike anyone else's.

In the supermarket, on her day off, Doyle had been wearing shorts and a t-shirt, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail that bordered on messy. Sneakers on her feet. Pushing a cart full of all the same things Amanda often bought and was buying then — fruits, vegetables, boxes of cereal the boys liked. She's known Doyle was taking summer vacation that week but she'd assumed she'd have gone away somewhere.

Amanda had come across her at the dairy case, studying a container of yogurt. She had been reaching for the same brand and hadn't realized who she was standing beside until she'd spoken — she sometimes liked to make small talk with people. "There are so many kinds now, I never know what to choose," Amanda had said, cheerily, and Doyle had looked up in surprise. They'd both stood, silent for a moment, each holding their yogurt, until Amanda had given herself a mental shake and recovered her manners. "Hello," she said. "I didn't know you shopped here."

She'd immediately wanted to kick herself. Why would she know that? Doyle had never shared a single piece of personal information, ever. In fact, Amanda only knew she had a son because someone on the team had brought it up in a meeting and Doyle had answered the question.

"I didn't," Doyle said, "but I just moved." She'd set the yogurt down and looked as if she wanted to flee.

"Oh," Amanda had said, "is that how you've spent your week off? Moving? That's not very relaxing."

Doyle had sighed. "Well, it was unavoidable."

Amanda had dropped her yogurt into the cart and nodded. She hadn't expected Doyle to offer up any other details. She knew a little about Doyle's background, but all third-hand. She'd been about to say "well, see you next week," when Doyle had spoken again.

"Is there a good place around here for dinner?" Doyle had asked. "I don't feel like cooking tonight and my son is at camp."

Amanda was dying to ask where Doyle had moved to but felt as if it might be too much of an intrusion. She was dying to ask her a thousand things, but they all felt too personal. She knew Doyle wasn't fishing for an invitation, but she heard herself extending one.

"There's an Italian place not far from the high school," Amanda said, "in the strip mall. I know restaurants in strip malls can be terrible but that one's good." She'd shifted on her feet, and then the words had spilled out of her mouth in a way they did sometimes. "But you know, if you're tired from all the moving stuff and don't feel like a fuss, you're welcome to join me. I'm going to have sesame noodles and white wine and sit on the patio."

Doyle had clearly been taken aback, and Amanda had done what she often did — kept talking to fill the silence.

"I have the house to myself. Lee and the boys are on a trip with my ex-husband and they aren't back until Thursday and Mother's camped out at — at a friend's house." Jack's. Dotty was at Jack's, but that was already too much information for Doyle.

"Anyway." She felt silly, suddenly, blurting out all her plans in a ramble like that. Like she'd done with Lee at the beginning. It was just that Doyle unsettled her sometimes.

Not as much as she'd used to, mind you. When Amanda had come back from Station One with her full certification, Doyle had seemed to soften, almost imperceptibly. "She's reduced her snarky comments per meeting from ten to nine," Amanda had told Francine. "Well," Francine had said, "I can't wait to hear what happens on your girls' night out."

Francine had been joking, but it looked like Amanda had just made plans for a girls' night in. Doyle had somehow said that would be nice, and Amanda had scribbled her address on a slip of paper from the little notepad she kept in her purse, and now Doyle was coming by at six o'clock.

She told Billy this as he ate his sandwich and he started laughing, mid-bite. He pressed his napkin over his mouth and sat shaking in his seat for a moment, his eyes watering, before he was able to swallow and draw breath. "You what?"

"Oh, I know. I know it sounds ridiculous but I think she's probably lonely."

"I'm sure she is," Billy said. "On purpose."

Amanda sighed and ate a forkful of salad. It was Francine's favorite — a mix of greens with cranberries, oranges and walnuts. It was light and refreshing, but she wished she'd ordered fries.

"Do you know her story?" Billy asked, his voice low.

"Bits and pieces."

Francine had warned her — everyone had, really — that Doyle would probably try to sabotage her success. But Amanda had decided Doyle was no different than anyone else, and she'd continue to work hard and treat her the same way she did her other colleagues. Francine thought she was insane for trying to be kind to the woman. "You said I was a dragon slayer once," Amanda said, "and this is how you slay a dragon."

"It's not," Francine insisted. "You're going to get burned. Or poisoned."

Neither of those things had happened so far. Francine had forgotten about Amanda's ability to ride it out, and she'd also forgotten that Amanda knew how to protect herself. She took impeccable notes and kept careful records of her work — things she'd learned from being burned by another dragon, the Agency itself. And Doyle wasn't out to destroy anyone's career. She was out to protect her own.

It had taken Amanda a few months to get a handle on the notorious Freddy Doyle, but after watching and listening like any good agent she realized Doyle herself had been burned. Badly.

By her own husband.

