He shrugged because he knew he’d been guilty, too. He’d made mistakes. “We weren’t truly compatible, and I never felt a spark with her. But then I’ve never felt a spark with anyone, so I have to wonder if I’m just not that guy.”
Michael offered Hutch a glass and held up his own. “You described my entire relationship with Tessa. Except for the cheating part. She’s a good woman. I just couldn’t love her the way she deserved. May they forgive us.”
He would drink to that. Katy was a nice lady, but they were not meant to be. He clinked his glass. “May we forgive ourselves.”
Michael chuckled. “You’ve been in therapy too long.”
He shrugged and drank back a bit of the excellent Scotch. It burned in a pleasant way. “You can never get too much therapy.”
Especially not when a person had grown up the way he had. Abusive father, check. Death of his mom. Check. Bad relationship with distant stepmother leading to life on the streets and then in and out of juvie. Check and check.
Sometimes he didn’t even count that year he’d been undercover for an insanely criminal doctor who performed tests on soldiers. It was sad that the time he’d spent with Hope McDonald wasn’t the worst of his life.
“I heard you’re going out into the field.” Michael settled on the barstool.
“Sort of. I’m not sure.” It was still confusing. He wasn’t the “field” guy. He was the guy who sat behind a computer, but he’d kept up the training McKay-Taggart Security required of all its employees. Even the receptionist had to take self-defense after that one time a CIA team had raided the office.
He’d been on the wrong side of that battle, but they’d all worked it out. God, that seemed like another lifetime. Everyone had changed, but he was stuck in the same place.
He didn’t understand what Tag meant by going into the field since he could do almost anything he needed to do remotely. He didn’t have to sit in front of a computer to hack it. Security had gotten better over the last couple of years, but so had his hacking skills. He was the dude who stayed in the background when the bullets started flying.
“What does that mean? I thought you were taking on that family case Tag was talking about,” Michael said. “Something go sideways? I didn’t get back until late Friday.”
Michael had been on a case and hadn’t heard the latest developments. “I was supposed to meet her two days ago, but something happened at her lab and she ended up going home for a couple of days. We rescheduled for Monday. The fact that there was an accident in the lab means Tag thinks I might need backup. He’s paired me with a bodyguard.”
Michael set his glass down. “Yes, I heard you’re working with Kyle Hawthorne. He’s…interesting.”
“He’s a walking time bomb, and everyone knows it.” Unfortunately, he was also Big Tag’s brother’s stepson. If anyone needed therapy, it was Kyle Hawthorne. He’d recently left the Navy, and everyone thought he would go back to college. But instead he’d shown up at McKay-Taggart and went straight into the bodyguard program.
Things happened around Kyle. Dangerous things.
“Boomer went out on a job with him a couple of weeks ago,” Michael mused. “He said Kyle was pretty solid in the field. He said Kyle watched his back when they got in some trouble.”
Boomer had been on the team as long as Hutch had been. He was the group’s firearms specialist. But he had his quirks. “Kyle probably bought Boomer a pizza and now they’re best friends.”
There was something dark in Kyle that made Hutch wary. It wasn’t that he thought Kyle was a bad guy. It was that something simmered beneath his surface, and Hutch had learned that simmering tended to lead to exploding. He didn’t want to be around when that man exploded.
“You could talk to Tag if you feel uncomfortable.” Michael sat back. “He might send in someone else.”
“I think Tag has his reasons.” He trusted his boss. He was also worried there was another reason he was taking Kyle into the “field.” “This is mostly a tech job. I’ll still be behind a computer. Kyle will likely take point with the client. Reading the file, I’m not sure how much Noelle LaVigne truly needs a bodyguard. I get that her dad is nervous, but something feels off. Do you think this could be a setup? You know how Charlotte likes to play matchmaker.”
Charlotte Taggart had matched up more than one of her employees, and sometimes she did it under the guise of “working” with Charlotte’s choice of mate. He wouldn’t put it past her or Big Tag to pair up their nephew with a family friend. Especially if they thought Noelle would be good for Kyle.
Michael’s brow arched. “You know anything about this woman? I heard she’s the daughter of a friend of Remy Guidry’s.”
He’d gone over the file on Noelle LaVigne several times. “She’s super smart. She’s heading a test team at the age of twenty-five. She was in a bad car accident when she was younger, and she had to learn to walk again. She still uses a cane or a brace, but she hasn’t let that stop her. She grew up in a tiny town but moved to the big city, and she lives on her own.”
Michael nodded as though Hutch was going down the right path. “So she’s probably on the nerdy side, definitely likes tech. She’s younger than you but not more than a couple of years.”
Michael wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. “Yeah. And Charlotte told me she likes to bake. So I might get some cookies out of it. That’s a plus.”
He wished he didn’t still crave sweets, but he’d gotten to the point that he accepted it. He spent extra time in the gym, and it didn’t show.
Michael stared at him like he was missing something. “So a cute woman who’s interested in a lot of the things you’re interested in and loves to bake comes along, and you think Charlotte is trying to pair her up with a dude who obviously needs therapy.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m worried…” He could be slow about the emotional stuff sometimes, but the truth did hit him after a while. Like a sledgehammer. He sat there for a moment. “Shit. You think it’s me?”
He hadn’t even considered that.
Michael’s eyes rolled and he chuckled. “Yes. I think the cute nerd who loves to bake probably fits better with the nerd who calls himself Candyman online. For one of the smartest dudes I know, you can be shockingly un-self-aware. Just remember the last man Charlotte set up.”
That had been Michael Malone himself, and it hadn’t worked out for him, though he and Tessa Santiago were still friends.
At least Charlotte hadn’t set him up with a fellow employee. Michael had to see his ex every day.
He stopped. He wasn’t going to let himself get set up. He was not that guy. Was he? It wasn’t like he was great at picking his own women. But he wasn’t that guy. “I’m not in a good place for a relationship.”
“What place is that?” Michael asked.
He wasn’t sure. What place was he in? A weird place where he wanted to date but he didn’t want to date. He wanted what his friends had but didn’t see himself there. He wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t sure how to be happy.