“Hate to break it to y’all, but there ain’t any Ubers out this way.” They’d probably end up asking Rory, and Chris would get his way. Although, A.J. doubted they’d all cram into one SUV. “I’ll have to call my dad to drive a few of us.”
“And what will you tell him?” Finn asked, obviously curious as to how that conversation would go.
“He knows I work crazy hours. We’ll be fine.” A.J. turned back to Chris. “You happen to ask Harper about the Vegas thing?”
“She said, and I quote, ‘You frat boys are on your own with that, and while you’re at it, leave A.J.’s sister the hell alone,’” Chris repeated her words in a high-pitched voice, sounding nothing like Harper, but eliciting a laugh out of everyone nonetheless.
“There’s someone I can ask,” Wyatt commented. “If she can hack the CIA without getting caught, a few Vegas cams should be no big deal.”
A.J. assumed Wyatt meant his cyber genius, twenty-one-year-old daughter, and he was on the verge of saying yes when Finn held both hands in the air, dropping his towel.
“She did what?” Finn’s eyes widened in surprise as he grabbed the towel off the ground.
“You boys do remember we work for Uncle Sam, right?” Roman chuckled before heading inside Caleb’s place without another word.
“Why does he always remind us of that?” A.J. smiled. “But yes, please ask Gwen,” he said before starting for the firepit to say his goodbyes, promising himself he’d come back sooner rather than later this time.
Family was important.
The guys on Bravo and Echo were family, too.
But as he approached the firepit, his eyes moved to the flames licking the night sky, and his thoughts drifted to Marcus yet again.
Doesn’t it feel like we’re always chasing daylight? Marcus had asked the night before his final mission. Just trying to make it to see one more sunrise? One more day? Sometimes I get tired of it.
Yeah, and you’d be bored to tears doing something normal like finance or selling insurance, and you know it. We live for the chase, A.J. had said, a huge-ass grin on his face. He’d patted Marcus on the shoulder, both of them unaware that night was the last moonlit sky Marcus would ever see.
Chapter Four
Washington, D.C.
Ana set a box down and reached a hand around to brace her lower back. “I guess it’s true, once you’re over thirty, your body becomes more sensitive to everything.” She continued to massage her back. “Or my cardio workouts aren’t cutting it.” Sleep deprivation from working nonstop didn’t help either. Plus, her department clearly considered ergonomic office chairs a waste of money.
Adriana rested a tan forearm on top of a pile of boxes, not the least bit out of breath. “You can always join me for workouts.”
“You work out with your husband whenever he’s in town,” Ana reminded her. And maybe what she needed right now wasn’t rest or water but a bottle of wine. She allowed her hand to fall to her side, then circumvented the wall of boxes blocking her path to the kitchen.
When she turned with a bottle of pinot grigio in hand, Adriana was standing at the breakfast bar, which separated the kitchen from the living room in Ana’s new rental. She set her palms on the counter and popped onto the barstool.
“Our reward.” Ana uncorked the bottle with a regular corkscrew and not the complicated device her ex always insisted they use simply because it’d been a wedding gift from their old boss. He cursed the thing every time he opened a bottle, too. Inwardly, she’d always grinned because well, he was stubborn.
“I get satisfaction in just helping out. You don’t need to bribe me with a glass of wine. But I won’t turn it down.” Adriana accepted the glass, her lips teasing into a smile.
She and Adriana were night and day in terms of looks, and, apparently, physical fitness.
Ana had red hair to Adriana’s dark. Fair skin to her tan. Adriana was tall and well-endowed up top. Ana was petite and not even close to filling out a C, let alone a D. She was lucky to fit a modest B cup on a good day.
“I feel like a mistress, you know. A dirty little secret I don’t want my husband to find out.” A dark brow arched as Adriana sipped her wine.
Ana set her glass down and braced the counter. “I’m sorry. We’ll tell Knox soon that we’re friends and that I live in D.C. now. I promise.”
“He won’t be able to keep you a secret from A.J., so I get it.” Adriana’s expression had slowly changed to her thoughtful, I want to say something but don’t know how to face. In the few months they’d been hanging out, Ana had learned to read her well.
Then again, between Ana’s college degrees, training, and working for the FBI, it was basically her job to profile people. Couldn’t turn the switch off, not even with friends.
Work. She didn’t want to think about the nightmare at the office right now. She was being forced to take the day off, so she was doing her best to shut off her brain and forget who signed her paychecks.
“Any particular reason you don’t want A.J. knowing you’re living in D.C. and that we’re hanging out?” Adriana asked, which wasn’t her first time. But Ana was never forthcoming, and Adriana wasn’t a quitter. Nor was she pushy. So, she inserted the question every so often to test the waters. See if Ana would finally swim.
“You saw A.J. with me back in Charlotte. You know how he is.” Ana’s eyes fell to her glass. She’d nearly drained the bottle with their two very full pours. “Flirty. Funny.”
“Got your heart pitter-pattering, did he?”
Yes. “Kyle and I were only separated when A.J. and I met. Plus, we were on the hunt for the person who had tried to assassinate a presidential candidate. I shouldn’t have, um, noticed him.”
Before Ana’s promotion to Headquarters, she’d worked at the Charlotte FBI field office. And because A.J.’s friend happened to be the son of then-presidential candidate Isaiah Bennett (now president), A.J. and his former SEAL buddies had provided security for Knox’s dad. Well, in all honesty, they’d done more than that. They broke the case. Took down the real bad guys. Adriana had been assigned to Secret Service security detail for Knox’s father as well.
“You don’t need to rationalize whatever you should or shouldn’t have been feeling for A.J. when you met him,” Adriana came to her defense, like the strong kind of woman she was.
It’d been a nice surprise when Ana had bumped into Adriana outside the Hoover Building on her first day, and Adriana insisted they get a drink. The one caveat to hanging out was that Ana had sworn her to secrecy. At least for the time being. Adriana wasn’t allowed to tell her husband or his buddies that she was spending time with Ana. It seemed ridiculous when Ana said those words out loud, but . . .
“We were busy. It was intense in general. I’m sure I’m remembering everything differently,” Ana said in a near whisper.
But that spark. The insane connection I felt the moment he introduced himself to me. She was pretty sure she’d actually flirted with him, too. Engaged in witty banter. When had she learned how to do that? It wasn’t her at all, and that part had been a touch exciting. Something different and new.