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Pic—ooh, I like this office. Fits Burton. Even if that space on the wall behind the desk looks like a headboard for a bed. (I can also imagine others making fun of that, which makes me grin.)

All right, let's get into this meeting with Mr. Section Chief!


So he shook Burton’s hand, preparing himself for some unexpected low blow.
         You do the same thing I did before someone pointed it out to me and made me go, “Whaaaat? C'mon, now.” That is, you use “so” a lot. It's becoming noticeable. And I know—oh, do I know, how having this pointed out makes you go, “Well, because it's supposed to go there!” But most of the instances where it starts off a sentence, you don't actually need it. Like here, the sentence before and then this one implies the “So.”

Burton invited him to sit on the couch, not his desk.
         Since I'm sure he's not inviting Brock to sit on his desk, you need some kind of preposition before “desk.” You can probably get away with “at,” but “before” is probably more correct. If you wanted to avoid this preposition thing, though, you could reword: Burton directed him toward the couch rather than his desk.
         Great opening paragraph by the way. It lets me know what to think of Burton immediately, just by how Brock's feeling. And by knowing what to think of him, I can get an image of his office even without the picture.

Brock’s alarms set off all at once.
         Right? Dude, I forgot how entertaining this meeting was.

assigned next, now my semester in Massachusetts is due.”
         Missing a word: now that my
         Also, it's not really “due,” but “over.” Using the word “due” makes it sound like that's his next assignment. Like he's “due to be there.” Make sense?

“Well, they’re still asking us for some backup from El Paso.
         Either: backup in El Paso.
         Or maybe: “Well, El Paso's still asking us for some backup.

showing him the fine upholstery of the used car he was always trying to sale.
         ”sale” should be “sell” here.
         Also, while you know I love the analogy, it springs up and trips me. I think it would be awesome if there was a set-up for this a little sooner. Maybe point out his car-salesman tone or something in one of the previous paragraphs—any little thing so that when you get to this line, is makes total sense in context as I read it.

Burton’s salesman instinct told him to sweeten the pot
         This sentence looks to be in Burton's POV, so it's not sticking well to the end of a paragraph that's so very much in Brock's POV. Make a new paragraph out of it? You could stick it with Burton's dialogue, which immediately follows this line. That'd work well since that line is him sweetening the pot—by looking as if he's giving Brock a choice, right? Though, I admit, I'm not sure how he thinks seeming to give Brock the choice and then telling him no is “sweetening the pot.”

That’s the price for being back to the field,
         That “to” should be “in”

Maybe I can be a couple of weeks in Massachusetts,
         Word order: Maybe I can be in Massachusetts a couple of weeks,

The only thing you can do here is giving seminars.
         That “giving” should be “give”
         You know, of course I feel bad for Brock because I know he wants to be in DC, and I like the guy, so I should be wanting him to have what he thinks will make him happy. Yet, also of course, I'm rooting for Burton to keep him in Boston. I'm on Burton's side! You've made me be on Burton's side! I just had to articulate this because I found it entertaining and noteworthy.

fought so hard and so long to get you back to the field
         back in the field

picking up when it suited him better.
         I'm not sure what's going on with the narration here. Are you missing a couple of words? I'm not sure. If you're not sure either, let me know what you wanted this line to convey and we'll discuss in emails.

Burton saw he didn’t get it and moved on.
         Missing a word: saw that he
         Heh, I remembered Burton having an agenda, but I tee-totally forgot that he was wanting to use Brock as bait for Gillian to join the Bureau. Ahh, how'd I forget that? And this is what comes of her giving such a public commendation to her profiling hero!

and Brock knew he didn’t have to push it.
         That doesn't sound quite right. You sure you don't mean: Brock knew he shouldn't push it.

flashing again that ironic smile,
         Word order: flashing that ironic smile again,

at the brink of a wink.
         Ohhh, I get the feeling I'm gonna rain on your parade here, because of the rhyming “brink of a wink.” But it should be: on the brink of winking.
         I dunno, you might get away with: on the brink of a wink (Still gotta be “on” rather than “at,” though.)
         The only problem I see with that is that it's obvious that you're writing “a wink” instead of “winking” just to keep the rhyming.

And keep bonding with the locals.”
          Car salesmen are not subtle! But of course Brock doesn't get it—who would think their boss was using them as bait the way Burton's using Brock? Comes together nicely.


Well, this is all about what kind of guy Burton is, and what Brock wants to do, and what Burton's steering him to do anyway—and why. And I've already commented on all that in the highlights!

So I'll go ahead and duck out, and get to the next chapter in a bit.

No, wait! I almost forgot! I think you might want to consider renaming this chapter. “Overtime” is work you do that is over () forty hours in a week. Say you usually work 8am to 4pm (leaving out a lunch break, just so we can simplify things), Monday through Friday. But your boss winds up getting you to stay an extra hour on one of those days, and you still work your full eight hours a day the rest of the time—at the end of the week, you've worked 41 hours. So you have “one hour of overtime.”

And that's leaving out sports analogies, which may have been what you were going for, ay? But that's not at all where my mind went—not until I'd talked about the workplace overtime. Because this is Brock's workplace and because there are no sports analogies in the chapter, you know?

So anyway, there are the thoughts I was having on that. Now I'm really sending this off!

Chy

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