Amanda had tried to imagine what it would be like to work so hard for something and then have the person who was supposed to love you take it all away. Her understanding of the actual details was sketchy at best but she'd pieced together the story from the team. Winifred Doyle had been a star candidate once. She had a brilliant mind and her methodical approach achieved impressive results. Her husband had been older, an established agent who wasn't quite as skilled as his wife but still a solid performer by all accounts — at least until someone discovered he'd been taking bribes.

Somehow — and Amanda was unclear on this — Doyle had uncovered his activities and provided key evidence to internal affairs. He'd lost his job and narrowly avoided criminal charges, and the marriage had ended acrimoniously. Along with Doyle's career prospects.

It wasn't that her colleagues didn't know she was brilliant. They hadn't forgotten. They knew she did exceptional work. She should have risen through the ranks. But her husband had begun a long campaign to stall her out, and he had a lot of allies in high places. So the slowing of her career happened incrementally. She was dropped from big cases, she was left out of pivotal meetings, she didn't get the promotions she was due. One of their fellow team members had told Amanda that Doyle had started to believe everyone was out to get her, that they were all looking for fault with her work and trying to find ways to keep her on the sidelines.

So the little encounter at the grocery store that morning, and Doyle accepting her invitation, had come as a surprise.

"Anyway, I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing," Amanda said, sipping her iced tea.

"You should," Billy said. "What you're doing is great."

"Well, thanks. I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary, really."

"Except helping crack the Silverton Labs case."

"Oh." Amanda waved a hand. "That wasn't me, though. That was thanks to my mother. You know that."

Billy laughed. "Well, you know Freddy Doyle sent me a note about it, basically thanking us for helping close it."

"I didn't know she'd sent a note," Amanda said. "She said thank you after a meeting once, and then never said another word about it."

That little thank-you had been a turning point, the thing that had made Amanda sure she should take on her new role as interagency liaison. In the grand scheme of things, she knew it was probably an insignificant gesture to most people. Coming from Doyle it was a major breakthrough.

"She said thank you?" Billy asked, surprised. "See, I'm right. You're handling everything exactly as I thought you would. That's why I wanted you in that role, Amanda. You're good at building bridges, on top of everything else."

Amanda's face flushed with heat. 'Oh well, you know. People are complex sometimes. You just have to be patient and try to figure them out."

Billy nodded. "I admire that about you."

"What?"

"Your ability to hang in there."

"Well." She shrugged. "I'm not a saint. I only do it when I can see there's some potential."

She saw Billy's eyebrow lift in question, and she knew he was wondering when she hadn't hung in there. Who she'd given up on. She wasn't going to mention Fred Fielder. Amanda straightened in her seat. "You do the same."

She had meant that Billy hadn't given up on her, not even when she'd made a mess of things. She knew Francine had been ready to throw up her hands and there had been times Lee, now her biggest cheerleader in the world, had even suggested she should quit. But Billy had always remained firmly on her side.

Billy's dark eyes twinkled. "Well, you know," he said. "Potential."

Now Freddy Doyle was coming over for dinner on the patio, and Amanda had a feeling "hanging in there" had been the right thing. It was still the right thing. Her husband and colleagues joked about Amanda and Doyle being friends, and while Amanda had given up caring whether everyone liked her she had a feeling that deep down, Doyle might. Just a little. Or at the very least (and this was possibly even better), Doyle seemed to respect her.

Their waitress, a new recruit, hovered at Billy's elbow, asking if they'd like dessert. Billy ordered his blueberry pie, a la mode but Amanda asked for another iced tea instead.

She wondered if Doyle would like pie. There was a summery rhubarb-strawberry listed on the specials board, and a tub of vanilla ice cream in the basement freezer, along with a box of Dotty's cookies. She had her bases covered and, potentially, a little leftover treat for herself for the next day — something that almost never happened when the jet-ski-crashing, car-smashing, conflict-avoiding men in her life were around.

Now if only she could guarantee her bases were covered in the conversation department. The thought of the evening stretching on in awkward silence made her insides quake. What if she compulsively filled the air with non-stop rambles and Doyle barely spoke? What if any of that respect she thought Doyle might have for her evaporated in a puff of smoke?

She wanted to laugh, suddenly. She sounded like she was fretting over a date, not inviting a colleague over for a simple dinner. Her inner monologue reminded her of how she'd first coached herself about her interactions with Lee.

He'd been a challenge at first, too, come to think of it. Not quite a dragon, but on the road to becoming one. Difficult and secretive, blustery and volatile. But he'd come around eventually. Amanda was sure Doyle would, too. She'd already started breathing a little less fire.

Amanda sipped her tea, watching as Billy savored his first forkful of blueberry pie. Maybe she didn't need to slay this particular dragon. Maybe taming her was enough.