Maybe it was Adriana checking up on her?
She snatched her phone from the counter, but the call had already gone to voicemail.
An unknown number. She wouldn’t have answered anyway.
She waited to see if a message was left, then pressed the speaker to listen.
“Hi, it’s me.” A throat clear followed. “Sorry, I mean, it’s A.J. Hawkins.” The sexy, Southern accent had her throwing a palm to the counter. “I’m about to hop on a plane, but I had a few drinks. Maybe you can tell? I managed to scrounge up your number a month ago but haven’t been drunk enough to work up the nerve to call you until now.” He unleashed a string of semi-mumbled curses. “Shit, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Well, anyway, I wanted to tell you that I haven’t stopped thinking about you since we met. Can’t get you out of my head, and well, when you’re ready . . . maybe we could go to dinner? I can head to Charlotte. I’m flexible.”
Oh, God.
“I’d love to see you again. You know, sooner rather than later. If you’re up for it and you even remember who I am, I thought it’d be nice to get together. So, well, I should probably go. Jet is about to take off.” He swore again. “I better erase and not rerecord this message. I’ll try calling again when I’m sober. Not that you’ll even hear any of this. But since I’m deleting this, I guess it doesn’t hurt to say that I’ve had you in my head so much I can’t even ask another woman out. Months and months of no sex.” He paused as if thinking, and her entire world was spinning off its axis at his words. “It’s strange, right? It must mean something, the fact I can’t even think about another woman. But I better go delete this drunk message and try you again another time. Take care, beautiful. Goodnight.”
Ana stared at the phone, shocked. Stunned. All the synonyms on the planet that meant holy shit. She pressed play and listened to it two more times, still not sure what to think about it.
“You didn’t erase it,” she whispered to herself at the end of the next listen, and with that, she went in search of her wine.
She wet her lips at the memory of the first time he’d introduced himself.
“I’m Alexander James.” He’d reached for her hand. “But you can call me A.J.”
“His mom couldn’t decide on a name. Don’t mind him,” Wyatt had chimed in.
“I haven’t forgotten about you, either, A.J.” But I can’t think about you, she reminded herself. Not now. Not with so much at stake. Not when she was so close to unraveling the truth, the truth about the day her life changed forever.
Chapter Five
The boys on Echo Team, plus Owen from Bravo, settled around an oval table with Harper, at what they were told would be their new meeting place. They were always moving to new black sites to prevent drawing suspicion, especially when meeting with those who ordered missions: the President, CIA director, and Secretary of Defense.
They were in a basement beneath an old closed-down jail on the outskirts of D.C. Better than being in that old psych ward like back in Boston, A.J. supposed.
The place had concrete floors, steel beams, and a few fluorescent lights overhead. Sparse and kind of eerie, and after A.J.’s strange hit-in-the-head-ghost-encounter yesterday, he wasn’t in the mood for anything else that gave him the chills.
A.J. gripped the arms of the chair and forced it back, so the front legs were off the floor. The table they were sitting at must’ve belonged to the jail, based on the profanities and gang signs carved by probably a makeshift knife stolen from the kitchen by inmates. “You playing footsies with me?”
“You know you like it.” Chris, who was sitting across from him, playfully kissed the air. “You’d think in this huge-ass space they’d place a table that wouldn’t cramp us so much.” He elbowed Finn off to his side, and Finn nudged him right back.
Owen’s son, Matthew, was feeling better, which was why Owen had shown up today when Harper had called him. At least that was some good news.
“Boys.” The word teased out of Harper’s mouth slowly, and A.J. noticed Roman’s gaze immediately lift from the table and float her way as if on a breeze. An attempt to be discreet in his desire to check her out. God, that man needed to make a move. Man up and just do it.
Okay, so I’m a hypocrite.
“All this place needs is one of those impenetrable, glass-walled boxes in the center of the room to lock criminals in, and we’d be in an episode of The Blacklist.” Finn set his elbow on the table and rested his chin on his palm. “It’s got the creep factor, for sure.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” A.J. nodded in agreement. “Well, the creepy feel. Not sure what in the hell else you just said.”
“What show?” Harper secured her long hair into a high ponytail, the tips of her long black hair had been dyed crimson when she’d lost a bet. Harper should have known better than to make a wager on A.J.’s knowledge regarding every major football game played by the University of Alabama in the last forty years. Hell, his parents had created a trivia game based on the family’s alma mater, and it’d been a weekly ritual growing up.
“A show about the FBI’s Most Wanted criminal. And—” Finn began.
“How do you have time to watch the telly?” Wyatt asked. “You must not be working hard enough.”
“Surprised you didn’t say you watch Jack Ryan since you think you look like that guy from the series. You even grew your beard to match his, didn’t you?” Chris swatted Finn’s chest with the back of his hand.
“Har har.” Finn rolled his eyes. “Anyway, this place gives me The Blacklist chills. The serial-killer-episode kind.”
“That’s a thing now, Mr. Krasinski?” Chris pushed away from the table and stood as if anxious to get a move on. To spin up to wherever the hell they’d be going.
“Who?” Finn asked, playing dumb.
“The actor who plays Jack . . . oh, forget it.” A.J. directed his attention back on Chris. “And you weren’t in such a hurry last night to leave,” A.J. reminded him.
“That was, well, she was . . . different,” Chris answered and waved A.J. off. “We need to operate, though. Get out there again. Been too long.”
“We’ve barely had our boots on home soil since we were over in good ol’ North Korea a week ago, and you call that a long time?” Okay, so maybe A.J. was usually ready to go as well, but something about being back in Alabama over the weekend had been a reminder that he not only missed home, but it was okay to slow down every once in a while. He only wished he had someone to slow down with.
A.J. shifted on his seat to grab his phone out of his pocket.
I didn’t finalize the message, right?
Fuck.
I hope not.
Instead of sobering up before heading to the airport last night, Jesse had encouraged a quick “who can take the most shots and not fall down” competition, and he also placed a bet that A.J. would lose. A.J. had never been able to say no to a bet or to a competition, and in the end, he was victorious. But he’d been a drunken mess by the time they arrived at the airport. Probably not one of his best ideas, given the bump on the back of his head.